About this project
Which game is deeper: Grand Theft Auto or Passage?
Which game is more visually beautiful: Pac-Man or Asteroids?
Which game had a bigger impact: Tetris or DOOM?
Do you love games? Do you love arguing with your gamer friends about them? Then the Metagame is for you. The Metagame is a card game about videogames. It is simple to learn and fun to play. It can be played by a small group of game fans, a classroom of students, or by thousands at a conference.
You play the game by combining game cards - videogame trading cards - with comparison cards that say things like "Which game tells a better story" or "Which game is more of a work of art?"
You challenge another player and each of you has a couple minutes to argue one side. Any nearby bystanders judge and vote on the winner. For more information about the game, visit the project website at: metagame.localno12.com.
The Metagame has evolved over the last year through many prototypes and iterations. It premiered at the Game Developers Conference in San Francisco and was played by thousands during the week-long conference from Feb 26-March 4, 2011.
Due to the wild success of the game at the conference, we are turning to Kickstarter to make a “home version” for people to play in their homes, classrooms, and at conferences and events.
We're using the funds to print full decks of the Metagame with more than 100 cards that we'll send to our supporters and also distribute online.
The Metagame gets people talking about games in smart ways. It is great for classes about games, for opinionated game fans, or for people that like playing social games. And how cool is it to have your own set of videogame trading cards?
For more information about The Metagame, take a look at this Local No.12 blog post about the design principles behind the game and a postmortem about how things went at GDC. Eric has also blogged about the history of the Metagame and how the game design has evolved over several versions of the project.
The Metagame supports critical discussion of videogame aesthetics. It is intended for educational purposes.
FAQ
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Funding Successful
This project successfully raised its funding goal on April 9, 2011.
Pledge $25 or more Pledge $25 or more
A full Metagame deck - more than 100 unique game cards, plus game rules
Pledge $50 or more Pledge $50 or more
A full Metagame deck + a stylish Local No.12 t-shirt
Pledge $125 or more Pledge $125 or more
The Metagame megapack: 5 full decks of the Metagame - perfect for a design class exercise, a gamer party, or for gifting to your game-playing friends
Pledge $200 or more Pledge $200 or more
A full deck, a t-shirt, and a limited edition Metagame poster featuring all of the cards
Pledge $5,000 or more Pledge $5,000 or more
A Metagame at your conference or event - enough cards to support 1000 players, plus consulting from Local No.12 on making your game a success
Project By
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Local No.12 is an experimental game collective. Veteran designers and technologists, the members of Local No.12 came together to invent new forms of emergent social play. We are Colleen Macklin, John Sharp, and Eric Zimmerman.
Colleen Macklin is a design spaz. She is a professor in Communication, Design, and Technology at Parsons, and runs the PETLab, an experimental game lab that has nothing to do with pets. Personal site: www.colleenmacklin.com
John Sharp sports a PhD in Art History, a former career as a DJ, and ongoing work in game scholarship, media design, and game development – plus a full-time professorship at Savannah College of Art & Design in Atlanta. Site: www.supercosm.com
Eric Zimmerman is addicted to game design. He has been working in the game industry for more than 15 years and has created far too many games, both on and off the computer and also helped found the NYU Game Center. Personal site: www.ericzimmerman.com
