Normally at this time of year I have just come back from Peaky, the annual freeform-writing weekend. This year, with the lockdown, Peaky has been postponed. But with everyone now having a free weekend, we decided to try a virtual Peaky.
TL:DR - It went surprisingly well, with about 16 people and four writing groups. Only one game was ready to be played on Sunday, which wasn’t a surprise. The technology generally worked well. We played lots of boardgames.
In advance
It was clear that the usual Friday pitch session at Peaky wasn’t going to work this time, so we formed games in advance (thanks to Clare for the hard work coordinating this).
Virtual Peaky Space
In advance of the weekend I set up a Virtual Peaky page on the Peaky Games Wiki with a rough agenda for the weekend, along with links to Google hangouts which I gave Peaky-esque names like “the comfy chairs” and “in the kitchen”.
I also put a link to a Jitsi, which we used for the big meetings (more than 10 people), but it was occasionally a bit hit and miss. I found Jitsi slowed everything down for me - but I didn’t find the low bandwidth setting until Sunday. We used Google Hangouts as well, and I found that more stable (but it has a 10 person limit).
We used Jitsi because of some of the security concerns around Zoom, although it appears that Zoom is fixing those.
We opened Peaky at 6pm in Jitsi. Here’s the agenda that we drafted in advance to keep the meeting short:
Brainstorming
Friday night we (Julie, Roger, Suey and me) brainstormed. That normally means flipcharts and marker pens (sometimes with post-it notes). We used Trello, a project collaboration board. It worked really well - we had columns for characters, plots, setting and mechanics, and created (and moved) cards to suit.
We didn’t go much deeper than that - but we could have added more description within each card. I was a bit concerned that we would then have to re-type everything, but I found that you can export to a json file (and then convert that to csv). It’s not perfect, but it means you could use Trello for more than we did. But for what we were doing, it was fine.
Writing
We briefly considered using MS Word and Dropbox before moving straight to Google Docs, which is a much more intuitive collaborative tool. Google Docs worked seamlessly for us.
At one point on Saturday afternoon the exercise felt just like Peaky. I had our hangout open in a tab but wasn’t looking at it, so as I was typing away I could hear the others typing on their bits and asking the occasional question.
I didn’t do as much writing as normal - mainly due to the additional distractions and chores with being at home. As a consequence, we didn’t get our game ready in time, but it should be ready for playtest in a week or six.
Unfortunately I haven’t been gripped by the subject of our game, and that also slowed my writing output. We’re writing Bridgetown Blizzard, a 1931 game set in rural Minnesota, which came about because we wanted our game to incorporate a “barbed wire telephone system” (which would be replicated by Skype or Hangouts or Jitsi or Zoom). It’s an intriguing idea, but I think I would have been more inspired had we chosen to transport the idea to another setting.
(Although I think one of my biggest difficulties was spending even more time at what is now my work desk.)
Sunday - more writing and a playtest
With only one game ready to play, Sunday morning consisted of more writing and then a playtest of Soooocks in Spaaace (written by Graham W, Tony and Heidi). In Soooocks in Spaaace we all played socks who had to save the universe from the evil gloves. It was very silly, but there were a few things to note:
Some other thoughts about Virtual Peaky that didn’t fit in anywhere else.
Other thoughts:
I think Virtual Peaky was a qualified success. We caught up with old friends, did some writing, and even played a game. I’m not sure that anyone is in a rush to do it again, though.
Here are some final thoughts:
I’ll leave the hangouts and jitsi in place on the Virtual Peaky page so people can go back and use them if they want.
It was nice to see people, and maybe we can have a Peaky evening when we catch up with progress and talk bobbins. I’m going to work on games and it would be nice to have a bit of company, so I may post on FB or the mailing list to say that I’ll be in the hangouts while I’m working.
TL:DR - It went surprisingly well, with about 16 people and four writing groups. Only one game was ready to be played on Sunday, which wasn’t a surprise. The technology generally worked well. We played lots of boardgames.
In advance
It was clear that the usual Friday pitch session at Peaky wasn’t going to work this time, so we formed games in advance (thanks to Clare for the hard work coordinating this).
- About three weeks in advance, we started pitching ideas for games that we wanted to write. We did this on the mailing list and FB group, and Clare kindly collated everything.
- Clare then prepared a Google Form, which we completed the weekend before.
- After the weekend, Claire, Heidi and I looked through the data and tried to fit everyone into groups. There were four clear groups, plus a few people who didn’t fit in.
- I then posted the results to the list, checking that everyone was happy with the groups and asking those who didn’t fit in which group they were interested in. There was a bit of discussion and one person decided to drop out.
Virtual Peaky Space
In advance of the weekend I set up a Virtual Peaky page on the Peaky Games Wiki with a rough agenda for the weekend, along with links to Google hangouts which I gave Peaky-esque names like “the comfy chairs” and “in the kitchen”.
I also put a link to a Jitsi, which we used for the big meetings (more than 10 people), but it was occasionally a bit hit and miss. I found Jitsi slowed everything down for me - but I didn’t find the low bandwidth setting until Sunday. We used Google Hangouts as well, and I found that more stable (but it has a 10 person limit).
We used Jitsi because of some of the security concerns around Zoom, although it appears that Zoom is fixing those.
We opened Peaky at 6pm in Jitsi. Here’s the agenda that we drafted in advance to keep the meeting short:
- Welcome to Virtual Peaky
- Groups: is everyone clear on which group they are in?
- Expectations: keep them low! We genuinely don't know if this will work.
- Take breaks for meals, real life, exercise and keeping those you life with happy.
- There's no pressure to write a game for tomorrow. It would be lovely to play something sometime, but it doesn't have to be tomorrow.
- How many people are you writing for? That's up to you. If you're thinking about writing a game that can be played in lockdown then we have access to plenty of players who I'm sure will be happy to join in.
- Check-ins - Jitsi. These are purely so we can get together once a day to make sure we're all okay. They're completely optional. (This first one is the only one that has an agenda.) We're using Jitsi because it can cope with lots of people.
- Check-ins - Hangouts. The Google Hangouts are even more optional - a place to spend a few minutes catching up with friends. Times are suggested purely to add a bit of structure - but the hangouts are available 24/7.
- Announcements - if we need to make any announcements over the weekend we'll use Facebook or the mailing list.
- Boardgames - if you want to play boardgames, some of us will be on boardgamearena over the weekend.
- Peaky rules - this isn't a normal Peaky, so the normal rules about being a member don’t apply, but we would like to develop and (possibly) publish the games as normal.
- Have fun!
Brainstorming
Friday night we (Julie, Roger, Suey and me) brainstormed. That normally means flipcharts and marker pens (sometimes with post-it notes). We used Trello, a project collaboration board. It worked really well - we had columns for characters, plots, setting and mechanics, and created (and moved) cards to suit.
 |
| Our Trello board |
Writing
We briefly considered using MS Word and Dropbox before moving straight to Google Docs, which is a much more intuitive collaborative tool. Google Docs worked seamlessly for us.
At one point on Saturday afternoon the exercise felt just like Peaky. I had our hangout open in a tab but wasn’t looking at it, so as I was typing away I could hear the others typing on their bits and asking the occasional question.
I didn’t do as much writing as normal - mainly due to the additional distractions and chores with being at home. As a consequence, we didn’t get our game ready in time, but it should be ready for playtest in a week or six.
Unfortunately I haven’t been gripped by the subject of our game, and that also slowed my writing output. We’re writing Bridgetown Blizzard, a 1931 game set in rural Minnesota, which came about because we wanted our game to incorporate a “barbed wire telephone system” (which would be replicated by Skype or Hangouts or Jitsi or Zoom). It’s an intriguing idea, but I think I would have been more inspired had we chosen to transport the idea to another setting.
(Although I think one of my biggest difficulties was spending even more time at what is now my work desk.)
Sunday - more writing and a playtest
With only one game ready to play, Sunday morning consisted of more writing and then a playtest of Soooocks in Spaaace (written by Graham W, Tony and Heidi). In Soooocks in Spaaace we all played socks who had to save the universe from the evil gloves. It was very silly, but there were a few things to note:
- I liked that you could tailor your character in every way - the type of sock you chose to use as your sock puppet influenced their character. (So black socks are considered boring, and so on.)
- Technology was a bit of a challenge. One player got locked out because we had hit the Google Hangout limit. This arose because the game was designed so that we all needed to get together to agree a plan. With 8 players and 3 GMs, that pushed us over the 10-person limit, so a GM dropped out. It wouldn’t have been an issue if we’d been using Jitsi throughout - but it’s worth remembering as a design function for online freeforms.
- I’m not sure Soooocks in Spaaace was a fair representation of the best of online freeforming though.
Some other thoughts about Virtual Peaky that didn’t fit in anywhere else.
Other thoughts:
- We had an international group consisting of Megan in the USA, Adrian in Australia, and Rich in the UK. I didn’t hear much from them - I hope it went well.
- We played a lot of boardgames, as always. Instead of physical games we used boardgamearena.com.
- I don’t know how often the hangouts were used, but I found Jerry in one of them at one point. I used them quite a lot in the run up to the weekend, and I expect to use them going forward.
- We had a couple of drop outs, but that was inevitable. Jerry turned up mostly to hang out and help with the playtest, and it was lovely to see him again.
I think Virtual Peaky was a qualified success. We caught up with old friends, did some writing, and even played a game. I’m not sure that anyone is in a rush to do it again, though.
Here are some final thoughts:
- Virtual Peaky was definitely worth doing. We didn’t get as many games written, but we got more written than if we had let lockdown get to us.
- Online collaboration was surprisingly easy. The stars for me were Trello and Google Docs.
- I found Hangouts generally better than Jitsi (which slowed my laptop down a bit). Jitsi copes with more people in a call however. We didn’t try Zoom.
- Next time (if there’s a next time), I would post to UK Freeforms that we will be playing games on the Sunday and that there may be spaces, as that lets us open up the games a bit and allows us to write bigger games.
- Forming groups in advance worked was a bit fiddly, but it worked in the end. It helped having three of us looking at the results from the survey and forming the groups. I’d definitely do that for another Virtual Peaky, and I might be tempted to also do it for a normal Peaky as the Friday night pitch sessions aren't improving.
I’ll leave the hangouts and jitsi in place on the Virtual Peaky page so people can go back and use them if they want.
It was nice to see people, and maybe we can have a Peaky evening when we catch up with progress and talk bobbins. I’m going to work on games and it would be nice to have a bit of company, so I may post on FB or the mailing list to say that I’ll be in the hangouts while I’m working.
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