Another week, another night at Crooked Goat for a Worku Game Night.
It seems late summer is a busy time for the local worki, but this time Robo swung by to help test the game. Awesome!
Beers and pizza this time. And, like Game Night #1 with auntie jj, it was fun. Although, again, poor record keeping as I left out the theme constraints! ARGH! Next time! You can see the game on the poems page right here!
We played four rounds before calling it a night. One of my favorites from Robo came from the single restraint word PRESS:
The next round gave us three restraint words: GREEN, UNDER, EQUAL. Mine went decidedly wintry:
GREEN sprigs in winter
sprout UNDER frozen tundra —
Growth EQUAL to cold
Robo took GREEN and EQUAL in another direction:
The GREEN grass is not
Better on the other side
It is just EQUAL
You may notice something missing there. UNDER.
So did we.
No token for Robo that round! Which is actually useful playtesting information: the restraint words aren’t just prompts. Remembering to use all of them while trying to make an actual poem is part of the game.
Curiously—at least I think it’s curious—none of the other Crooked Goat patrons came over to ask what the heck we were playing. Two people sitting in a brewery rolling dice, drawing words, scribbling haiku and reading them aloud apparently isn’t as suspicious as I thought.
Anyway, I am undaunted.
I’ll persevere. Maybe back to Crooked Goat next week. Maybe I’ll visit another watering hole and see what happens.
Robo also mentioned a writers’ group in Rohnert Park that might be ripe for infiltration.
Guerrilla Worku!
Show up. Roll some dice. Write some haiku. Leave behind confused poets.
I’ll keep posting upcoming Game Nights and invitations here and on Instagram and Facebook as the experiment continues.
Until then—
worku every day!