GUMBO Collective Events

Eric Zimmerman hosting a hands-on game design workshop at GUMBO!

The workshop will be from 6:30 - 8:30PM with limited spots. We will host a larger reception afterwards (8:30 - 10:30PM). Feel free to bring your prototypes to playtest!

If the event is full, join the waitlist and we will message you details for the reception. There is a small for this event that will go toward the reception.

We are located in Suite 305. If the door downstairs is locked or the elevator doesn't work, please CALL our new state of the art landline phone (do not text) (718) 819-7754

Workshop Details

As game designers we constantly build systems - to challenge players, to tell stories, to extend the life of our games. But we rarely get a chance to really focus on what it means to design and modify and balance a system in order to get a particular result.

This hands-on, interactive workshop uses a simple tabletop game as the occasion to think deeply about how the same system might be balanced in different ways, how choice and chance interact in a system, and how the rules of systems can express their content.

This workshop is relevant for a wide range of designers, artists, technologists - whether you are working in games, in another creative field, or you just want to better understand how games and designed systems work. Please come prepared to participate and collaborate.

About Eric Zimmerman

Eric Zimmerman is a veteran game designer who makes award-winning games on and off the computer. Along with Peter Lee, he was the co-founder of Gamelab, a New York City-based studio that created original games like Diner Dash and worked with companies like Lego to create dozens of online titles. He was a co-founder of the nonprofit The Institute of Play, which designed entire schools where the curriculum was based on play and games as the model for learning. Tabletop titles include Quantum (with FunForge) and The Metagame (with Local No.12). With architect Nathalie Pozzi, he has designed installations that have been shown in the Museum of Modern Art, the Smithsonian American Art Museum, and other festivals and museums around the world. Eric is a professor at the NYU Game Center and his books include Rules of Play (with Katie Salen) a textbook and The Rules We Break. He is always ready to play.