I'D PREFER NOT TO
This week’s newsletter is about a free conceptual art game that I am attaching to this post. The name of this game is: I’d Prefer Not To. This is a reference to the Melville short story “Bartleby, The Scrivener.” However, it is not about refusing to work and participate in the capitalist system, it is instead about ideas that people would prefer not to grapple with.
What's in the box
An Instruction Card
20 Idea Cards
60 Second Sand Timer
How to play
Shuffle the idea cards.
Draw a card from the top of the deck.
Look at the ideas on both sides of the card and choose the idea you would most prefer not to think about.
Flip the sand timer and contemplate the idea until the time runs out.
Continue to draw new cards to contemplate until you can no longer live with your own thoughts.
Content Warning
I’d Prefer Not To is designed to cause discomfort, so it is not for everybody. I’ve included the topics of the idea cards below, so you know if you even want to try this experience or if you will need to cull the deck for your own triggers. You can skip anything if it pushes you beyond your comfort level, but that is part of the piece, considering why something pushes you out of balance.
Ideas
Being in a relationship with someone of the a different gender than you normally are attracted to/Imagining yourself as a different gender
Being murdered/Murdering someone
Racism/Sexism
Having an affair/Being cheated on
Being homeless/Living a lie
Killing and skinning an animal/Being poisoned
Getting electroshock therapy/Watching an execution
Bribing a politician/Being mugged
Losing or gaining your ability to see/Losing or gaining your ability to hear
Eating a human being/Being dead
Holding an intervention for a loved one/Loved ones holding an intervention for you
Giving birth/Going to a funeral
Being diagnosed with cancer/Seeing someone die in an accident
Going to prison/Putting an innocent person in prison
Getting married/Getting divorced
Crashing your car/Getting electrocuted
Getting surgery/Performing surgery
Eating a strange new food/Only being able to eat one food for the rest of your life
Eating at Denny’s/Working at Denny’s
Giving a presentation to 1,000 people/Being ignored by someone you love
Thrust!
This is also the final day for the crowd sale for our first Microgame, Thrust!. It is a space combat game inspired by Mothership, Battleship, Very Bad Chess, and the old line of GDW double blind games.
Interesting preview! Some of these dichotomies (if they are dichotomies) are interesting. I'm not certain how being homeless pairs with living a lie, but I'd be interested to see what concepts emerge.
They aren’t even necessarily dichotomous, it’s more supposed to be two options where neither one is necessarily comfortable, some work out more dichotomous than others. For that one in particular, it did have Queer subtext, though. Be out and get kicked out of a close minded household or continue to be closeted. That’s not immediately apparent, though.