The Savannah College of Art and Design and the Georgia Institute of Technology are proud to present the three games commissioned for the occasion of the Art History of Games symposium.

The games will be exhibited at Kai Lin Art (800 Peachtree Street, Atlanta, Georgia 30308) from Thursday, February 4 until Tuesday, March 2. The opening reception will take place Friday, February 5 from 8:00 pm until 10:00 pm.

Nathalie Pozzi and Eric Zimmerman

Sixteen Tons

Sixteen Tons is a game for four players designed for a gallery setting, created by architect Nathalie Pozzi and game designer Eric Zimmerman. On its surface, Sixteen Tons looks like a large-scale boardgame, in which players move very heavy pieces around a four-by-four grid, trying to maneuver their pieces into a winning position. This core gameplay is complicated by the fact that players can pay each other with real money. At the start of the game, each player takes out three one-dollar bills and this money is used to pay other players to move your pieces for you. Playing the game becomes an experience that critically blurs work and play, as the real value of money is grafted onto the artificial meanings of the game, and player identitiy shifts fluidly back and forth from cooperation to competition. Winning the game requires both strategic thinking and social smarts and the rules are intentionally ambiguous about whether players keep each others’ money after a game. Sixteen Tons is named after the folk song made famous in 1955 by Tennessee Ernie Ford about coal mining and debt bondage.

Jason Rohrer

Sleep is Death (Geisterfahrer)

An asymmetric game for two players about a story.

Tale of Tales

Vanitas

A memento mori for your digital hands.
To lift you up when you’re feeling down. And drag you down when you’re up too high.

Sometimes, when you’re depressed, it’s good to see something depressing.
A contemplation of the fleetingness of life. To help appreciate what you have.
A meditative experience. A spiritual toy. A reminder of the preciousness of existing.

Referring to still life paintings from the 16th and 17th century, Vanitas presents you with a gorgeously rendered 3D box filled with intriguing objects. Close the box and open it again to see new objects. You can move them by tilting your iPhone or pushing and dragging the objects with your fingers. To create pleasant arrangements that inspire and enchant. Some objects decay. A flower blooms. A bubble pops. Life like an empty dream flits by.

Designed by Auriea Harvey & Michaël Samyn for iPhone and iPod touch
With Zoë Keating on cello.