GG review | Conjah + PSEUDO | Arts House

"GG" is gaming shorthand for "Good Game", usually said at the end of a match. In GG, the term becomes the starting point for a performance about control and choice. Using street dance, motion capture, digital avatars and gaming technology, this collaboration between collectives CONJAH and PSEUDO Studio ask who gets to decide what happens, who is being controlled and what it feels like to have no control at all. Rather than telling a conventional story, GG plays out this exploration through movement, technology and the relationship between the dancers and the digital world around them.

Unfortunately, these ideas never quite come together, instead feeling like a series of disconnected scenes. One involves watching a hand discovering numerous items, including a gaming controller, inside a puppet-theatre-like structure, creating the impression of a video game being operated from within the stage. It’s fascinating to watch, and this has to be one of the most expressive hands I’ve seen, moving, reacting and communicating with remarkable precision. There’s a real sense of curiosity as the hand interacts with the objects around it, but it doesn’t seem to lead anywhere.

Karate Man: A Live-Action Video Game review | Melbourne International Comedy Festival | The Butterfly Club

It's 1988 and Karatetown has been overrun by pesky goons. Luckily Karate Man is here to save the day. But can he expel all the goons AND get the girl? Karate Man: A Live Action Video Game comes from the ingenious minds of BEAK (Daniel Scarratt and Bruno Dubosarsky) where the entire story takes place in the style of an 80s arcade game.

The audience gets to dictate the narrative and all of Karate Man's movements, because as the show title subtly alludes to, this is a live-action video game. We are given a demonstration of the controller functions and then it's up to us to lead our hero to victory. Through some creative use of Bluetooth technology, when someone presses 'punch", the word is boomed over a speaker and Karate Man punches. If "left" is pressed, then the word left is announced, and Karate Man moves left. It's a fantastic way to get audience invested and engaged in the story.

Pass the Parcel! review | Melbourne International Comedy Festival | Tasma Terrace

It's the biggest party of the year and only those who celebrate a birthday are invited. Meg and Elliot have gone all out with decorations, outfits and most importantly, party games. However, there's only one party game to be played in this show, and that's pass the parcel. Presented by Meg Taranto and Elliot Wood, Pass the Parcel! is an interactive examination of power, rules and disappointment through the perspective of a children's party game.

Taranto and Wood are a perfect pairing who have a strong focus on making each other look good. Their energies and personalities are contrasting and complementary and there is not a single misstep in their portrayals. Taranto is absolutely captivating as the hyper excited and super eager keen bean that not only wants to win all the prizes but be involved in the entirety of the game. Wood on the other hand is the slightly more pragmatic one with a touch of spitefulness and nasty. A nasty boy. To be clear though, there are plenty of times when they both need to be put into the naughty corner.

Survivor: All or Nothing winner interview

After a harrowing 32 hours, the winner of Survivor: All or Nothing was finally crowned. Katie Allan outwitted, outplayed and outlasted 14 others player to be the Sole Survivor and winner of $300. We caught up with the two-time player to see how her strategy going into the game changed second time round, and whether there's more Survivor life left in her.

So, congratulations once again, how does it feel now that it's been a week since you won?
I’m still riding the survivor high and it still feels very surreal but I’m also still very, very sore and both mentally and physically exhausted. I’m definitely juggling multiple feelings and emotions, which is difficult now that I’m back at work.

Did you go in there expecting to win?
My first answer is absolutely not but I think everyone who plays this game has every chance of winning so I hadn’t ruled myself out completely.

What was your reason for coming back?
Redemption! I was blindsided out of the game last season (Survivor: Worlds Collide) at the fourth tribal council. If the people that were involved in that blindside were playing I was out for revenge. I also just really wanted to make merge so that I could add it to my tinder profile. We all know you’re not dateable if you don’t make merge.

Nerd Are Sexy - Melbourne International Comedy Festival review

I suspect Alia Vryens and Colin Craig, the comedy rock duo from PickUp, are the biggest nerds around after seeing their new Melbourne International Comedy Festival show suitably titled Nerds Are Sexy. The pair sing and talk their way around a variety of nerd themes while reassuring the audience that liking things and being passionate about things should be celebrated and not hidden away in a wardrobe.

Vryens and Craig's free-flowing energy and enthusiasm are easily comparable to the moment you kill Bowser in the final round of Super Mario Bros. Even with a relatively small stage space, they are always moving and completely dedicated to giving the audience a great time. It's not long before the show begins to resemble a group of friends chilling out and playing music in their garage. Their use of popular culture references like Pokemon, Dr. Who and others I've never heard of previously, to tie into their themes of relationships, sexism and life experience is well thought out.

Whom | Melbourne International Comedy Festival interview

She was The Worst at last year 's Melbourne International Comedy Festival, but this year Clara Cupcakes is finding out who she is. Is she a comedian? A burlesque performer? An improviser? Or just some weird kid? In Whom, Clara hopes to figure it all out through her unique brand of whimsical humour that has seen her nominated for the Golden Gibbo twice.

"Whom is my brain. It's a party about how I'm bad at being a regular human. But it's also a bit about how I'm not a comedian by a lot of people's standards. I'm a burlesque performer and you can't be a comedian and a burlesque performer at the same time. One excludes the other apparently," she says. "I've spent years pushing back against burlesque to be taken more seriously in the comedy world and now I'm like fuck it. I'm a burlesque performer. I get my tits out and they are fucking funny so deal with it. It's the same as physical comedy. It's been very refreshing. I recently did a burlesque routine at a comedy night and it felt so good. It feels like the right thing."

The Worst review - Melbourne International Comedy Festival

When The Little Mermaid's Sebastian sang 'darling it's better, down where it's wetter', he probably didn't take into consideration the plight of Octoqueen Clara Cupcakes. Performed as part of the Melbourne International Comedy Festival, Elly Squire's The Worst places Clara Cupcakes (as an octopus) in an 8-bit computer game with a mission to win back all three hearts of her Octoking and reclaim her throne of Seaburbia after being banished from the kingdom.

The character of Clara has always been whimsical and joyful but in this outing Squire has focused on a personal narrative, and as such has created an opportunity for a stronger emotional connection between Clara and the audience.  Watching as the facade slowly begins to crack with desperation, heartbreak and anger all beginning to rear their ugly heads, you have to fight the urge to reach out and give her the biggest hug possible. This is perfectly encapsulated in a hilarious song where we witness Clara's protestations of being way too busy to be thinking about the Octoking.

The Worst - Melbourne International Comedy Festival preview

Have you heard the legend of The Worst? A game so terrible, that time itself has tried to wipe it from the memory of all living beings? But its creator, Clara Cupcakes, is not so willing to have the game disappear and never see the light of day again, so she's bringing The Worst to the Melbourne International Comedy Festival where everything will finally be exposed. While this appears to literally be a show about Clara inventing a video game staring herself as an octopus, there is a lot more going on than first meets the eye.

"The Worst started as a show about my terrible ex-boyfriend. Doing a show about your ex is a bit of a comedy cliché and I wanted in," she tells me. "But as I started writing it I realised I actually didn't care about him at all anymore, so while it's still about that time in my life but the part I still have feelings about, which is how I was the worst. WOAH THAT'S THE NAME OF THE SHOW! WOAH IT ALL TIES IN!"

Room Service: a live puzzle solving immersive horror experience

There's been a craze of escape rooms hitting Melbourne recently that is getting bigger and bigger. To the uninitiated, an escape room is a themed room (prison, vampire lair, science lab, etc, etc) where must solve puzzles and find clues to get to freedom before your time is up. Having completed 24 rooms, it's fair to say that I am a bit of a fan. However just to keep things even more interesting, the creative folks at Pop Up Playground have created an experience in which you want to remain inside the room and away from the danger that is lurking outside.

Room Service takes place in Halloween 1976 at the fancy Winterview Manor. They are holding their annual party for a secret society of wealthy people...who also happen to be cannibals, and you're on the menu. Players have thirty minutes to find codes, solve puzzles and work as a team (2-4 players) to ensure that they stay off the menu and the guests do not make their way into their kitchen.

Small Time Criminals - Pop Up Playground

Ever wanted to rob a bank? Well now you can, and it's absolutely legal! The fun and creative minds at Pop Up Playground are about to unleash "Small Time Criminals" to the people of Melbourne. This real world simulation game requires teams of up to six players to infiltrate a bank, steal as much as they can and escape by completing various games, puzzles and challenges. Furthermore, actors will be playing staff who could potentially be secretly trying to help you or staff that are more sinister than meets the eye. And if that wasn't enough, the whole experience takes places inside an actual bank! 

"We've been working towards this kind of experience with Pop Up Playground since the beginning," explains Artistic Director Robert Reid. "We were inspired by alternate reality games and the way they blur the line between real and play, and also by the work of the Agency of Coney. The bank heist idea itself though, came from watching Sayraphim (Pop Up Playground's Constructive Communities Director) play video games and thinking about how thorough she was at clearing out loot, pick-pocketing her victims and so on." 

Citydash presented by Pop Up Playground - Melbourne Fringe Festival preview

Earlier in the year, I wrote about my experiences at the Melbourne International Festival of Games, which you can read about here. For the Melbourne Fringe festival, Pop Up Playground is returning with one of the most enjoyable games I have ever played, the immensely fun and exciting Citydash. Created by Fire Hazard, Citydash is a high-energy game of speed, stealth, and strategy, played in throughout the city streets. 

"We've been friends with the Fire Hazard crew in the UK for a couple of years and we invited them out for festival this year because they offer a kind of game that Melbourne hasn't seen much of really," explains the company's Constructive Communities Director, Sayraphim Lothian. "Digitally supported street gaming is popular in places like London and New York but its only just starting to emerge here.  When the opportunity arose to keep running it here for them, we jumped at the chance."

Melbourne International Festival of Games and Play

I love playing games, especially those that require you to have a strong interaction with other players and where it is not so transactional (looking at you Monopoly). This year's Melbourne International Games Festival, Fresh Air 2015 (and hosted by Pop Up Playground), is held over the long weekend in March where immersive, creative and FUN games are played.

I've been going to Pop Up Playgrounds events for a few years now - and even went when I was recovering from a collapsed lung - and the variety of games and experiences they create and present are always unique and enjoyable. Sadly I was only able to only attend two of the events - Escape Room (Van) by Escape Room Melbourne and City Dash by Fire Hazard.

In Escape Room: Surveillance, we are spies who have 45 minutes to find puzzles and solve clues to prove our innocence of being double agents. Whilst I have complete a number of these rooms throughout Melbourne (ten to be specific), Escape Room Melbourne have been far superior in their set up, design and puzzle challenges. The only difference with this one is we are in the back of a van. We have knocked out the driver (who will conveniently awaken in 45 minutes) to search the van for evidence.

Can you Escape…?

I've recently added a new addiction to my life and it is Escape Rooms. It's a fairly new idea to the Melbourne scene, where you have 45 minutes to find clues and solve puzzles to help you escape from a "themed" locked room. 

Escape Room has been open for roughly two months and comes with six themed rooms - Slaughterhouse, Vampire Chronicles, The Gallery, Jungle Safari, Prison Break and The Mummy Returns. There is a gradual turnover with new rooms every six months or so, and one upcoming room is an "Up" themed room!