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Joost Vervoort - Infrastructures of Mystery

Joost Vervoort - Infrastructures of Mystery

@joostvervoort.bsky.social

2.3K followers 4.1K following 440 posts

Associate Professor of Transformative Imagination, Utrecht University. Infrastructures of mystery. Games & transformative politics. Developing ALL WILL RISE: @allwillrise.bsky.social. Singer in @terzijdehorde.bsky.social. Insta: @joost.vervoort_artwork .. more

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Joost Vervoort - Infrastructures of Mystery @joostvervoort.bsky.social · Nov 28

Thread: stuff I'm passionate about/thinking about/working on. Top of mind for me is 'Infrastructures of Mystery' - how do we create societies where people can more easily commune with the depth and mystery of life - whatever that means for them? anticiplay.medium.com/infrastructu...

Infrastructures of mystery — scaffolding the wonder of existence

What if society would recognize and support the value of connecting to life’s mystery?

anticiplay.medium.com

Reposted by Joost Vervoort

All Will Rise by Speculative Agency @allwillrise.bsky.social · 2d

This means playing your cards right, or more precisely - playing the right cards. Strong evidence and showing that you've put in the leg work are good ways to connect to Oomanakuttan.

Reposted by Joost Vervoort

All Will Rise by Speculative Agency @allwillrise.bsky.social · 2d

If you can understand this about Oomanakuttan, it may become easier to work with him and overcome his skeptical stance toward Kuyili and the team somewhat. #gamedev #personality

Reposted by Joost Vervoort

All Will Rise by Speculative Agency @allwillrise.bsky.social · 2d

Oomanakuttan, for instance, is a civil society leader who comes across as dour and snarky, especially to Kuyili with her wild ideas. He has decades of experience and sees change as a slow struggle that just takes lots of hard and boring work. (sketch by @monkeyverse.bsky.social). However,

Reposted by Joost Vervoort

⚔️🎀 𝔉𝔦𝔞𝔡𝔥 🎀⚔️ @fiadh.bsky.social · 2d

good morning to everyone who strikes fear in the hearts of men

Reposted by Joost Vervoort

All Will Rise by Speculative Agency @allwillrise.bsky.social · 4d

The mystery, depth, and weirdness of the world of Muziris makes for such a wonderful dynamic contrast with the more strategic, political side of the game: winning the court case, and building a movement. #indiegames #utopia

Reposted by Joost Vervoort

All Will Rise by Speculative Agency @allwillrise.bsky.social · 4d

Another inspiration for our sideways speculative version of reality in Kerala is the 'Seeds of Good Anthropocenes' project that tries to find initatives and projects that already exist everywhere around the world - and that could inspire a better future. goodanthropocenes.net

Reposted by Joost Vervoort

All Will Rise by Speculative Agency @allwillrise.bsky.social · 4d

We are inspired in our worldbuilding by the idea of 'infrastructures of mystery' - what a society would look like that has been structured to give people's connection to the mystery of life a central, sacred place. anticiplay.medium.com/infrastructu... #indiegames #spirituality

Infrastructures of mystery — scaffolding the wonder of existence

What if society would recognize and support the value of connecting to life’s mystery?

anticiplay.medium.com

Reposted by Joost Vervoort

All Will Rise by Speculative Agency @allwillrise.bsky.social · 4d

Our Murizis is also a city of many faiths and spiritual practices, that are in turn connecting in unusual ways with political and technological experiments. It starts with our tagline 'the river is a god, and they killed her' - but there are mysteries everywhere.

Reposted by Joost Vervoort

All Will Rise by Speculative Agency @allwillrise.bsky.social · 4d

This allows us to play with that imaginative tension. What is the same? What is different? In our version of Kerala, the state, already known for being a place for utopian experimentation, becomes more unusual in terms of the interest people have in trying out new, utopian ideas. #utopia #indiegames

Reposted by Joost Vervoort

All Will Rise by Speculative Agency @allwillrise.bsky.social · 4d

An early decision in the development of All Will Rise was to go for a 'sideways speculative' version of Kerala - not in the future, but an alternative present reality that has many interesting similarities and differences compared to our own world. #gamedev #indiedev #speculativefiction

Reposted by Ian Bruff

Joost Vervoort - Infrastructures of Mystery @joostvervoort.bsky.social · 4d

Reading about how one motivation for younger people to get involved in the Mamdani campaign was loneliness and a desire to find community brought me back to thinking about alchemizing the loneliness pandemic into social action. Wrote about that a few years ago: anticiplay.medium.com/heart-conste...

Heart constellations: killing the capitalist god of loneliness

How can loneliness be the starting point of social change? And how can games help?

anticiplay.medium.com

Reposted by Joost Vervoort

All Will Rise by Speculative Agency @allwillrise.bsky.social · 4d

Hi all, our producer @nielsmonshouwer.bsky.social will be doing an All Will Rise live Stream on www.twitch.tv/speculativea... in about 15 minutes, tune in to chat about All Will Rise, Game production, Activism, and to see the current state of development of All Will Rise!

speculativeagency - Twitch

At Speculative Agency we want to help people think about their role in making a positive change in the world. To let people explore new and speculative forms of agency in their lives and the future of...

Reposted by Joost Vervoort

All Will Rise by Speculative Agency @allwillrise.bsky.social · 5d

You can follow along with All Will Rise by wishlisting us on Steam or following our Kickstarter page. The project will go live early next year!

Steam: store.steampowered.com/app/3165340/...

Kickstarter: www.kickstarter.com/projects/spe...

#GameDev #IndieDev #IndieGame

Coming soon: All Will Rise: a narrative courtroom deck-builder

All Will Rise is a narrative courtroom deck-builder about ordinary people who make the powerful pay for destroying our future.

www.kickstarter.com

Reposted by Joost Vervoort

All Will Rise by Speculative Agency @allwillrise.bsky.social · 5d

Hello, new followers! We are Speculative Agency, the team behind All Will Rise! It’s our upcoming video game, where you play as a lawyer who fights for the rights of the earth, as she and her team take a corrupt billionaire to court for a river’s murder.

#GameDev #IndieDev #IndieGame

The All Will Rise key art.

Reposted by Joost Vervoort

All Will Rise by Speculative Agency @allwillrise.bsky.social · 5d

Our corporate exec Rishabh is definitely all 'vibes over policy'.

Reposted by Joost Vervoort

All Will Rise by Speculative Agency @allwillrise.bsky.social · 5d

It's good to compare @zohrankmamdani.bsky.social's win to the victory of @robjetten.bsky.social in the Netherlands, which has been described as being 'vibes over policy', and rightly so, given his party's neoliberal program. Mamdani brings powerful vibes based on real social action. Big contrast.

Joost Vervoort - Infrastructures of Mystery @joostvervoort.bsky.social · 5d

Tagging @floravelino.bsky.social

Reposted by Joost Vervoort

All Will Rise by Speculative Agency @allwillrise.bsky.social · 5d

Tessa and colleagues also discuss, specifically, transformative power - the power to really change things for the better. Prefigurative power is about imagining a better future, countervailing power is about fighting back against the powerful; reinforcive power helps stabilize new power structures.

Reposted by Joost Vervoort

All Will Rise by Speculative Agency @allwillrise.bsky.social · 5d

Similarly, different types of power (power to, power with, power over) are juicy sources of storytelling and game play, sometimes dark, sometimes more positive. See this paper by Tessa de Geus, Flor Avelino and colleagues: link.springer.com/article/10.1...

Reposted by Joost Vervoort

All Will Rise by Speculative Agency @allwillrise.bsky.social · 5d

When we started developing All Will Rise our focus was on the court case - mostly struggling against corporate power. But as we developed the game and tested early demos with players we realized that we wanted to focus more on a mix of power AGAINST corporates and power FOR a vision of the future.

Reposted by Joost Vervoort

All Will Rise by Speculative Agency @allwillrise.bsky.social · 5d

We work with the sociological concept of 'emotional energy', which is very helpful describe the dynamics of collective action. Strong emotional energy can come from collective joy AND care AND standing up against injustice. Mamdani builds emotional energy on a basis of real social policy.

Reposted by Joost Vervoort

All Will Rise by Speculative Agency @allwillrise.bsky.social · 5d

A historical victory in New York! With the All Will Rise team we have followed @zohrankmamdani.bsky.social 's campaign closely, since the game is as much about mobilizing social action FOR a better future as it is about the work to fight AGAINST corporate powers. #mamdani #indiegames #politics

Reposted by Joost Vervoort

Josh Shepperd @joshshepperd.bsky.social · 6d

Historic victory for Democratic Socialism and, frankly, the good of the country.

Zohran Mamdani elected mayor of New York City in historic win

Democratic nominee beats Andrew Cuomo and Republican Curtis Sliwa, becoming city’s first Muslim mayor

www.theguardian.com

Reposted by Joost Vervoort

Joost Vervoort - Infrastructures of Mystery @joostvervoort.bsky.social · 6d

This thread is turning out to be quite interesting for a project I'm involved in - a series of videos and texts for game developers focusing on more sustainable futures together with some major partner organizations (more soon).

All Will Rise by Speculative Agency @allwillrise.bsky.social · 6d

Do you know about a game being developed or maybe released right now that aims to do something good for society while being firmly in the entertainment game space, engaging as hell? We're curious to find peers #indiegames #indiedev #gamedev

All Will Rise by Speculative Agency @allwillrise.bsky.social · 11d

Calling all game developers working on making the future a better place, or addressing the bullshit of our current time in some creative way! Where are you? Let's connect and team up.

Joost Vervoort - Infrastructures of Mystery @joostvervoort.bsky.social · 6d

Oh! A new video essay by @noahgervais.bsky.social. My favorite youtube essayist by a mile. Always truly excellent and insightful. I hadn't really paid attention to Cronos: The New Dawn until now. www.youtube.com/watch?v=OCIL...

Misery Loop-- A Critique of Cronos: The New Dawn

YouTube video by Noah Caldwell-Gervais

www.youtube.com

Reposted by Joost Vervoort

Christophe De bont 🚂 AdventureX @cdebont.bsky.social · 6d

So I recently finished playing Mini Mini Golf Golf by @threemoreyears.bsky.social and I think you might have some common stuff to talk about.

They're tackling climate collapse through the lense of a simple golf game, merged with Immortality-like segments you have to decode. It's really good!

Joost Vervoort - Infrastructures of Mystery @joostvervoort.bsky.social · 6d

But seeking to connect mystery and utopian eros: anticiplay.medium.com/on-fairy-por...

On fairy porn, queer vampires, and the unleashing of utopian eros

What happens if we connect the desire to be swept of our feet with our desire to be in a better world?

anticiplay.medium.com

Joost Vervoort - Infrastructures of Mystery @joostvervoort.bsky.social · 6d

Starting from the notion of infrastructures of mystery: anticiplay.medium.com/infrastructu...

Infrastructures of mystery — scaffolding the wonder of existence

What if society would recognize and support the value of connecting to life’s mystery?

anticiplay.medium.com

Reposted by Joost Vervoort

Char @alphachar.bsky.social · 6d

We're making a game with the central thread of punching up: where you play as a tiny sparrow trying to free all the other birds who have been trapped by The Storyteller. We're light on lore, but hopefully everyone who plays feels freedom singing in their veins!
store.steampowered.com/app/3473440/...

Sparrow Warfare on Steam

Lead a feathered rebellion in the bird-filled deckbuilder SPARROW WARFARE! Combine your tiles to free birds. Unlock wildtiles to craft riotous combos. Take down the fiendish Storyteller for the libera...

store.steampowered.com