This Friday, November 3rd, join us at the Starr Space Gallery in Bushwick, Brooklyn for the 8th annual No Quarter Exhibition. Be the first to play four new games from four bold voices in game design: Auriea Harvey, Droqen, Pietro Righi Riva, and Kitty Horrorshow.
No Quarter is always free and open to the public. RSVP for No Quarter here:
Meet the 2017 No Quarter Artists:
PIETRO RIGHI RIVA
Pietro is an Italian designer, artist, and academic. With indie game studio Santa Ragione, he created “Escape From The Aliens In Outer Space”, “FOTONICA”, “MirrorMoon EP”, and “Wheels of Aurelia”. His work was displayed at the Venice Biennale and the MCA in Chicago. In 2016, Pietro published a manifesto for nontraditional playable media called “rejecta”.
Robert Yang (No Quarter curator): What are you making for No Quarter?
Pietro Righi Riva (artist): I’m making a drop-in, drop-out crowd game for 30 people called Asta Grande. It’s a pretend auction of legendary items mediated by a digital interface that is used by the auctioneer to present the lots and keep track of players’ objectives and funds. Players receive a character card that doubles as their bidding paddle, and they just raise it when they are interested in an item being auctioned.
What’s your process? How did you get to that idea / how is it changing as you work on it?
I’m trying to build this game within the framework of all the game designing thinking I’ve been up to: incorporating elements from performance, lowering effort and commitment required from players, not building balanced systems, overcoming victory as an underlying concept, building mechanics around meaning, basing game worlds on existing literature and real world research, etc, etc. Aside from being a new thing for me, it’s also particularly scary to be debuting this game at No Quarter because it cannot really be tested in advance.
Oh yeah, No Quarter is all about games that can’t be tested in advance! Do you have any favorite No Quarter games from the past?
Unfortunately I haven’t had the chance to attend past years, but I have played quite a few games that were made for No Quarter. Terry Cavanagh’s multiplayer spatial exploration game “At a Distance” and Robin Arnott’s sound horror “Deep Sea” have been profoundly inspiring for me. Also of course TENNES and Barabari Ball should be in anyone’s multiplayer playlist. Oh and I really dig Guts of Glory!
After No Quarter, are you staying around in NYC for a bit? If so, what would you like to do / what are you looking forward to doing or seeing?
I am actually traveling to NYC a few days in advance to make sure everything is ready for my game: having quite a few physical components in it means that I have to make sure all the materials have been shipped and are usable. If nothing breaks and I don’t have to do any last second fix I’d love to tour NYC for contemporary art and theater. Oh and try this “pizza” I have heard so much about.
Thanks for your time! As for the pizza, we have a local specialty here in NYC called “dollar slice”, I promise you’ll love it!
You can follow Pietro’s work and read his manifesto at his website, or follow him on Twitter.