A Liminal Labs 2024 interactivity project.
We are on the corner of 8:30 and C in Black Rock City this year.
Look for the circular metal gate.

You can also find this in the Buring Man WHAT WHERE WHEN guide for 2024

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Welcome to the The Unseen Court

AKA - A Daring Game of Hearts

Based on the playing card characters from Alice In Wonderland, this is a working document for an game project that I plan to introduce at Burning Man in 2024.

It aspires to be an Infinite Game, where the goal is not to win but to keep playing. I want it to be a feral social network that encourages unpredictable, fun and serendipitous meetings and exchanges.

<aside> 💡 A DARING GAME OF HEARTS is a feral social network that plays out over the entire week at the Burning Man event in 2024 . You are dealt a random card from a 52-card deck. Once you take a card and display it or wear it, you are playing the game and other players can interact with you to win your card and swap theirs for yours. They do this by giving you a challenge or a dare. There is a narrative behind the suits that provides a modicum of character/role for the player to explore as they play.

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Basic Mechanics & Laws of the Court

• Initial Deal to the Liminal Labs crew : Shuffle a standard 52-card deck. Deal one card face down to each Liminal labs camp member. Players examine their cards and learn their suit’s powers and then pin them visibly to their clothing. These are the seeds of the game.
• Expanding to New players: Give each Liminal camp member their own 52 card deck to recruit more players. Have a dozen old used card decks on hand at the Liminal Labs camp to create new players as a piece of our camp interactivity. Give them a URL to the rules or a printed copy. The Nightcrawlers Playa RPG folks have also made our camp one of their quest destinations.
• Share the rules in advance with the Bman mailing list or the What Where When Playa Events List and encourage others to make their own decks and rules for distributing their cards.

<aside> 💡 The Lore of the Suits

Spades (Gardeners)

Clubs (Soldiers)

Diamonds (Courtiers)

Hearts (Royalty)

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• Challenges: A player may challenge anyone of a higher rank OR anyone within the same suit. If a player is challenged for their card, they have a choice of two ways to defend it:

  1. Give a Dare. The Defender set the Challenger a dare. If they perform it correctly, the Challenger wins the card. The Challenger can use the special powers of their suit to help them perform the dare.
  2. Do a Dare. The Challenger sets the Defender a task. if they perform it correctly, the Defender keeps their card and can’t be challenged again for the day by the same challenger.

• Dares:

  • Challengers and Defenders must give dares that are (mostly) reasonable and safe.
  • Dares should ideally be somewhat thematic to Wonderland or playing cards. See below for suggestions and thematic dares that fit each suit.
  • SAFEGUARDING: Any player at any time can walk away from a challenge or a dare if they feel their stated or unstated boundaries are crossed. Challengers and Defenders must respect these limits. Consent always applies.

• Cooldown: After a successful defence, a Defender cannot be challenged by the same person for the rest of the day/night