Articles

New Earthball, Old Earthball

The first thing I’d like to say is that New or Old, the Earthball is a striking symbol that people quickly and easily relate to. While I’ve long said you don’t need an Earthball to present New Games, it sure does attract a crowd at a festival or event. And, like it or not, the Earthball is the enduring symbol for New Games. Now, of course, it is possible to rent or buy the Earthball for you or your group. It can be used in competitive and a variety of cooperative activities. A summary of these games will be provided upon purchase. The New Earthball (above) comes preprinted, saving a lot...

Yes please, let me know when New Games for Social Distancing is available

Hi I’m working on a version of New Games that’s compatible with social distancing called New Games for Social Distancing. I’ll be putting together a special launch offer that will be available just for a few days, so if you would like me to let you know when I open the doors to that, please let me know below. Until then, play safe Dale

Lockdown New Games, best of the best showdown!

New Games for Staying In, best of the best showdown! For many people around the world, lockdown is beginning to ease (in other parts the virus is still building or has returned for a second wave), so in this final week of lockdown games, we are looking for the best of your favorites from the last four weeks. As always, adapt games to the rules that apply where you are. Adapting games is part of New Games, we are always inclusive to the capabilities of people in the group and to the environment and we seek creative solutions to any issues or limitations that we are presented with. After...

New Games for Staying In, final week 4

New Games for Staying In, final Week 4 While things are beginning to open up with seeing other people, but we are still being asked to practicing distancing. There are still quite a few New Games we can play, some with a little adjusting. To play these games, we are assuming that you are doing them with the people you are living with or are allowed to visit, though as the rules of contact change, you will be allowed to have closer contact with others. After you’ve tried these games, vote for your favorites at the bottom of this page, then we can have a best-of and pick a winner! We start...

New Games for Staying In, Week 3

While many of us are still in some version of lockdown, or at least practicing distancing, there are still quite a few New Games we can play, with a little adjusting. To play these games, we are assuming that you are doing them with the people you are living with, though as the rules of contact change in your country, you will likely be allowed to have closer contact with others. After you’ve tried these games, vote for your favorites at the bottom of this page, then we can have a best-of and pick a winner! We start off with some games for as few as 2 people, though in most cases there can...

New Games for staying in, week 2

New Games you can play in lockdown While most of us are in some version of lockdown, or at least practicing distancing, there are still quite a few New Games we can play, with a little adjusting. To play these games, we are assuming that you are doing them with the people you are living with, though as the rules of contact change, you will be allowed to have closer contact with others. After you’ve tried these games, vote for your favorites at the bottom of this page, then we can have a best-of and pick a winner! We start off with some games for as few as 2 people, though in most cases...

New Games for Staying In, Week 1

New Games you can play in lockdown While most of us are in lockdown, there are still quite a few New Games we can play, with a little adjusting. We start off with some games for as few as 2 people, though in most cases there can be more. After you’ve tried these games, vote for your favorites at the bottom of this page, then we can have a best-of and pick a winner! Partner Tag (2-50+ players, high activity) Original explanation: Players are paired up randomly. The boundaries are not that large and vary with the number of participants. This is a tag game between the 2 people in each...

Montenegro and New Games research

Hi New Games fans, The latest news is that I lead New Games in Montenegro. Sort of. The session was via Skype, but hey, a first is a first. There is a good possibility that I will be able to do so in the flesh at the end of June. This would make my 34th country that I’ve presented New Games in. Stay tuned. Also, lately I’ve been making some progress finding researchers to take my initial research further and deeper. I feel it will help to show how New Games affects many different areas of student development, including academic, social, physical development, and much...

What are New Games? For some of us, cooperative New Games never went away. We just kept right on doing them since their introduction in the early 1970’s. For others who have come along since then, they may still not know what New Games are. “Oh, you mean computer games.” Um. No. “Oh, you mean non-competitive games.” Still, no. Simply stated, New Games are cooperative group interactive games that are played just for fun, even when there is competition. Since it doesn’t matter who wins, we can include everyone, those of all ages, sizes, abilities, and both genders. You can be slow,...

Trust Games and Creative Play In addition to the element of softwar, which has become a minor part of New Games, the concept of “creative play” came from a friend of Stewart’s named George Leonard, author of the book The Ultimate Athlete. What was involved here was placing a player “in an open environment and encouraged to use his/her imagination to devise new play forms.” The vitally significant part of this was “How we play the game may turn out to be more important than we imagine, for it signifies our way of being in the world.” Thus, players not only were able to change the...

The idea of any holiday gathering, as far as I am concerned, is to bring people together in a fun and friendly way. This is exactly what New Games does.They are great holiday party games. Rather relying on alcohol or other intoxicants to relax people, which can possibly bring about unwanted results from those who overdo it, New Games are fun and funny, giving people the opportunity to have a fun time and enjoy each other’s company in imaginative ways while they remain lucid and respectful of each other. This happens because the games have players do some unusual things that lead to...

New Games over the years From the beginning we knew that we had a way of relating to each other, an idea of fun and inclusion that was different than the norm of all-out competition where the winner takes all, gets the accolades, and takes home the trophy. This is still the dominant theme in physical games. With New Games, the winner doesn’t matter and just helps start the next game while we keep on playing. Often times, people such as a little kid, older woman, or another unlikely candidate “win” a game when they had never had done so before, which is both surprising and moving for...

Where did New Games come from? In brief, New Games started as an idea of Stewart Brand, creator of the Whole Earth Catalog, in reaction to the Vietnam War. He felt that combat was getting abstract and remote. Stewart was looking for ways for people to channel and express their aggressive tendencies in ways that wouldn’t harm others. When the War Resisters League at San Francisco State College requested him to put on an event to demonstrate the uselessness of war, Stewart chose to create an event which, instead of preaching to the choir, would get people to understand war by experiencing the...

New Games relevance today How, you may ask, are New Games relevant now? Aren’t they from the touchy feely times? Aren’t they in fact now Old Games? From the way I see it, they are even more important now than when they started. New Games are not only a model of cooperation of how we can play together, but show how we can live together. With the challenges facing us today and in the future, I believe it is imperative that we learn how to work together to save the planet and, ultimately, ourselves from disaster. Cooperative New Games are one great way to learn how to be together...

Old Games, New Games

Old New Games? Rediscovery of the New Games Slide Show, 1976 Imagine my surprise reading an email from John La Rue saying that he had a copy of the New Games Slide Show, made in 1976 and presumably lost, forgotten, or both. Well, in my experience, anyway. Watching it again I realized that it had captured a lot of what New Games was, and is, about. And featuring a lot of people who helped create New Games. If that’s not interesting to you, you can skip to the slide show itself on John La Rue’s web site at: http://www.back2basicplay.org/new-games.php Once you get there, just scroll down...