{"id":3529,"date":"2026-08-19T18:58:04","date_gmt":"2026-08-19T22:58:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/playfulcity.net\/go\/?p=3529"},"modified":"2026-08-20T11:52:15","modified_gmt":"2026-08-20T15:52:15","slug":"whales-play-nirvana-international-model-viable-joy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/playfulcity.net\/go\/designs\/whales-play-nirvana-international-model-viable-joy\/","title":{"rendered":"Whales Play Nirvana: An International Model with Three Phases for Viable Joy"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

[This post reveals secrets from Mexico on making games across borders, and how \u201cviable joy\u201d is a critical strategy in three acts. The post is part of our \u201cinternational\u201d series on EBOW (Engaging Beyond Our Walls). Written by a researcher in our PhD program, Eric Schoenborn.]<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Imagine: <\/strong>You’re at a mural in Mexico. What if I told you there was a band of whales — an actual rock band<\/em> of whales — and you could text with them right now? But there’s some urgency: these whales need help to make a gig in Seattle, and the only thing stopping them is a cluster of oil tankers. Ridiculous right? It gets worse. The energy companies also want to build a gas pipeline here in Mexico’s Baja peninsula – and a pipeline could trap and even kill them! <\/p>\n\n\n

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Caption: Our poster to start the experience (mock-up)<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

This wild story is actually a way to reframe speculative design for a very serious community partner in Mexico. But working across borders is not easy. In this post, we reveal how the most important part<\/strong> of design is often setting up <\/strong>the partnership <\/strong>and retaining joy<\/strong> in the process, as we expand our work to Engage Beyond Our Walls (EBOW)<\/a> internationally.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We found just the right playful partner in a local campaign to protect the UNESCO World Heritage site sometimes called \u201cthe world\u2019s aquarium:\u201d La Paz, Baja California Sur in Mexico – the home of our imaginary whale band. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

In three acts<\/strong>, this post reveals what we have learned so far, through prototyping with our partners in La Paz. Specifically, co-creation of this sort comes through this sequence: (1) locating <\/strong>a playful partner; (2)  establishing a viable imagination<\/strong>; and (3) asynchronous beats<\/strong> for co-creation. <\/p>\n\n\n

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Diagram of the three acts (Playful City Lab); image created using ChatGPT<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

One big finding: a different kind of partnership<\/strong> is needed. Our field needs to understand how to overcome<\/strong> three barriers<\/strong>, while retaining the joy in the creative process: <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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  1. Most partners are not ready to playfully innovate<\/strong> – but we found viable partners for the viable imagination through deliberate network recruiting<\/li>\n\n\n\n
  2. Most people cannot imagine<\/strong> stories for unexpected technology – but we found a way to scaffold a viable playful imagination<\/li>\n\n\n\n
  3. Most appropriations of technology are too expensive or time consuming, and so with community partners in particular the technical rabbit holes dislodge the sense of joy<\/strong> – but we scaffold the design process with a viable design<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n\n\n\n

    Here is how it works…<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    Act 1: Establishing a Viable Playful Partner<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

    The first act of our approach involves establishing a playful community partner to jam with in prototyping a story game for their campaign or organization. It\u2019s a bit like our whale band: the search for the proper venue to play a gig is epic and at the heart of the right experience.  We argue that  playful fit and joyful willingness to entertain our proposition is the first step to success establishing a playful partner. Identifying potential playful partners differs from the typical homogenized process that characterizes most professional design engagements. IEBOW added a distinct challenge to finding a playful partner as the usual mechanisms that typically involve an organization broadcasting a Request For Proposals (RFP) where design agencies with the capacity to join the cattle call to impress the potential client who may may not have the chops to identify their best potential design partner. Another typical approach, particularly in social impact media and design, involves an entity such as Playful City Lab posting an open call for entries to an opportunity to participate in a program funded through private philanthropy or research dollars.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    Without these typical channels for funneling new work to our team, IEBOW pushed our playful band of story game designers to get resourceful. We combed our networks for leads based on our colleagues’ knowledge of our work and their connection to civil society work happening globally.This was the first step in establishing viable joy with our unique brand of playful interactive experiences, sparking the imagination of our network in finding playful partners or revealing opportunities to us by opening discussion to who they believed might be good for us to jam with. Like a band playing a demo recording to anyone who would listen, we worked our network and joyfully offered free design services to folks that were the proper playful fit. Activating our network for playful community partners that exhibited a playful approach through their organization presence or campaign, allowed us to be more targeted than the typical industrialized lead generation process allows.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    Once our network offered up a few possible leads for us to follow, we got the band together and did a little old-fashioned \u201clistening party\u201d of their existing body of work. Were they incorporating play into their work? Did they appear to have the capacity to make our offer realistic? Did they have playful assets to work with in whipping up some quick demos? Without the typical RFP, or open call for entries, we were pitching out playful services as a cold call. This meant we were approaching potential partners out of the blue, through mutual colleagues. We needed to establish credibility beyond what our mutual colleagues could vouch for. Demonstrating an understanding of the potential playful partners\u2019 work was essential. They hadn\u2019t been expecting a band of designers to offer a free interactive service for their organization, and we wanted to get off on the right foot on what was more or less a blind play date. One familiar technique of the professionalized design process we found essential in establishing some credibility for our cold call for co-creation, was the pitch deck.
    <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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    We were reaching out to strangers thousands of miles away, in a different country. A mutual colleague had done the equivalent of sharing our demo tape with them, and once they expressed a willingness to hear our pitch, we went to work doing what we do best. We designed a deck. The pitch deck is a staple of any designers\u2019 toolkit, and now extends work \u201cat a distance\u201d folks of all fields become accustomed to since COVID. The fact that we had a mutual friend, and were reaching out from a reputable university, set the stage that we weren\u2019t a random band of beginners hoping for a break. A strong deck would establish credibility without killing the playful vibe.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    And we made a new friend. By activating our network for possible venues for our work, establishing a lead, we met a potential new playful partner by Zoom and walked them through our deck. The director of a campaign to stop a natural gas pipeline from destroying the marine activity of a UNESCO World Heritage site in the Gulf of California in La Paz, Baja California Sur, Mexico. Our potential partners were fighting, playfully, on behalf of one of the most important Orca and whale migration routes on planet earth. They were engaging the community in whale poetry, whale murals, whale drawings by kids, whale comics. This band had potential to \u201cget us.\u201d  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

    After the campaign in Mexico took our cold call, and joyfully entertained our playful proposition, they were game to move forward with us. In the interest of allowing the uncommon partnership to develop organically, we left the next steps open for them to decide. The group in La Paz wanted to talk amongst their campaign, and local community and propose an idea.But after several weeks, no further response. It seemed as though they were a bit stuck moving what we had hoped would be a simple rough idea forward. Were they trying to make it too polished before getting back with us? Writers block? Hypothesis: Need more scaffolded imagination. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

    Act 2: Establishing a Viable Imagination <\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

    The campaign had not asked for our services. The campaign had not joined a special program funded by an NGO to engage social impact campaigns in innovative game design research. Our unique model of catalyzing a playful partnership, outside of the typical design pitch deck, would require something beyond the typical to catalyze the playful momentum. We would need to scaffold co-creation by demonstrating what we consider \u201cviable imagination.\u201d Our playful partners were busy campaigners with important primary responsibilities besides entertaining our playful proposition, so we would prompt them with prototypes they could take to the community. Rather than just a professional pitch deck, that is more of an inward facing document for the decision makers, we would make an outward facing prototype for them to show. We would build off of our initial conversation, using their existing playful assets to prompt their imagination using the viable imagination<\/em> technique. Prototypes designed at a distance, for local organizations with playful assets. Rather than hound our playful partners, we would scaffold some demos by interpreting their campaign materials into our \u201csound,\u201d our flavor.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    Did the campaign already engage beyond their walls? Were there any existing activities that we could plug into? What activities resembled our previous EBOW samples that we could extend into the Playful City Lab story games universe? In going through the campaign, the answer became clear. Murals!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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    Photograph of the mural is courtesy the campaign “Whales or Gas”<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

    The campaign had engaged the community in La Paz in a series of playful campaign situations, and had promoted at least one mural as a result of their playful organizing. We at the Playful City Lab had worked with murals as portals for storyworlds before, and it made sense to scaffold viable imagination from an asset they were promoting, using a modality we had successfully transformed into a story game.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    From our previous work activating murals as portals into one of our signature story games, we knew we would need a playful prompt to move participants into our out of the ordinary text-based world of imagination. Fortunately, our playful partners had some hilarious materials to work with to make the leap from serious campaign topic to a playful proposition. So we began riffing with their existing materials to establish a possible game. What playful game of make believe could we initiate from this mural that somehow echoes the message of the campaign. These whales from the Gulf of California were not going to be able to make their annual migrations up to the Pacific Northwest and Alaska if this pipeline was built. We did our homework. We knew the purpose of the campaign. This is important work the team in La Paz is engaged in. But as they were engaged playfully, we were inspired to prototype from a place of pure, unabashed, play. What prompt would get folks engaged publicly with the mural we chose as our prompt? How could we play a role in engaging folks with this playful campaign beyond the incredible public education work the team in La Paz already had under control? Could we get people to take pics with the mural and send them in? Could we get them to somehow share their visit to work the campaign was doing out in the streets? Would this even be playful? To us, the answer was no. We needed to demonstrate viable imagination. We needed to get silly. How about karaoke?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    These whales were headed to the Pacific Northwest. Why not craft a silly story that they needed to be in the Pacific Northwest for some completely ridiculous anthropomorphized reason. We were in improvisational mode as designers. Yes, and. These whales are in a band, of course. A grunge band. They need to be in the Pacific Northwest for a show. Makes absolutely no sense of course, but that is exactly the point of this game of make believe. We acted out the idea in our lab. Conducting theatrical, embodied, exaggerated prototyping to establish a minimal viable joy prototype. And without waiting for the perfect idea to develop further, we started to prototype the digital version. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

    How could we connect this to the campaign? Respectfully, without trivializing their work. Using the resources of the campaign, we found some artwork that helped us to situate our silly game idea with a silly voice they had established. This was the overlap of viable imagination, we believed. So we went back to the professional designer mode and remixed an existing graphic, to feature a QR code in a sign that would be incorporated into the mural.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    The result:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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    This playful graphic, on the left, was a perfect viable imagination overlap for our playful mode.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

    For purposes of being at a distance in our co-creation process, we needed to use everything in our toolkit to situate ourselves in the place of the game. We took the liberty to embed the sign into the existing mural in photoshop.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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    The sign and the mock up of the situation provided the playful prompt for our story game to within the local, and real, activity of the organization. From our experience initiating story games in space with libraries and museums, we learned to emphasize material signs as playful invitations with QR codes. This mock-up game gave us a storyboard for initiating our whale band storygame. Each time we play-tested the game we could initiate it as though we were in place.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    Act 3: Co-creation of a viable joy prototype<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

    At this point in our process we had an appropriately playful idea that overlapped with the voice and purpose of our playful partner\u2019s work. We had permission to appropriate their campaign for our playful story game. We had developed the materials to begin to playtest some actual games using our custom technology. In a typical design engagement, we would initiate further back and forth using the more formal pitch deck mode to advance our idea with \u201cclients.\u201d But we established our relationship as partners. There is typically a back and forth with a client that would be initiated at this point using the homogenized, industrialized processes of client design work. Our co-creation process blurs the lines of client, and works to advance minimal viable joy, not the next big thing, with a playful partner. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

    Act 3 is about adapting to the reality on the ground to transform our established viable imagination into a minimal viable joy prototype with our partner. Do we have the full attention of the partner? What are the dynamics of our engagement? Do they have a stake in advancing this idea as a formal client engagement might require them to do? The weight of the responsibility of advancing the prototype is still in our lab. They have tentatively agreed, and are open to whatever playful possibilities come out of the arrangement. The stakes are still low. No money is exchanging hands, no deadlines are being blown. But this low stakes arrangement requires an animating force to advance our playful partnership. And although this is a co-creation process, in this particular case, we are adapting to the reality on the ground, reading the situation, and recognizing it is our time to lead the jam.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    So our prototyping begins. First we begin to devise characters in our whale band, using the campaign materials of course. And in our unusually rapid, rapid prototyping process, we plug the assets right into our custom game design platform, Hive Mechanic. This version of the co-creation is asynchronous, with the visual assets, and voice being established by the campaign, and us quickly remixing these assets in a whale karaoke at the mural game. So we prototype some quick dialog for our game. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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    Image: A remix of the campaign’s original whale image with drumsticks added<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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    The grumpy lead signer Orca on the right, and the nicer drummer Humpback whale on the left<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n

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    Video of whale costume screenshot<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

    And we prototyped the story to reflect a dialogue with either one of these personalities, to quickly request a video from the participant singing a song, in the street, by the mural. This was improv mode, so we took the first idea. They would be trying out for the band. And in our theatrical playtest of this idea, we realized, participants may need a prompt. An example. So we made a fake tryout video for people to model their silly behavior, singing a grunge song in the streets. We had an orca costume, we had an obvious and well-known grunge song (Nirvana\u2019s, Smells Like Teen Spirit<\/em>), so we modeled the playful behavior in our own playful video prompt participants would receive while playing (right)<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    The theatrical prototyping phase is complete, and we can now playtest with a functional prototype. Never losing the playful spirit, or sense of place where this game would be played. But, our idea now had a formal, working prototype to play with outside of the improvisational, theatrical playtest. We had a story game in our game design platform, More importantly, in three acts we had established the foundation for minimal viable joy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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    Caption: Screenshots from our working prototype in Hive Mechanic<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

    Conclusion<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

    What\u2019s next? <\/strong>As playtesting begins, and the core idea will evolve through iteration. A separate process begins in activating the mural and campaign in La Paz, one that can follow the more established  practices of playtesting and launching story games. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

    Our three act process is a careful scaffold to retain joy and share power at the same time in true innovation. We showed this process for our partners in La Paz. We are eager for others to try this – let us know how your efforts go. And perhaps our whale grunge band will finally find a new lead singer as well.   <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    [This post reveals secrets from Mexico on making games across borders, and how \u201cviable joy\u201d is a critical strategy in three acts. The post is part of our \u201cinternational\u201d series on EBOW (Engaging Beyond Our Walls). Written by a researcher in our PhD program, Eric Schoenborn.] Imagine: You’re at a mural in Mexico. What if […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":3557,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[10,24,11,26],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3529","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-designs","category-ebow","category-hive-mechanic","category-iebow"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/playfulcity.net\/go\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3529","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/playfulcity.net\/go\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/playfulcity.net\/go\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/playfulcity.net\/go\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/9"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/playfulcity.net\/go\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3529"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/playfulcity.net\/go\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3529\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3572,"href":"https:\/\/playfulcity.net\/go\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3529\/revisions\/3572"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/playfulcity.net\/go\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3557"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/playfulcity.net\/go\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3529"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/playfulcity.net\/go\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3529"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/playfulcity.net\/go\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3529"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}