The Game Game*
(*a.k.a. The Sugary Factual Effervescent Prolific Warm Clear Dank Resilient Titillating Upside-Down Game)
An ongoing participatory art project
and a series of gatherings built around play, improvisation, sculpture, and collective imagination.
Documentation of players rescuing a lost gamepiece via ashtray boat at a Game Game gathering at Brooklyn Artery in 2026.
Since it began in 2019, The Game Game has brought adults together to rekindle the spirit of childhood play and invent their own game together. Each gathering invites players around an object-laden gameboard that offers inspiration but no set instructions.
The Game Game is not a typical game. It has no finite rules, singular winner or rule maker, strategic motivations, serious rivalry, consistent visual system, or predetermined end that most of us associate with gameplay. Instead, it relies on the collective imagination and raw creations of its player-collaborators to provide the answers and meaning, within an environment that esteems the absurd, the imperfect, the improvised, and the collaborative.
No gathering is ever the same.
Conceived, facilitated and produced by Kat Geng-Caraballo
Game Board
Each gameplay has had a different board. For some rounds it has manifested as a shared and editable file, at others a live streamed or hand drawn object-based board was operated by the facilitator, and for the inaugural online game the participants’ screens acted as the spaces on a board.
In total there have been eleven manifestations of a board and over 20 gatherings since 2019. The board serves as a grounding space with objects and tools that may inspire play when suggestions are needed but gameplay often extends to the surrounding environment. While The Game Game most often engages with sculpture through the board making, it also frequently solicits everyday objects from players as another way to tap into the imagination and allow for visual storytelling or inspire gameplay.
Gameblage No. 11, 2025 (The most recent Gameblage used for the last three Game Game gatherings)
Puppenbuhne Helen Geng puppet reenacting The Game Game game play in which all players were asked to fashion an everyday object into a hat and wear it as they simultaneously competed in a 9-person staring contest. Everyday objects are often solicited as part of gameplay.
The Origin Story
The Game Game grew out of a desire to bring the solitary play of sculpture into a shared space. It was originally conceived as an object-based sculpturally-minded board game to facilitate free play amongst ‘grown-ups’ but adapted to an online forum during quarantine. It has since returned to ‘real life’ manifesting in different forms - including one where the wall and furniture became the board, one without a board and variety of new gameblages that offer up objects as inspiration for playful interactions.
Kat Geng-Caraballo hosts playings of The Game Game sporadically yet regularly, creating a space where adults can play together, sit with the discomfort of the unknown, and ultimately be rewarded with deep belly laughter and a shared experience connecting with others.
Flyer from most recent ticketed gathering of The Game Game, presented at The Brooklyn Artery in Brooklyn, NY, 2026.
Player message left for future players
“Play is not frivolous. Play is essential. __ In times when it seems the least appropriate to play, it might be the times when it is most urgent.”
The Game Game Archive
The growing Archive is a collection of glimpses, players and remnants of free play from Game Game gatherings.
A bi-lingual reinterpretation in collaboration with Open Editions.
On Play
Play
Just a few of my favorite books, video clips, and podcasts on the benefits, history and manifestations of play.
Free Play: Improvisation in Life and Art by Stephen Nachmanovitch
A game board assembled from objects around the house and made editable as a shared file. Each player moved their own pieces and recorded notes on the screen. Technical issue were abundant. This was one of the Game Game adaptations for Zoom during the Pandemic.