Counterplay26: Unwinnable Games
This post is part of a series reflecting on my experiences attending Counterplay 2026.* Check out the other posts here.*
Having just successfully completed our first ethics submission on the play team with MWD, I'm becoming increasingly aware of the complexity of seeking playful consent. Or should that be playfully seeking consent? Seeking consent for play? Either way, it's hard to write an ethics application for research when you don't know how the research is going to be conducted yet. So I was struck by the idea of playing "consent games" - one of the opening invitations in Anthea Moys' Unwinnable Games workshop at CounterPlay. These games got me thinking about what consent in play actually looks like, and what happens when it breaks down.
The consent games were designed for players to explore their physical boundaries and comfort levels: taking steps toward each other until one person says stop; making shapes around each other's bodies; lightly attempting to push each other over. They served as a warmup for the second half of the workshop, in which we played an increasingly physical set of partner games: push-and-pull with pens; thumb wars; arm wrestling; the hand slappy game where one person has to get out of the way. I think it's called Slaps? Whatever, the point is the consent games at the start foregrounded consent as part of play, making us actively conscious of our own thresholds and those of our partners.
That awareness, however, didn't automatically carry over when we started playing the games themselves. As we changed partners, it was really interesting - and revealing - to experience how differently people engaged with the question of consent.
A two-handed drawing competition
Some partners and I immediately created rules to make the play more even: "maybe just two fingers each on the pen." With others, we subverted the traditional rules to make the game sillier, less violent, less focused on winning. Have you ever tried arm wrestling in reverse, or actively trying to let the other person win? It becomes a much sillier game; not necessarily less physical, but less combative. What we never did, though, was explicitly check in with each other. Instead, we tested the limits gradually, together, building enough trust to find the boundaries without naming them. The consent was real, but it was negotiated through the play itself rather than before or outside it.
That was until the final hand slappy game, when my new partner went hard - no asking, no testing, just straight SLAP. Right in there. Hard. It really took me by surprise. Considering the inbuilt violence of the game, there was no discussion of how we were going to play - it was play entirely on their terms. In the reflection afterwards, they said words to the effect of "I just wanted to fight" (painfully obvious to the reddened backs of my hands). My partner's mischievous, spontaneous behaviour manifested in violence. Mine didn't. So I left feeling like I had been invited to play, but not to do so in a way that brought me joy, the perfect example of play that isn't playful. At a conference where so much of the conversation is around holding space for each other, I felt like I'd been playing someone else's game.
But that goes both ways. I effectively assumed the same thing as my partner did: that the other person would, without discussion, understand where I was at and meet me there. Why? Why was my type of play more relevant than theirs? Why should they know, without being told, where my comfort level is?
Different people play differently, and our own confidence and comfort can lead us to assume that "my play is your play" - that the way we want to engage is the way everyone wants to engage. Sometimes that's fizzy and physical and combative; sometimes it's quiet and exploratory. Neither is wrong, but also neither is more or less than the other. Don't get me wrong, I'm not an apologist for louder people steamrolling other people. We do all need to create and hold space for each other, and to be aware of how our own play might impact those we're playing with.
This is why understanding consent in, and to, play as emergent is so important : it isn't a single agreement you reach before the game starts. It's an ongoing, co-created negotiation - a process of building enough trust that both people can find the edges together. And sure, they might be stepped on, or even over, but what's really important is creating space in which that can become a discussion - something we can build on to play together, better, not something we shy away from. It's not about dominating voices needing to create space for quieter ones; or rather, it isn't just about that, because that definitely plays a part. It's about communally creating spaces where we all feel comfortable to play in our way, confident that mistakes aren't ill-intentioned, considerate and caring of fellow players but also not afraid to be ourselves. It's a complex, messy, emergent thing.
This makes me wonder what consent games might look like in a work setting, particularly in one where we're trying to use playfulness as the methodology. How do you continually check in with people? What might that look like? Can that be playful? Should it? Is consent one of those moments to step back and strike a less playful tone...or, in fact, if you build a playful community, is play the way to explore and understand consent?
Playfulness doesn't ask you to be best friends with the person across from you. It just asks for good faith - that you're both in it together, finding the edges, building enough trust to push them, rather than one person deciding the game for both. When that good faith isn't there, it doesn't just end the game. It makes the next one harder to start.
But the space to recognise that? That's worth something too.