Bernard De Koven picture
I would like to introduce the Serious Play Pro community members to a “games guru and fun theorist” Bernard De Koven. His website A Playful Path provides a free PDF book to download with lots of interesting resources to review to anybody who is interested in play, playfulness and games. I found it to be a great resource for a facilitator – to identify various games that you can use to make your session more fun.
Bernie DeKoven The Well Played Game Book
In 1971, Bernard De Koven founded The Games Preserve, a retreat center for the exploration of games and play in Eastern Pennsylvania. The Games Preserve served many organizations and individuals, and functioned as the East Coast branch of The New Games Foundation. In 1978, De Koven published The Well-Played Game, which was recently re-released by MIT Press (also available in Kindle). During his long career, he has designed games of all kinds: board and table games, computer games, social games for small and large groups, city-wide game celebrations, theater games, games for couples, families, children and elders. But his greatest impact has been his development of a theory of fun and playfulness and how it can affect every aspect of personal and interpersonal, community and institutional health.
De Koven has been exploring playfulness for more than 45 years. His book, The Well-Played Game, originally served to help guide people who had discovered the power of play through the New Games Foundation. Today it serves designers of videogames who also want to share the power of play through their new games and new visons of playfulness. His another website deepFUN.com adds loads of interesting background information about whatever playful there is to find out about. Enjoy!
