Hipsters: The Card Game

I wanted to take some time today to talk about a project I've been working on for the past few months with my good friend and colleague Matthew Gravelyn. It's not a piece of fiction or an essay or a script - it's a game; Hipsters: The Card Game, to be specific. 

What is Hipsters? It's a 2-4 player game in which players race to build a hipster character for cred (points). You can win by making a raw vegan academic hipster who carries old chicken drumsticks and a cheap six-pack of Schitz beer in canvas bags. Or you can win with an cappuccino-sipping grungeling who's finishing up his master's thesis in between bouts of panhandling for drug money or gnawing on candy necklaces. Or maybe your particular style is looking down your nose at mainstream lackeys with unsophisticated music preferences and pouring buckets fake blood on fur-wearers while secretly hiding the smooth jazz collection stored beneath the driver's seat of your minivan.

You get the idea.

At its heart I think Hipsters is actually playing with some big questions. There's a kind of uncanny intangibility  as to what a hipster really is, and this game takes that somewhat uncomfortable conversation and runs with it at full speed. In a way, it's a game about defining that which has no real definition. It's a game about forming an incongruous identity and rejoicing in the resulting ironies.

It's also supposed to be fun, quick, and humorous, if you're not into the whole identity crisis convo. 

Mr. Gravelyn and myself are all but done finalizing the 59 cards that will constitute the Hipsters deck - we've just got to settle on some final items for our four hipster archetypes (Academic, Activist, Elitist, and Grungeling). The rules are all but completed too, though we plan on cementing those at our upcoming play test event at The Raygun Lounge (courtesy of Gamma Ray Games) in Seattle on October 7th. If you live in Seattle, we'd love to see you there.

For more info on development (and eventually availability) for Hipsters: The Card Game, please check out our Facebook and Twitter pages.

Oh, and if this made you chuckle, grimace, or otherwise change your facial expression, please do us a favor and share this page with a friend (I would insert a smiley here, but I'm far too hip to do so).