Keepsake and Connected Path Games

Collaborators Shing Yin Khor and Jeeyon Shim chat about the two game forms that they've been specifically interested in over the last year, keepsake and connected path games, a specific interest that emerged out of the separation and virtual-ness of quarantine. Keepsake games center the making of a beautiful physical object as part of the gameplay process, and connected path games emphasize the ways that people can play a game separately but together, both being game forms that center connection — with others, and with the world around them. Shing Yin and Jeeyon will chat about making games that connect people to the natural world, examine emotions and identity, and encourage low barriers in crafting and art, that are rooted in our experiences of diaspora, teaching, and making.

• Jeeyon Shim (she/they) — 🌸 Diana Jones Emerging Designer Award Winner 🌸 IndieCade 2021 Nominee 🌸 https://jeeyonshim.itch.io/ 🌸 https://www.patreon.com/jeeyonshim 🌸 https://www.tiktok.com/@jeeyonshim 🌸


• Shing Yin Khor(they/them) is a Malaysian-American experience designer and cartoonist making large scale installation work, physical storytelling artifacts, and games rooted in their work as a builder and artist - keepsake games centered on the bridge between physical making and traditional tabletop RPGs, kind and strange emotional connections, and new and invented rituals. They are the designer and creator of the ongoing casual mail-LARP Space Gnome Space, the live mail game Remember August, the keepsake embroidery game A Mending (which raised $190k on Kickstarter and was fulfilled on time), The Gentle Oraclebird (presented at Indiecade 2019 and 2020) and co-designer(with Jeeyon Shim) of the solo journaling game Field Guide to Memory(Indiecade 2021). Outside of games, they are a finalist for the National Book Award in Youth Literature with their most recent graphic novel The Legend of Auntie Po.