Ludic Method Soirée: Grotesqueries of Capitalism...

Ludic Soriree: Grotesqueries of Capitalism... and other ludicrous approaches to play
Guest: Dr. Chloé Wake (née Germaine)
Date: 14.04.2026, 18:00
Online Zoom Talk: https://dieangewandte-at.zoom.us/j/65353903004

 

What does it mean to play a game you're not supposed to enjoy? Grotesqueries of Capitalism and other ludicrous approaches to play examines the intersections of play, consumption, and critique through the lens of Happy Shoppers, a critical card game that hacks the Victorian parlour gameHappy Families to make explicit the ideology embedded in set-collection mechanics and expose the hidden costs of consumer culture. Drawing on Mary Flanagan's framework of critical play, Zygmunt Bauman's account of the consuming subject, and Linderoth and Mortensen's aesthetics of dark play, this talk argues that discomfort and absurdity can function as productive tools for critical inquiry. The talk uses the design methodology of Happy Shoppers, hacking and subverting a familiar game structure, to demonstrate how games can challenge the ideologies embedded in everyday consumption without offering easy answers or moral resolution.
 
 

Bio

Dr. Chloé Wake (née Germaine) is a Reader in Environmental Humanities in the Department of English at Manchester Metropolitan University and Co-Director of the Manchester Game Centre. Her research sits at the intersection of game studies, critical theory, and environmental humanities, with a particular focus on how games model and naturalise ideologies — and how they can be designed to challenge them.

She is co-author, with Paul Wake, of 'Curious Games: Game Making, Hacking and Jamming as Critical Practice' (Behavioral Sciences, 2025), which develops the methodology of game hacking and jamming as a form of critical-creative research. She is also co-editor, with Paul Wake, ofMaterial Game Studies: A Philosophy of Analogue Play (Bloomsbury, 2022). Together, they design games under the guise of Frank and Alex Games. Happy Shoppers is their most recent collaboration.