Intimacy Press Kit
Factsheet
Designer:
Aubrey Isaacman
Based in Santa Cruz, California
Artist:
Terence Tolman
Based in Seattle, Washington
Writer/Editor:
Saf Davidson
Based in Auckland, New Zealand
Release Date:
August 2nd, 2018
Platforms:
thegamecrafter
Website:
Social:
https://twitter.com/intimacy_game
Articles:
Description
Intimacy is an innovative card game of playable consent and touch, and was released on thegamecrafter and itch.io on August 2nd, 2018!
Intimacy is a card game inspired by ars amandi, a technique used in Norris LARP to help players represent the physical and emotional intimacy between their characters. While playing Intimacy, players will practice consent through touch and discuss what intimacy means to them. Players will do this by choosing their partners, drawing Touch cards, and drawing Question cards, while practicing consent through each step of play.
Aubrey Isaacman designed Intimacy so players could have a safe way of practicing physical and emotional intimacy. She wanted to provide a game for players who wanted to bond through a game, as well as a game for people like her autistic brother who could use the game to learn and practice social skills.
Aubrey designed Intimacy during her BA in Art + Design: Games + Playable Media at UCSC. It earned the Arts Dean's Funds for Excellence, which allowed her to travel to Byron Bay, NSW in Australia, to show and playtest Intimacy at the Heartbeat Symposium and Game Jam by Blushbox.
Aubrey met Saf Davidson at Heartbeat, and reconnected with Terence Tolman at the Game Developers Conference (GDC) 2018. They both joined the Intimacy team, and have contributed to the game significantly; they’ve brought the quality of the game to a whole new level!
You can get your own copy of Intimacy at thegamecrafter.
Images
Quotes
Developers
I wanted to see more games that encourage loving interactions; something that could help people get to know each other better and appreciate one another, so I decided to make it myself."
Santa Cruz, California
Intimacy was the first game to encourage me to embrace vulnerability with other people not just in-game, but in day-to-day life too."
Auckland, New Zealand
Reviews
Intimacy made me think, more so than any other game I've written about. It made me hold my hangups to the light; made me consider how often we take boundaries for granted; When was the last time you asked someone during a game 'Are you comfortable continuing to play?'"
Calvin Wong (reviewer)
Intimacy is a new card game in which players touch one another with their hands and discuss their feelings about physical connections./Created by Aubrey Isaacman, it’s designed to promote physical consent as well as closeness."
Colin Campbell (reviewer)
Intimacy gave me this unique feeling of having a close connection to someone new. In each moment Intimacy directed our focus on a certain motion, sentence or feeling, leaving a lasting sense of connection and calm, well after I'd finished playing :)"
Katie Stegs (player)
Melbourne, Victoria, Australia
Sponsors
Art Deans Fund for Excellence
University of California, Santa Cruz
Porter College Undergraduate Fund
University of California, Santa Cruz
Shoutouts
Blushbox Collective
a group of game developers from around Australia who have banded together in the name of exploring and promoting love and sexuality in video games
Heartbeat Symposium and Game Jam
Blushbox CLTV
Campus Advocacy Resources & Education
University of California, Santa Cruz
Student Health Outreach & Promotion
University of California, Santa Cruz