A hat of prompts gave Arlo Howard 30 games in 30 days
Play-pril, a daily making ritual from the interactive theatre maker, became a workshop at The Big Thing in Llandudno on Sept. 10.
Arlo Howard led a workshop on Play-pril at The Big Thing in Llandudno, Wales, on Sept. 10, 2026. It was called Taking Pressure off Process with Play.
Play-pril is a month-long game-making challenge. Each day in April, Howard draws a prompt from a hat and makes a game from it. Some prompts are Howard's own. Friends and other designers add the rest.
This year's prompts included a game that leaves marks on the skin, a game with house plants, a game without materials and a game with worms. Day 20 asked for a game for 100 or more players. Howard posted all 30 in May.
The workshop walked through that process, then had participants design a low-pressure practice of their own. Musicians play scales and visual artists keep sketchbooks. Howard's question is what game makers do instead.
Howard makes interactive theatre and games, and worked on The Burnt City with Punchdrunk. Killscreen wrote about Punchdrunk's experiments with games in 2012. The Big Thing is Immersive Arts' annual gathering. It ran Sept. 9 to 11.
All 30 prompts from Play-pril 2026, and the card for the workshop at The Big Thing. Images: Arlo Howard, via Instagram
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