Welcome to the hottest new game on the market, “Chute just got Real!” This is not your run of the mill chutes and ladders game kids. This is a game where you get to create a BRAND NEW BODY but no you don’t get to choose what the body looks like, ya just get what ya get.

The first step of the game is to place all player game pieces in the middle of the board on square #57.

To start the game the first player rolls the dice. Then that player will move their game piece whatever number of spaces the dice landed on. However the player gets to decide on which direction (up, down, right, left, diagonal) they would like to go.

If a player lands on a chute or a ladder the player must take a chute or ladder card (whichever one they land on). For example if player 1 lands on a ladder then they must take a ladder card which will give them a somatechnic body part, the same goes for if a player lands on a chute spot. The player MUST take the card.

There is no winning in this game, but in order to end the game all the cards must be taken by the given players. Each player will continue to roll the dice and land on different spots until all the cards are taken. It does not matter who has the most cards or the least amount of cards, everyone is equal in the end. There is no winner and there is no loser.

There is also not many rules to the game either, however the rules that must be obliged are the following:

1. In the end the amount of cards collected is the amount of cards you have. You cannot do take backsy’s or trade amongst the players (Tip: you can however play the game again).
2. When landing on a chute or ladder spot a card corresponding to that spot must be taken. However all feelings associated with that somatechnic card are valid and should be expressed.
3. Play the game and have fun! (Tip: telling stories about how your body was altered and your life journey with your body at the end of the game has been proven to increase joy 3x while playing the game than if you don’t).

You know the saying “Life is just like a game” well this game sure is! So let’s get into what this game REALLY means…

Straight narratives label individuals based on what they observe outwardly. Bodies are forced into submission by doing what society has enforced as “appropriate” behavior. Preciado’s struggle with identity and research into the world of bio-possibility takes us into the reality of lived truth vs ascribed roles. Preciado’s experiment with chemicals to feel masculine speaks to the denial of lived truth making chemicals the only avenue to feel masculine.

In addition to somatechnics, this game interrogates the idea of normality and normalization in everyday life. Straight somatechnics are often seen as natural or taken for granted, while people whose lives work outside of them are more aware of how they influence bodies and society. As Carter writes in The Search For Norma, “being one of the normal people means being defined by reference to what you already are and so slides easily into the (empirically inaccurate) conviction that one’s own position is simply natural and devoid of political meaning” (22). By inviting straight people to play this game, we hope to open up a conversation about the “always already” nature of somatechnics: the roles that they can play in our lives, and the way that their status as straight or normal allows them to slip under the radar, while queer somatechnics are flashy, overt, and outside the norm.

Notably, our game, Chute Just Got Real!, does not have a specific goal oriented end of the game. This was intentional. In a board game that has a specific goal/end point in mind, the way the game is played becomes a means to an end. The end becomes a main focus of the activity. While there is not necessarily something wrong with such games, the human experience is rarely so linear. Something that we have learned (or unlearned, if you will) in class, is that there is always room for things to be done differently than the norm and there is a lot to be learned by thinking about things in a different way. This sort of thinking is a main part of what is driving our version of Chutes and Ladders. The game we created is more about the journey and creating a story than having a set goal from the beginning. We don’t always end up where we planned, and this game is no different. The way the players move around the board is not linear, and as the players compile different types of somatechnics they become a character with not just one type of bodily expression. In our culture, it’s hard not to participate in certain ways of modifying our bodies, as many somatechnics are very deeply normalized. This amalgam final character shows how varied and different the outcomes of our somatechnic practices can be. And lastly, the game is more about fun than competition for success — a queering of the way day to day life is usually expected to be.