Revisiting Missed Connections: Play, Time Travel, and Urban Encounters - Christian Scott Martone Dondé

Note on use of AI: While the ideas and content are my own, AI played a supporting role in refining the language and organizing this article’s structure for better readability.

“Your professor has told me about you. I am building a time machine. Would you like to join the project?”

That’s how my uncharted journey into games, social connection, and urban space began. This article explores the development of x-ode, an experimental online game inspired by Craigslist’s Missed Connections—a game that acts as a "time machine," allowing players to engage with past moments of serendipitous urban encounters. It was created during my MITACS internship, supervised by Prof. Rilla Khaled (TAG’s coordinator at the time) at Concordia University, in collaboration with Urbanoid, a Montreal-based company run by CEO Pascal Maeder.

Drawing from game studies, urban sociology, and participatory design, this piece examines how play activates memory, fosters social connection, and challenges our understanding of place, space, and time in the city. It also reflectively charts my experience supporting the development of the game x-ode during the early 2020s.

Play, Urban Experience, and Digital Media

Play has long been a way to reclaim public space and resist the structuredness of modern and contemporary urban life—from the psychogeographer's dérives to flash mobs to tactical (playful) urbanism. Today, digital play extends these traditions, turning the city itself into a ludic space with invisible layers of potential play(fulness). In other words, urban games counterbalance the efficiency-driven ethos of Smart Cities by prioritizing human experience (and fun!) over data, predictability, and efficiency.

During my internship supporting the development of x-ode, my role was to bridge the gap between the technical team and the player experience. i met with a diverse range of people, hosted dozens of interviews, and went on even more dozens of walks around Montreal—reinterpreting urban space through the lens of play. My job was to translate the data gathered and others’ perspectives into features and game mechanics for x-ode.

Missed Connections

Craigslist’s Missed Connections, particularly popular in the pre-social media era, captured fleeting urban encounters in poetic ways. A typical Montreal post from the 2000s might read:

"Tuesday morning, 80 bus going south on Parc. Me: red dress and black leather boots; you: plaid shirt and Arcade Fire pin. Our eyes briefly met and we smiled. I was too shy to ask for your number, but would love to meet up for coffee."

x-ode, the game we developed, builds on this nostalgia. Instead of simply reading these posts, players create and interact with them. x-ode is a map-based platform where users toggle between different timelines and leave messages tied to specific locations and moments in time. A player could, for example, revisit a 1980s version of a Montreal street corner or leave a message set in March 2035.

Games as Tools for Connection and Reflection

As part of my internship, i was tasked with creating a literature review on urban games to better understand the possible impacts of a game like x-ode. Research on game studies and urban play highlights how play strengthens social bonds and shapes a sense of place. Jane McGonigal (2012) sees alternate reality games as tools for civic engagement, while Fischer and Hornecker (2017) argue that casual play helps people rediscover their surroundings. Kars Alfrink (2014) suggests that playful urban design fosters expression and community dialogue.

x-ode builds on these theories by serving as a digital platform where location- and time-sensitive posts act as conversational prompts. Even if face-to-face meetings never happen, the game's public and private messaging features create a space for digital connection, transforming missed encounters into possibilities for interaction.

By incorporating time travel mechanics, x-ode operates not just in space but in time. Players can rewrite history from diverse perspectives—say, Indigenous and/or queer—opening new possibilities for the construction of urban narratives; a sort of poetics of place. As Martin Rieser (2012) notes, even simple digital interventions can empower people and create new embedded histories. Or act as a tool of resistance and exposure, for example, by making visible patterns of gentrification, mobility, and public-private boundaries through its geolocated stories.

Testing the Prototype

Once the initial prototype was ready, i conducted user tests with colleagues at Concordia and friends worldwide. In addition to get some posts created and the ball rolling in several global cities, we wanted to take a look at how players from different cultures would use the game—it was all speculation, but would culture, language, etc affect x-ode’s particular gameplay? Or, alternatively, would x-ode’s particular interface, messaging, or features create barriers to a particular set of users?

The player’s feedback ranged from expected insights to surprising new interpretations—my favorite: x-ode could be used to communicate with non-human societies in the future. (?) (!) 

This testing phase helped refine the game’s design, ensuring that it resonated across different cultural and urban contexts. Some more meetings were had with the technical team, always bouncing ideas and creatively approaching issues or speculative takes on the game’s interface, mechanics, or overall messaging. A few weeks later the game was live, ready to be played online. 

Rewriting the City Through Play

X-ode exemplifies how digital games can serve as poetic interventions in the urban space-time fabric, offering new ways of experiencing the city and creating social connections. 

The game reminds us that cities are not just places we navigate but stories we continually rewrite (and co-write!)—a palimpsest of experiences, shaped by movement, memory, and interaction. Every street, every missed connection holds the potential for new encounters, new narratives, and new ways of seeing. In an era of fragmented urban life, perhaps our challenge is to play more.

References:

Alfrink, Kars. "The gameful city." The gameful world: Approaches, issues, applications (2014): 527-560.

Fischer, Patrick Tobias, and Eva Hornecker. "Creating Shared Encounters Through Fixed and Movable Interfaces." Playable Cities. Springer, Singapore, 2017. 163-185.

McGonigal, Jane. Reality Is Broken: Why Games Make Us Better and How They Can Change the World. Vintage, 2012.

Rieser, Martin. "Locative voices and cities in crisis." Studies in Documentary Film 6.2 (2012): 175-188.

Other recommended reads:

de Certeau, Michel. The Practice of Everyday Life. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1984.

Schouten, Ben, et al. "Games as strong concepts for city-making." Playable Cities. Springer, Singapore, 2017. 23-45.

Stevens, Quentin. The ludic city: exploring the potential of public spaces. Routledge, 2007.