This isn't just another corporate finger-fest turning you on to new games with all the same old dead-eyed faces. Instead, the third annual UCLA Game Arts Festival re-examines the interplay between people as much as between man and machine. More than 35 play-ready games will unfold across the Hammer's courtyard, and a returning highlight from last year will be the UCLA Game Lab Arcade Backpack: a playable video game strapped to the back of a roving, human arcade man-machine. Some other games: Perfect Woman, designed by Lea Schoenfelder and Peter Lu, which runs a woman through the obstacles of lifelong peer and societal pressures; Laser Cabinet, designed by Khalil Klouche, which transforms a dull, wooden surface into a slightly more exciting wooden surface using triggers both LED and OCD; and Ulak Tartysh, an extortionately scarce 1983 arcade game that simulates the Central Asian sport of buzkashi, for which you play polo with the carcass of a headless goat — something you'll need a few more of those refreshments before tackling, loving the pixels even as you become increasingly pixilated. Hammer Museum, 10899 Wilshire Blvd.; Wstwd.; Wed., May 8, 7 p.m.; free. (310) 443-7000, hammer.ucla.edu.

Wed., May 8, 7 p.m., 2013

Advertising disclosure: We may receive compensation for some of the links in our stories. Thank you for supporting LA Weekly and our advertisers.