Hi everybody! Hope you have some great plans for the weekend. Just a quick bulletin, we couldn’t let this slip: the Red Bull Soap Box Derby is tomorrow, Sat 21 May, in downtown LA. Have a great time, but be safe!
Two great game events happening this weekend:
First, I am sooooo excited for Saturday’s Different Area Same Hunt! Who else is playing? I missed the last 2 years, but I brushed up on the games. I think my weaknesses are spatial puzzles and logic games. If it’s word scrambles, I’ve got it down, and I’ve pretty much learned how to recognize Braille, Morse, and semaphore games. And I just learned the Pigpen Cipher this morning, so I think our team will do pretty well. Plus, we’ve got NPL All Star T McKay playing with us, so the day will be fun no matter how our team fares.
Then on Sunday, it’s the LA Crossword Puzzle tournament. I will not fare well, but I do enjoy the competitive spirit and the wonderful people who organize and participate in the event.
I defy anyone to have a nerdier, or more fun, weekend than I have planned.
I’ve watched a ton of videos like this lately, due to the recent GDC and SXSW and people posting their videos, but this is the best one I’ve seen. This talk from Six To Start’s Adrian Hon describes the promise and the potential of ARGs, what they’ve accomplished, where the game designers have sabotaged themselves, and, best of all, suggests fixes for the future. Greg and I have some big ambitions and listening to this talk has really helped refine my ideas about what we might accomplish in downtown LA in the next year or so. Enjoy this talk, and please post comments.
It is not by the wish of the proprietors that the treasure hunt has now reached its close. This has been entirely due to the fact that in certain quarters enthusiastic seekers for medallions have not followed or heeded our repeated and urgent warnings against causing annoyance or doing damage.
In many circumstances, labeling something as the location of a vast, buried fortune would spark a great flurry of attention. This was certainly the case with Sutter’s Mill in the California Gold Rush, but not the case with Jack Pendarvis’s book, which was intended as humor and achieved admirably as such. This book is hilarious and you should read it.
Though I don’t expect this blog’s traffic to skyrocket as a result of this subject heading, that’s some relief if the pandemonium in 1904 London is any suggestion of the chaos that can result from hiding treasure in the earth. Read this post on what was touted at the time as “The Greatest Treasure Hunt on Record.” That was before “Midnight Madness,” of course.
I don’t have much experience planning games with extravagant prizes, with the exception of the Holiday Shopping Trek currently underway, but this story concludes with the puppet masters electing to scotch the whole project because it was too big a pain. Quitters!
Play along to win tickets to our game on Saturday!
Today I cold called Barnes and Nobel on 3rd St to see if they want a promotional game to tie in with the new Dan Brown book coming out in Sept. They passed, so I wrote to Diesel books in Brentwood to see if they’d like to.
I also wrote to Peter Yates of the USC Student Council to try to get him to make a pitch for us at his weekend retreat in Vegas. I sent him information. We need to get The Go Game off our brochure. Let’s see if they’re into it.
Katie is interested in a game for the board’s summer retreat. So exciting! I sent this email:
Hi Katie! So I’m going to try to give an idea of what your players would experience. Mere words are a poor substitute, but I’ll do my best.
At a designated time, players meet in front of the library where your game masters (Greg and myself) split you up into teams and hand out the gear in sweet little secret agent briefcases (Deal or No Deal Style). Inside are the wireless web cell phones that we transform into MAGIC WANDS that unlock the SECRETS OF THE GAME TERRAIN. We also give you cameras, scratch paper, a Wise Guys CLUE CLOCK (patent pending) and anything else you need to play the game. Teams consist of 3-8 players, whatever your preference (I recommend teams of 4-6).
We give you a debrief in which we explain the rules of the game:
- this is a game with not one winning team, but three: the fastest, highest scoring, and funniest teams are all declared the winner (plus a little love for the last-place team, or as we call them “the team that tried the hardest”)
- there are 12 clue locations in the game zone. At each one you receive a “Watch Word” that you enter into the Clue Clock. First team to get all 12 and cross the finish line with a complete, correct Clue Clock wins for Speed… but that’s not the only way to win!
- each of the 12 locations features a challenge of some kind that your team can engage or skip
- every time you find a clue location, you’ll be given a choice of 2 destinations, usually one closer and one farther. Your team decides where to go next at every stage: no teams have the same game experience, and you’re always in control
- when time is up, come back to the finish line for the Scoring Ceremony
What kind of challenges do you encounter? Here are some examples:
“Theater in the Round”
At Theater of Note, find the fake headshot on the wall of actors (see attached). How many of the round things can you identify?
“Double Feature”
At the ArcLight, complete this camera challenge: create a 30 second video of your team doing a mash-up of two famous movies. Gene Kelly dances in the foreground while Godzilla destroys Tokyo on the background, eg
“Are you happy to see me?”
Ask everybody in Big Wang’s if they have a banana in their pocket. One of them is an actor who actually does.
The game is played on foot, and showcases other notable S&V locations such as Amoeba Records, Piano Bar, Ink Candy, and more.
Along the way, we give teams hints, bonuses, and extra challenges so there’s a wide variety of ways to enjoy the game. Keep your eyes peeled for our mascot, Clocky, who is in the game zone waiting for you to play with him!
At game’s end, teams arrive at the end location where the best camera challenges are displayed to all on the big screen and teams vote on who had the funniest ones. Your game masters keep the crowd in stitches by heckling the teams’ efforts.
Players enjoy drinks or refreshments while the scores are tallied, and we end with the presentation of the Meaningless Trophy.
The whole thing lasts about 4 hours from start to finish. Your team will have so much fun, they won’t even notice how effortlessly they work together, listening, collaborating, and solving their way through our challenging course. Some teams like to end with a debrief, facilitated by your game masters, in which we break down what worked and what didn’t, and what the game can teach us about the spirit of teamwork.
I hope this gives you a clearer picture of what we do; let me know if you have specific questions I can answer. I can’t give you any hints though, that wouldn’t be fair.
Thanks very much.
Your favorite game master,
Myles
I should be sure to re-read this post when things aren’t going well. You never know when suddenly everything’s going to come your way!
All in one day! Nothing special about today, no reason things should be so fruitful, but there it is. Sensational!
Spoke to her, we’ll have lunch later this month. She’s going to nominate us for the next event, around this time next year (they start planning in the summer). Plus there’s an MPI event in Sept we could crash.
