Test Case (Playmakers 01)

Test Case (Playmakers 01)
Designer:	Alex Fleetwood & Holly Gramazio
Year:	unknown
Players:	30 - 45 (3 teams of 10 - 15 people)
Stuff required:	3 tripods, three basic Flip-type camcorders, 3 screens + linking cables, 3 flipcharts, marker pens
Crew required:	Four. One game leader and three scorers
Preparation:	Two hours.
Time required:	20 minutes playing + 20 minutes watching / scoring
Place required:	Any public space. A space with multiple levels & pedestrian access is ideal, eg Barbican, South Bank
Activities:	Sneaking, filming.
This is a tested game. It's been tested in real life, but needs a bit more polishing before it's fully playable.
This game is made available under an Attribution-Noncommercial Creative Commons licence. (What does this mean?)

A team game of stealth and surveillance. Work as a unit to maneuver your HFD* around the playspace, capturing targets and shooting the opposition - but watch out for your opposing teams: if they film your HFD, that's a very bad thing...

*Humongous Filming Device

Instructions for Players

You will be placed in a team. Your team has a colour. Affix a ribbon of the appropriate colour around your head in a visible manner. Gather around your HFD, which is the same bright colour.

Your team will be given a handout with a map of the gamespaces selection of objects found within it.

At the start of the game, all players start recording on their HFD simultaneously. You will record continuously throughout the game.

You have to film as many of the objects as possible, If you get all of the objects, you will get EXCITING BONUS POINTS. You will also need to try to film members of the opposing teams, and - most particularly - their HFD, without letting them film you in return...

The game lasts 20 minutes. You must be back at base by the end of the game - we will deduct points for lateness, and anything you film after the end of the game will not count for points.

Once you have returned to base, you are safe: your opponents can not film you, and you can’t film them.

The videos that you shot are then played simultaneously on three screens. The videos are scored in real time - please stick around to watch the split-screen recording of the game you played! Thanks.

Scoring

• 5 points for filming each of the game objects (you must film each object for at least three seconds)
• 25 bonus points if you film every game object

• 1 point per second that you film members of opposing teams
• 3 points per second that you film an opposing HFD

(These points are not cumulative - you don’t get extra points for having three film members on screen, or a film member and the HFD)

Instructions for the Gamerunner

Recce the gamespace well ahead of the day you're going to run the game, and take a lot of still photos of things that you think it would be interesting for players to have to film. Lay the best out on one side of A4, with the instructions and the map on the other.

Secure permission from whoever is in charge to have teams of 10-15 people moving around with tripods in tow - and brief your teams to be as quiet and respectful of the space as they need to be. Clearly there is more scope for charging and yelling in a big public park than there is in an arts centre.

The briefing / scoring area should be as quiet and enclosed as possible, ideally away from the public spaces of the game (a private room would be ideal).

Your three volunteers for scoring should ideally have played the game before, so recruit some veterans or playtest the game with them on the day. They should stand by the relevant screen, with a flipchart and marker pens. Their decision is final re:scoring.

If you can, have someone with video editing software on hand - there's no time like the present to get those videos spilt screened and uploaded to Vimeo.

Play history

This game ran as Test Case at Sandpit #9 in the Barbican, and as Shrine at Sandpit #10 outside the ICA.