Our Friend The Golem

Bakers and Emperors compete for goods as they pursue their commercial activities. Thieves are lurking around and make affairs more complicated. At the same time the Bakers or the Emperors can get some help: if they are in the possession of the right spell, they may call the Golem their friend. But beware of the duration the spell is effective: players better be far away by the time the spell loses its effect on the Golem...

Equipment

You will need:

• a Golem costume made out of shoe boxes, tape, cable binders and a headlight with different modes (such as green/red)
• Emperors' crowns made of of cardboard and string
• Bakers' hats made out of plastic bowls and string
• 80 Silver Nuggets made out of marbles wrapped in silver tape
• 80 Flour Packs (use packs of baking powder)
• 4 plastic cups
• Thieves' Masks made out of black cloth
• 2 inflatable axes
• battery powered amp, an MP3 player, a sand clock and a simple white headlight

Non-Player Characters

You need at least three non-player characters: the Golem, the Golem's Shadow, and the Doctor. Two helpers to watch the items in the field are also very helpful.

Level Design

Overview of the playing field in the north-east corner of Václavské náměstí, Prague

There are several important points on the playing field: The Emperors' Castle and their Silver Mine, the Bakery and the Mill, the Doctor and the Thieves' Stash. The Golem starts in the center but moves about freely.

Rules

The rulecard for Our Friend The Golem in English and Czech.

• Players are either Baker, Emperor or Thief. The Thieves fraction should be smaller than the other two, Bakers and Emperors should be equal in size, e.g. 6 Thieves on 10 Emperors and 10 Bakers.
• The Thieves faction should be filled first and only with the players that are interested in a physical challenge.
• Bakers collect Flour from the Mill and bring it to the Bakery.
• Emperors collect Silver Nuggets at the Mine and bring them to the Castle.
• Everyone can only carry one item (Flour or Silver) at a time! It's heavy stuff...
• Thieves ambush Emperors and Bakers by touching them and steal their item. The victim is wounded and goes to the doctor.
• For ten items, Emperors and Bakers can buy an axe at the doctor's office. The doctor collects the items until a team has reached ten. With the axe, Emperors and Bakers can defend themselves and their teammates from Thieves. Thieves that get hit by the axe are wounded and must go to the doctor to heal. Thieves can wound players that carry axes.
• Wounded players need to stay with the Doctor for a time to get healed. The Doctor plays healing music through her amp and uses her sand clock to time rounds of healing. When the sand clock runs out of sand players are healed and can leave the Doctor to return to the game.
• Beware of the Golem when he is in a bad mood (you will recognize this by the red light on his head)! He will try to attack everybody in the field. When he touches you, you're wounded and must go to the Doctor to heal. The Golem moves around freely and is assisted by the Golem's Shadow. It is important that the Golem balances out the game by varying between being friendly and between groups to attack.
• Players can befriend the Golem by using a magic spell. To perform it, you get the Golem's attention, kneel down and point to five words that you can read in the environment, while saying them aloud. If the Golem likes your spell (he switches his headlight to green), he will allow you to touch him and you can ask him to help you. As long as you are touching the Golem nobody can hurt you. Naturally the Golem is very strong and can carry up to ten items for you! He will protect you from thieves or even attack other players and send them to the doctor. But watch out, the Golem will only be your friend for a time, and one person cannot charm him twice in a row... When he stops being friendly he will drop everything he carries on the spot where everybody can pick it up.
• After 15 minutes the game ends and the stashes are brought to the Doctor's to count them. The team with the most resources wins the eternal friendship of the Golem and the game.

Flickr gallery

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(These are the ten most recent Flickr photos of Our Friend The Golem. To add your own, just add the "ludocity:game=ourfriendthegolem" tag to your Flickr photos.)

Design and Play history

Our Friend, The Golem was created in 2011 as part of the Narodni Game Set by Invisible Playground, working out of Field Office Prague at 4+4 Days in Motion Festival.

The setting is loosely based on the 1950s Czech film Císaruv pekar - Pekaruv císar

Other games from the Narodni Game Set

• Tetris Smuggling
• Lost Poetry Squad
• The Lucerna Incident

• The complete Národní Game Set