Less of a formal review and more of a series of observations that I noted down whilst playing the game.

I should start by saying we had a really great time playing this and it made the trip across from London worthwhile. The game is fun, witty and works well in exploring an unfamiliar city with unfamiliar people.

The name is excellent, it drew it to us immediately and when we saw a chap standing around with a shirt, tie, umbrella and suspicious looking briefcase we knew where we had to go. It feels like you are playing the game before it has even begun and certainly beat being shepherded with a loud-hailer.

However, when we spoke to him initially he noted that the previous days game had not gone that well and he hoped for a better result today, certainly more people were playing etc. It was candid and in that environment acceptable to talk in this way but it did leave us feeling a bit underwhelmed, especially as we had paid money to play the game. It would have added to the game, as well as not making us feel like we had a mistake in choosing it, if he had responded in character to our questions e.g. “all operatives are fine and living under assumed names” or “sorry that information is classified”. The player is especially vulnerable at the start of a game, the description in the programme is vague and it would be good to make them feel comfortable, again because they have paid to play.

The game starts with an explanation that 7 people are required to take a suitcase which contains a team name and a location marked on a map where they must set up base. A two metre circle was to be drawn in that location (chalk provided) and the briefcase to be stored within. The seven leave before the rest of the group who are then randomly assigned to teams and must locate the base to start the game proper.

You are also issued with water pistols to take down rivals. When a player is 'shot' they must count to 100 before joining the game again.

An excellent touch here was that I had arrived with a friend but had been chosen to be a team captain. He explained that if friends wanted to play together (which they do) then they could receive their team briefing but decide to join the friends team anyway, regardless of what team they were actually meant to be on. The captain therefore does not know if he can trust his friend or not. This was an excellent way to include friends joining each other without breaking the games fiction, indeed the not knowing added to the tension.

The ultimate goal for each team is to capture the other teams briefcases, but what stops this from being a simple capture the flag variant is that each member of the team also has his own instructions that they do not make known to the other players. Mine, for example, told me to befriend the captain of a neighbouring base, steal his team and his briefcase before relocating my own base to avoid reprisal. On the surface you are working together but there is an underlying mistrust as you yourself know you are not being entirely truthful so therefore what are other peoples hidden agendas?

This mistrust combined with playing in a real environment is what gives the game its edge. After I had completed my hidden objectives I was left guarding our single suitcase. It's a game played with strangers so you start to suspect everyone who comes near you, as you have no idea who is playing the game and who is just a member of the public. I had a lot of fun standing in a circle of chalk with a single briefcase waving my water pistol at people and telling them to 'move along'.

Due to the size of the city and the location of the other bases the game is very spread out. Somebody has to guard the suitcase (one assumes) which means that a player can be left alone for a long time with no idea what is happening and no real way to get back into the game.

This is one of the games biggest failings. The intentionally fuzzy rule-set invariably leads to players who do not get a good experience because they don't know what to do, their team does not exist or people aren't playing correctly. Of course it can also provoke amusing scenarios such as:

 

'my boyfriend is on the other team but wants to join ours'

'Does he have a suitcase?'

'No'

'Tell him no'

 

I certainly felt that my experience of guarding the base would have been made better if I was with someone. Perhaps being forced to operate as teams of two could help keep players from becoming lost and losing focus. Providing a little more structure and clarity would help make sure that all games are good games but have enough freedom to become excellent games by allowing for situations such as the one described above.

Once everyone has shown their true colours (we were double/triple crossed ) the game heads towards a final showdown as teams and newly made alliances take their suitcases to the final rendezvous. In our game a team were already camping in the location, water pistols drawn and ready to take down anyone with a suitcase.

The lack of clarity meant the finale turned into a water pistol fight with no one really sticking to the 100 second rule (what are you meant to do, just stand there?) and no one really knowing who was on who's side. Which is all very amusing in theory but having played a game with a clear objective for one and a half hours it would be good to have some sense of how you did and a feeling of comradeship with whatever team you managed to survive with. It also needed an endgame briefing similar to the opening of the game to give the players a better sense of closure, people just drifted away.

All of that being said the overall feeling of running around a city completing objectives, being forced to interact with strangers, having a time pressure and a loose narrative to take part in made for a very compelling experience that I would love to play again.

 

Ross Phillips

www.rossphillips.me

Sitting Ducks deservedly won the audience award at igFest 2011. Its a game in the most playful sense of the word, with rules so simple they take moments to explain (leaving plenty of time to delve into how the specially bred racing ducks came to have arrived in Millenium Square thanks to years of drug addled training by the the aristocratic Von Quack family). 

 

I joined this game on the spur of the moment and very glad I did.

Igfest 2011 was a great day and a good example of the communities that form around gaming getting together to develop the social event to celebrate their shared passion. Feeding off their shared experiences and geeky appreciation of video gaming the organisers catered to everybody’s tastes with games ranging from the impenetrably complex to the fantastically simple but participants threw themselves in with gusto. The best group game that gathered a very vocal crowd was Arcade Anarchy, which had simple rules, famous characters from gaming history and a good degree of running, shouting and getting wet! The event successfully took gaming out of the living room and into the streets which attracted some very interesting reactions from passers-by. Some bustling through dismissively while other stopped to shout and cheers asking questions and seeing a new side to the stereotypical video gamer.

By: Tom Atkinson

While I was disappointed that Taunt failed to draw enough participants to go ahead (the idea of shouting insults at random strangers sounded strangely cathartic) Arcade Anarchy was absolutely brilliant fun. The setup worked perfectly, with people confined to a short and narrow stretch of street, with a pub on either side (the location definitely got my vote for that). The game pitched teams (of 4 people each) against each other. Each person took it in turns to grab a giant flat Tetris block shape and dash from one end to the street to another at breakneck speed (with the game’s supervisor/person in charge “Safety Susan” ensuring that nobody actually broke their neck). Once at the other end, the players had to fit their block into the assigned square space before dashing back so the next team member could repeat the process. Just to make things interesting, however, the path to the other end of the street was full of classic videogame characters keen on stopping or slowing down the players. Mario, Space Invaders, Donkey Kong (armed with water balloons) and Pacman all ganged up on the frantic Tetris carriers. Who says gaming doesn’t burn calories?

Igfest was my first experience of such a festival, and one aspect I was not expecting at such a level is the use of scenography by game designers. Even though this theming is not essential to the games per se (they could be played the same without it), it deeply transforms the experience of play. Mania Mania was my vote for best use of spectacle, because the experience has little to do with thumb wrestling even though it lies at its center. But the benefits of scenography extend even beyond the game experience : it opens a space for acting out. I can see other people, and myself acting silly, not caring about outsiders gaze, and even enjoying being the center of attention. As a group, there is a sense of community and soidarity emerging from such a collective assumed sillyness, resulting in a stronger and longer lasting bonds between players. As an exemple, on Sunday, I got called 'The Wrestler' for the rest of the day by co-players of Cowgirls Cowhunt...

Josselin Perrus

Self described as a spy game of purposely inadequate rules, International Espionage tackles an interesting challenge : blurring the rules in a game type in which they usually know clearly what they are supposed to achieved and how. The intended result, I suppose, is to have players negociate / take advantage of the fuzzy ruleset. The rule system has many of these "holes" where this negociation could be happening. But maybe are there actually too many of them making the whole experience confusing. This is made even more obvious by the fact that the playing field is not limited (explicitly through the rules or implicitly through the goals), players ending up spread accross the city, whereas negociation is conditional on the existence of a "market place", i.e. a physical space where players can meet, and actually negociate what is possible / what they are supposed to achieve. So I find the intent of the game very worthy but am left a bit frustrated. It might gain from focusing on blurring only one rule. A reference I guess for this kind of games is Sixteen Tons from ·Eric Zimmerman : only one aspect of the game system is unclear : where the money comes from and what to do with it by the end of the game...
 
Josselin Perrus

2.8 Hours Later : SlingShot

 2.8 Hours Later  calls itself a city wide Zombie Chase game. That hardly begins to get it. In reality 2.8 Hours Later  is a finely calibrated adrenalin manipulation machine. Only seconds out of the starting blocks hissing, snarling Zombies will try and attack you. And no matter who you are the ‘fight or flight’ hormone kicks in. From a standing start, and many moons since your last sprint, you will find yourself flying through the streets trying to escape infection in the first five minutes. From then on the familiar city streets become a ghost train of fear. Every phone box, hoarding and shop window a potential zombie hiding place; the streets of the city will never feel the same again. Within minutes our team had organised itself, fanning out and scouting military style. People I had never met became my co dependents in a survival mission that transported me back to being 8 years old and losing whole days playing war in the woods with my mates. The basic game mechanic is British Bulldog inside a treasure hunt inside a Zombie movie;  teams orienteer themselves across the city finding check points to pick up the clues they need to avoid the Zombie plague and connect with the Resistance. The nearer you approach the hideouts if the Resistance the more Zombies you find. The checkpoints are beautifully performed and usually gory tableaux where actors have to be interrogated to extract the necessary clue; we found our way to churches, chapels, basements and bunkers in nearly three hours of intense and exhausting game time. Producers SlingShot had persuaded Bristol’s Galleries Shopping Mall to open up in the evening as a game location. Looking for medicine and a contact called Lisa provided exhilaration and excitement that surpassed all my expectations as I literally flew down an escalator cackling with pleasure and fear combined. And you will learn things about yourself you didn’t want to know, the depths of your cowardice will be plumbed. You will discover that strength in numbers just means somebody weaker than you will get picked off first. You will be astounded at how obedient humans become when exhausted and confused. And, maybe, you will experience some bravery, invention, and altruism you had forgotten yourself capable of. More than a game and more than a theme park ride 2.8 Hours Later shows the way ahead for experience design in urban spaces. Fear meets sociality could turn out to be the killer app for the post Playstation people. You heard it here first.

 Jon D

Spin Your Partner 

 

Hard to imagine how anyone would, or could, make ceilidh dancing even more embarrasingly complicated but this game succeeds. And its fun.

Spin Your Partner  is unique - a dance game that you can win by trading. (Don't worry, your dance skills are irrelevant, no dance mats and insane carpet hopping to dismal R&B) I can't even begin to explain the rules. But the basic activity requires a modicum of energetic leaping to some lovely (live) traditional music, dosey do-ing, arms linking and grab your partnering. Easy enough  you'd think but igFest punters found it a surprising challenge to all move through a dance circle in the same direction. On virtually every round I encountered bemused gamers, let out into the wild, hands flapping, trying to work out left from right in the swirl of the dance. At strategic breath catching pause points we trade with the partners who've landed opposite, our object is to attain four coloured ribbons, one point for each complete set. The initial distribution of colours is a matter of market manipulation and random price fixing.  My top game tip is to make sure you trade as many colours as possible as often as possible ! Don't hand around at the start, get in there fast and hard. Any partners with the same colour sets as you have to be wallflowered - avoided at all costs. There's a crazed intermission involving evil Morris Dancers in game of gang tag that can also increase your ribbon stock plus some delicious square dance meets Merchant of Venice treasure box peeping for more colours. A thoroughly entertaining forty five minutes. But as I walked away I was left wondering about the sanity of designers who could gamify square dancing ? Only at igFest. A kind of genius.