Despite the months of silence, Hide and Seek hasn't been inactive — just very well hidden. The payoff comes in the form of the Sandpit. Offline, the Sandpit is a series of monthly playing and playtesting meetings near London Bridge, at Shunt, launching next week on Wednesday the 13th. Online, it's home to discussion and blog posts about games and London on most weekdays, and new essays or rulesets at least once a week (try the rules for The Gossip Game or Texas Hold Me, or an essay on duelling as a four-player pervasive game).
Come along to Shunt! Write a ruleset and send it to us! Subscribe to a livejournal feed of the Sandpit content at ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/syndicated.gif) thesandpit! Join our facebook group! If you want to!
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The pervasive gaming opportunities are coming thick and fast. This one's for designers - if you enjoyed being a player and fancy turning your hand to game creation, then read on.
TURN AMSTERDAM INTO A PLAYGROUND IN THE SECOND ANNUAL COME OUT & PLAY FESTIVAL, SEPTEMBER 22-23
THE MISSION
The Come Out & Play Festival seeks to provide a forum for new types of public games and play. We want to bring together a public eager to rediscover the world around them through play with designers interested in producing innovative new games and experiences.
Oh yeah, and we want to have city-size fun.
ABOUT THE FESTIVAL
The festival offers a chance to explore new styles of games and play. Last year the festival featured games from the creators of I Love Bees, PacManhattan, The Go Game, Conqwest, Big Urban Game and more. From massive multi-player scavenger hunts to public play performances, the festival gives players and the public the chance to take part in a variety of different games. We are extremely excited to announce that Come Out & Play will be landing in Amsterdam, Netherlands this September for a two day festival. In collaboration with the Waag Society and the PICNIC Cross Media Week Festival, Come Out & Play will be running a two-day mini-festival in Amsterdam this September.
Come rediscover the city around you through play.
The Come Out & Play Festival 2007 will take place September 22-23, 2007 in Amsterdam. Games will occur throughout the day in locations around the city. The full festival schedule will be made available in August.
For more information visit:
www.comeoutandplay.org
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Tassos Stevens, creator of 2 pervasive games from the Hide & Seek festival, has an exciting invitation for readers of this blog. Here it is....
I am working with Coney at the NT Studio for a week
from 4-8 June to develop an idea based on an existing
story. We’d rather not tell you what our source-text
is now so as not to spoil any exciting surprises. But
the working title for the project is A Small Town
Anywhere. What we can tell you is that there are no
performers, only a playing audience. And we would love
it if you could come down to the NT Studio for playing
slots throughout our week.
Think of it as an experiment to play a game that tells
a story. One of the games we’ve been scratching
towards this slot is based on the party game Mafia
(http://tinyurl.com/eccbf) so if you’ve ever enjoyed
playing that we’re sure you’ll enjoy this. You’re not
forced to ‘perform’, all we ask is that you are open
to playing as much as you want to.
Our playing slots will be Tuesday to Friday lunchtime
(c. 12.45) and late afternoon (c. 4.15), for a maximum
duration of one hour apart from the slots on the
Friday which may run to 90 minutes. You’re welcome to
come and play more than once, although in that case
we’d ask if one of those times could be a
lunchtime/earlier in the week when we’re more likely
to be trying out individual components rather than the
whole.
We’d love to hear about your experience of playing
afterwards too.
It’s free to come and play. Hopefully there’ll be tea
and biscuits. If you’re interested in coming, then
please contact the smalltowncrier@googlemail.com
The NT Studio is on a site 2 minutes walk from Oval
Tube. The smalltowncrier will send you a map.
A Small Town Anywhere by Coney developing at the
National Theatre Studio, after initial play-testing at
BAC, the Shunt Lounge and Hide + Seek. Coney are
supported artists at BAC.
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We're in the Guardian! I can die now.
The lovely people at the Guardian Theatre blog have put up a piece this morning about Hide and Seek - and have invited comments on what pervasive games are like. At the moment there is one piece of snark and a polite response. If you've got a moment please post with some intense descriptions of just how great pervasive gaming is; generate a little controversy, get all St. Crispin's day 'those who did not Journey to the end of the Night will rue that they were not there'. sort of thing.
http://blogs.guardian.co.uk/theatre/2007/05/games_on_the_southbank.html
Any assistance hugely appreciated
the assistants
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| 2007-05-14 16:09 |
| Phew |
| Public |
| bed |
 exhausted |
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The hide and seek festival has ended. It was truly incredible. The Assistants are catching up on some sleep and getting their heads together, but we will post more soon.
In the mean time, please join and post photos up to our Flickr group: hideandseekfest2007; and / or email your digital memories to mr_reelings_assistant@gideonreeling.co.uk.
A huge thank you to everyone who volunteered, played, designed, lugged cushions, raced around London, plastered big smiles over their faces.
Big love,
the assistants
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It is now the George Tavern, 373 Whitechapel Road, Stepney. See next post for more details.
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The Party Location is no longer Secret AND HAS CHANGED!
It is:
The George Tavern, 373 Commercial Road, Stepney.
http://www.beerintheevening.com/cgi-bin/map_link.cgi?id=7387&type=10
http://myspace.com/thegeorgetavern
IMPORTANT NOTICE - you will not be able to come to the party unless you bring a hat. Mr Reeling's hat collection is renowned, but is currently on loan to the Scuola Millinaria in Rome, so you will need to bring your own in order to play Hat Scrabble. And everyone looks nice in a hat.
We'll be there from 8pm to quench our thirsts after a hard day's spying, gossiping, and getting-to-the-church-on-time. Everybody's favourite interactive nonsense facilitators Lost and Found (www.myspace.com/lgetostandfound) are going to be running games including Hat Scrabble, Lightrope Skipping, and Limbo, and we are going to resurrect the best children's party game ever. Yes. It's The Chocolate Game. Did it ever have a more interesting name than that? Answers to mr_reelings_assistant@gideonreeling.co.uk. We will also be introducing Mr Reeling's sometime drinking partner Mr Johnny Southside on the ones and twos (www.myspace.com/johnny_southside).
The Chocolate Game
For 6 - 12 players
Rules
Players gather in a circle while The Birdie Song is playing on the tape deck. Players take it in turns to roll a large fluffy die. If a player rolls a six they must put on a hat, scarf and gloves. Once suitably attired they can eat as much chocolate* as they possibly can with a knife and fork until another player rolls a six. Crying, puking and running off with bits of chocolate you managed to break off but not actually stuff into your greedy moosh are all acceptable tactics.
*may be replaced with booze on the night
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Jane McGonigal, the creator of Cruel 2 B Kind (playing Sunday 2pm) has posted up an excellent video about Cruel 2 B Kind. Watch it at http://avantgame.blogspot.com/2007/04/c2bk-video-is-here-watch-game-now.html. This game is a must - sign your team up now!
Why not have a nose around her other posts while you're there - Jane is the resident game designer for The Institute for the Future & is wonderfully eloquent & inspiring on what it means to create and play. Incidentally, that is surely the best job title EVER.
We're still tweaking the website and changing some of the game descriptions - if you notice anything up there we ought to change, please let us know at mr_reelings_assistant@gideonreeling.co.uk. We even don't mind having our grammar corrected.
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Hello and welcome to the Hide and Seek blog. Hopefully you've found your way here from our website (www.gideonreeling.co.uk/hideandseekfest) in search of more stuff on the topic of pervasive games.
Two things for now:
1. No-one can agree on what these things are called. Some alternatives that have been proposed:
Social Games
Awkward Games
Big Games
Persuasive Games
Urban Games
Augmented Reality Games
Games
Which is interesting; I think it shows that this is such a new field, nobody can agree on a title. Also that the people who make these games love words and take them seriously. Come and play a game and tell us what you think they are called...
2. http://sf0.org/journey/index.php?p=sf&u=robertish
There's no better way to get inside what makes a pervasive game tick than to read the account of a player. In this case, that account comes in both written and comic book formats. Play this game on Friday night. It will change the way you see your city.
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This is the official blog page for Hide and Seek - updates and info will be posted here!
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giddy
chipper