Iglab ran Fear of Death last night. It was a Killer game, played around Corn St, using twitter to assign targets. We all had moustaches and had to brandish a wooden spoon at our targets for a kill. Simon was experimenting with the idea of not using any bespoke software to enable the game and see if it could all be done with 3rd party platforms, ie Twitter, Twitpic, existing iphone apps, etc. There were 12 players to start with. Two playtests were run, each about half an hour long.
As it was an experiment, and especially as it was using Twitter, things didn’t go perfectly. But it was interesting to observe the way the players dealt with the breakdowns (or lack of start up) in gameplay.
Although the smartphone Twitter apps that everyone was using were very advanced and supported what was needed, there was a lot of clicking around to carry out the checking in and target acquisition, they’re not designed for the tweeting and reading required by the game. At the beginning of the game there was a lot of unfacilitated software/knowledge transfer. I personally downloaded and then used a new Twitter app on my iphone, and a couple of other people did the same.
Even though the game story encourages players to split up and be alone the breakdowns caused a lot of clumping and chatting. Players group together to discuss the game itself, analyse the technology and discuss personal strategies for iphone use.
Most of the conversations I was party to were either suggestions about technology based improvements to the game or the design of bespoke apps/software to support it, the problems with Twitter, or the use of the iphone and its Twitter apps. So a big part of the socialisation was really around 3rd party technology use, not about the gameplay itself.
The game set up with Twitter, picture taking, etc took about 40 minutes at the beginning. Many people had returned to base before both the first and second games had been closed, so there was a big discrepancy between ‘play’ time and ‘non-play’ time. Maybe 3 to 1. Lots of people drifting in and out of the nearby pubs to get drinks and drink them in front of the milk bar. There was still a lot of cohesion through the whole 2 hours that I was there. One or two people left, but mostly people stuck around. All participants were prompt, and were there at the 7pm start time. I didn’t see how it ended and how it all broke up.
Although the discussion did drift a bit, most did come back to or were inspired by the technological framework of the game. It would be worth doing a straw poll at the beginning to work out people’s backgrounds. But of the people there nearly all work in technology related jobs, and I think at least half were programmers. So it is natural for the participants to discuss these subjects.