Cruel 2 B Kind

Joystiq's got a round-up of the games happening at NYC's Come Out And Play festie. Jane McG (she of I Love Bees and many other ARGs) has come up with a wonderful concept: benevolent assassination.

You (and a partner) are given a Target, to hunt down and assassinate - with a sweet gesture:

Your secret weapon is the act of kindness you perform on suspected targets. Example: Praise your targets' shoes. If you perform this weapon on the correct target, they will surrender. If you perform this weapon on other players who are not your target, they will say "You are too kind." If you perform this weapon on non-targets… well, we have no idea what might happen!

Think it's simple? Well, it's not:

Targets
You will have no idea who your target is.

• You will not be given a name or photograph of your target.
• You will only know that they will be outdoors, in the public spaces of the game area, for the entire duration of the game.

Looks like lots of people in a certain area of New York City are going to get a hell of a lot of public compliments from strangers this weekend.

What a delight!

Comments

[Brinstar]

This was really similar to one of the ideas put out by people at one of the sessions at the Game Developers Conference last March. The attendees and panelists broke into three groups. Each group was led by an academic and a game designer. And each was required to come up with some sort of game concept that incorporated the wants and needs of both academics and game designers.

[Jane McG]

I wanted to add that Ian Bogost, who developed all of the software for the game, has built a kick-ass system that allows anyone to run the game anywhere, anytime. You don't need us to run a Cruel 2 B Kind game-- just submit a form with a date, time, and location, and we'll set up a game for you. All you have to do is send players to the registration page we create for you, and the game runs itself... you can even play the game you set up!

P.S. Brinstar-- that's so funny... I actually designed the concept for this game live at the GDC 2006 speaker's party, there must have been something benevolent in the San Jose water that spring! :)