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Come Out & Play 2006 in New York City
Rat on your classmates and you’ll pass. But first you have to figure out who they are.
Location: Everyhere It’s "Spy Skills 101" except you don’t learn it as much as live it. The entire Come Out & Play festival is your classroom and anyone you meet could be your classmate, eager to rat you out. Solve puzzles to gather bits of intelligence on your classmates. Pass intelligence on to your teammates, if you can figure out who they are. Rendezvous with mysterious operatives in dark corners and give the right countersign - or get an F. You earn your basic grade by passing quizzes and solving puzzles that you access via phone. You earn your advanced grade by receiving information from operatives, passing information to friendly agents and passing disinformation to enemy agents. And you earn extra credit by uncovering facts about your classmates, such as who they are, what they drive, where they live, who their friends are, what their code name is, and so on. And prevent them from learning the same about you! Official Ruleset Welcome to Spy School. Your first course will teach you the basics of espionage: a) get the information but b) don’t be observed doing so. You earn your basic grade by passing quizzes and solving puzzles that you access via phone. You earn your advanced grade by receiving information from operatives, passing information to friendly agents and passing disinformation to enemy agents. And you earn extra credit by uncovering facts about your classmates, such as who they are, what they drive, where they live, who their friends are, what their code name is, etc. (a worksheet will be provided) Spy School begins the moment you sign up. It ends the moment you walk into the classroom on Sunday, to meet your classmates and receive your grade. How you play: a) you’ll call the Spy School number and listen to your quiz. You’ll call another Spy School number to give your answers. There will be four quiz periods: Fri PM, Sat AM, Sat AFT, and FINAL. Quizzes should be answered before the next quiz period begins. Answers will not be taken after 9 am on Sunday. b) Each quiz will include pointers to dead drops or rendezvous - places where you can gather Intelligence. Intelligence are nuggets of information about Spy School students. When you successfully acquire some Intelligence, you call it in to receive credit. Watch out, however - there is also Bad Intelligence - nuggets of disinformation about Spy School students. You get no credit for calling in Bad Intelligence. c) You can pass on Intelligence to another Spy School student. When they call it in, you receive additional points IF they are “on your side” (students are divided into teams). Likewise you receive additional points if you pass Bad Intelligence to the “other side” and it is called in. d) When you signed up, you were given a Surveillance Report to use on your classmates. The SR has spaces to fill in regarding a classmate’s name, appearance, and other facts about them. Fill out SRs on as many classmates as you can, and submit them in the final class to earn Extra Credit. e) There may be pop quizzes. Their nature is undisclosed. Be ready. f) There may be point awards and penalties not disclosed here. Plan accordingly. How you win: Spy School is graded on a curve. Roughly, there will be one A+, one A, one A-, two B+, two B, two B-, three C+, three C, three C-, three D and four F. Oh, and of course: The usual rules apply. Play nice. Be creative. Nothing illegal. No touching the gamemaster’s stuff. Caveat custos. Designers: Ken Eklund Ken Eklund, writerguy - Ken turned a boyhood passion for games into a career. He began consulting as a story/dialogue writer and game designer with Gold Box computer games in 1988, and now has credits on about two dozen published games. His interests in interaction and gameplay led him to direct science mysteries, simulations and other game-based education, and most recently into alternate reality games and other pervasive entertainment. He’s the principal of Writerguy.com (San Jose, California). writerguy(at)writerguy(dot)com |
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