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Re:Activism rule set

RE:ACTIVISM 1.0 & 1.5 – BIG GAME ENGINE

What is Re:Activism?
Re:Activism is a big-urban-game that revisits locations of historic protests and teaches game participants and developers about activist events and related social causes. In order to progress through the game, the participants raise awareness of protest events by creating present day interventions and public interactions. Teams of game-players race from location to location to complete challenges and use activist tactics to increase their score. The teams also used mobile phones to send and receive text messages as they progress through the game and complete challenges.

How do you play?
Follow this guide in order to set up Re:Activism in your city. There are 2 phases of the game: the research/set-up and the actual play. In order to play you must first research historical sites of protest, compile the information in a Google map, and figure out good challenges and keys. There is also the option of setting up the and use the downloadable mobile phone scoring application (Grand Central) to play the game. The game can be played without, but it suggested that it be used. Facilitating the play of the game is far more difficult without the application, but it can be done. After all of that is complete, the game is ready to be played.

What are the Rules?
•    Goal: goal of the game is to accumulate points by completing challenges at each of the protest sites selected for the game.

•    Sites: Teams do not have to visit all of the sites on the map nor do they have to do all of the challenges. It is up to the team to strategize the most successful plan, and choose the order they visit the sites in. Teams can always return to a site.

•    Keys: When teams arrive at a site, they must answer the “Key” question associated with that site. The teams must text-message the answer to the key question to Protest Central. If the team is correct they will be told which envelope to open and earn 300 points. In the envelope the will find the challenges associated with the site.

•    Challenges: The challenges are of varying degrees of difficulty and will earn teams different amounts of points. Easy - 100 points, medium - 200, and hard - 300.

•    Once a team completes a challenge, they must notify Protest Central by text message. It is important that they document the challenge with photos, video, or whatever else is required by the challenge instructions. At the end of the game the documentation will be checked for proof that the team completed the challenges. If they do not have proof they will not earn points from the challenge.

•    Envelopes: Teams cannot open an envelope until Protest Central confirms that they have answered the key correctly. If a team returns with envelopes open that were not authorized they will be docked 500 points for each envelope.

•    Ending: At the end of the game all of the teams should meet back at a central location at the end of the allotted time. Teams should be docked 100 points for every 5 minutes that they are late.

•    Attire: Each team member should wear their team bandana through out the game.


I. RESEARCH
Research at least 10 sites of protest, activism, or riots that have occurred throughout history in your city. The game play will be focused on the historical content that is researched before the game, so choosing protests and issues that occurred at interesting sites, and could lead to interesting challenges is crucial. Here are some suggestions for choosing historical protests, issues, and sites…

• Protest Issues - the issues that one researches for the game should follow the following criteria:
  • Different periods of time: Issues or protests that occurred in a number of different time periods and centuries from 200 years ago until present day make for interesting gameplay.
  • Cover different protest topics: Protests have occurred throughout time for many different reasons, including war, civil rights, workers rights, food prices, Immigration, etc… diversify the topics covered.
  • Present-day relevance: The topics or protests that have relevance to present-day topics or lead to site-specific tie-ins can make for intriguing interactions in public space.

• Sites - the sites to use for the game should adhere to the following criteria:
  • Accessible: They should be accessible by foot or bike.
    
  • Photographable: Make sure the sites can be photographed for research and challenges if need be.
  • Grouped vs. dispersed: It is more fun for game players if sites can be grouped geographically, so multiple sites can be encountered while in certain areas of the city. This would be in contrast to sites that are more isolated and would taking longer to travel between.
  • Site and Protest Information: for each site and protest topic collect the following information.

Title: i.e. New York Food Riots, Stonewall Riots
Date: August 2, 1912 or just the year
Location: i.e. Address/Intersection
History: 2-3 paragraphs on the story of the protest, what happened, and the cause.
Issue: i.e. Antiwar
Historical Pic: Scan or download a historical image of the event for reference.

II. GOOGLE MAPS
Use Google maps and documents to organize and compile your research. Google Docs is a good tool to use when creating a game with a  number of people because it provides a central repository for the information that everyone can access. Google Maps is also useful for printing out maps for use in the game play.

How start a Google Doc:

1. Go to docs.google.com
2. If you don’t have a Google account click on the “Get Started” and follow the instructions. If you do, proceed to the next step.
   
3. Click “New” and select “Spreadsheet”
4. Start entering your research into the spreadsheet
   • Use each row as an event/site
   • Use each column as a section: Title, Date, Address, History, etc…

Sharing the doc. Once the spreadsheet has been initially set-up you can invite other team members to the doc so they can add their information.

1. Click on the tab in the upper right hand corner labeled “Share”
2. Make sure the button for “as collaborators” is selected
   
3. Add the email addresses of the people you wish to invite in the space provided and click “Invite Collaborators”
4. The invitation that will be sent to the invited people then appears. You can add a message to the collaborator or just click “Send Invitation”
5. Each of the people you added/invited will receive an email that directs them to the Google doc you created.
   

Adding a map:

1. Highlight a row in the spread sheet and right-click on one of the cells. In the pop-up menu click “Insert Gadget” and select “Map”
2. In the upper-right hand corner click the arrow and click “Add Gadget to new sheet…”
3. Click “Apply” and place you’re a marker on the map that corresponds to this row’s site.

III. GAME DEVELOPMENT
Now, that you’ve done your research, its time to put together the game components. If you haven’t done so already, you will need to visit each of the proposed sites to complete the next steps.

• Keys: Choose at least three keys, or mini challenges. The key is a question that needs to be answered by the player to confirm that they have visited a site. With this in mind it is important to choose a key that doesn’t have a common answer or an answer that can easily be looked up on the internet (more and more phones have internet capability.) A good example of a key question is “What is the 3rd word on the plaque in front of the statue in the center of the park?” The player would then find the statue and text the third word to the administrator/Grand Central. If the answer is correct the team will earn points and the correct challenge, or the envelope that contains the challenges, will be revealed. The answer to the key shouldn’t be difficult to find at the site and should be easy to text. While plaques are a good example, anything specific to the site can be used.

• Challenges: The challenges are activities that players perform at a site for additional points. Ideally there should be three challenges for every site and a varying level of difficulty should be required to complete each (easy, medium, hard.) The challenges should also have some relevance to the historical significance of the site, either using the historical knowledge or recreating events that may have happened at the site. The challenges are a great way to have players interact with the general public at the site as well. Either incorporating people in the challenge or simply interviewing them on the subject are both good ways to engage them.
  

When creating the challenges it’s ok to adapt the same challenge to different sites, but it is preferred to have a diverse collection of creative challenges for each site. Often a good source for ideas is the research that was done in the prior steps. The idea behind the challenges is to evoke some aspect of the site history in a site-specific activity that will help the player better understand the importance of the site.

Some challenges may be enhanced by incorporating found objects at the site or by providing materials to complete them. Some commonly used supplies are chalk, poster board, and markers, but really anything can be used as long as it’s not too cumbersome to carry around through out the game.

Another important aspect of the challenges is the documentation of their completion. Each team should be equipped with a camera or camera phone to take pictures of the challenges they perform for proof of completion after the game is over. If possible equipping each team with a camera or phone that takes short video is also great for documentation, but not always necessary. 

Things to consider when choosing challenges:

• Varying levels of difficulty, easy, medium, hard
• Varying activities at each site:
  
  • Interviewing pedestrians in the area about the event or issue
  • Writing something related to the topic in chalk on the ground
  • Creating an impromptu sign that references the protest event
• Incorporate materials or found objects
  
• Documenting the current site with photo or video

IV. GRAND CENTRAL
Grand Central is an application that was created specifically for Re:Activism. It will help the administrators log and respond to the incoming text messages from the players, as well as issuing team updates and scores during play. The set-up will require…

Though we highly suggest you use Grand Central with Re:Activism, it is possible to play without it. The text messages can be tracked and responded to manually, but it is difficult. The lag time in manual response also hinders the play of the game quite a bit.

Scoring

Phone Setup
Each team needs a phone to communicate with the administrator. The phone only needs to have SMS capabilities, but if it can take photos and/or video it’s a plus. Before playing the game each of the teams’ phones must be registered into Grand Central. This is done…


V. KITS
Putting together a kit for each team prior to play is essential. Some of the items you include in the kit will depend on the specific challenges that you have created, for example, chalk, markers, etc. but some are essential. Here is a list of items each team needs to play:

• map of sites (ideally created from the Google map made previously)
• list of the keys (don’t include the answers)
• sealed envelopes with the challenges and history brief for each site
• team identifier (colored bandanas work great for this, but really anything will do)
• rule sheet .pdf
• bag to carry supplies

VI. PLAY-TESTING
With the prep finished, it is time to test how the game play will go. This is commonly called “play-testing” because that is exactly what you are going to do, test the game by playing it. It is ideal to find people who haven’t helped create the game be your test players, but if you have trouble finding volunteers, testing with the game creators can still be productive. Play-testing is important because it will help you discover any fatal flaws in the game and it is the best way to reveal unforeseen issues before launching the game. Think of it as the Beta version of a software application.

Some of the things you want to take note of while play-testing your version of Re:Activism are:

• How long does it take to play the entire game?
• Is the spacing between the sites appropriate?
• Are the keys found easily?
• Are the challenges possible and diverse?
• What is the publics response to the game players?
• And most importantly, is it FUN?

From the game testing you should be able to better determine where a good a starting and finishing spot should be, as well as a length of time for the game play. You may discover that you have too many sites to make the game a reasonable length and have to remove some or you may discover that some of the challenges need to be tweaked in some way. You can play-test the game as many times as you want and at any stage of the development. It’s not essential to have all of the elements of the game in place and finished to play-test. In fact it is ideal to test it frequently through out the development process because it will help you discover problems sooner and address them before they become too deeply ingrained in the game. Play-testing will help you create a better, more refined and fun game in the end.



VII. GAME TIME
After you have made the necessary revisions from play-testing your game, it’s time to play. Assemble the kits and enter the player information into Grand Central as described previously. It is good to get all the teams together and go over the rules and supplies before officially starting. At the end of the game the players need to show their documentation from the challenges to prove their completion. It can be a great experience for everyone involved in the game to have a slide show of each teams documentation after the game, but not essential.