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This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 2.0 UK: England & Wales License. For more information on the film, see the previous posts on this site.

Over the last 50 years play has become an increasingly private activity. Now it is bursting back onto our streets. playmakers explores the emerging area of pervasive games it examines the implications of reclaiming play into the public domain and shows the possibilities offered by new technologies.

Playmakers investigates four main themes:

Part 1: Play

Why is play important and what does it mean to us now?

This section of the film asks some questions about what play is for and looks at some of the principles of pervasive game design.   We are introduced to the ambitions of Alex Fleetwood and Holly Gramazio for their new game and ask questions about why this sort of play is needed.

Part 2: Public space

‘The idea that the streets aren’t yours is a really horrible feeling’

The film takes a look at ways in which games can help us take ownership of public space and change the rules with which we operate in the city.  It features a game of capture the flag, played in the busy streets around Brick Lane in London. It explores the tensions of tyring to ‘change the operating system’ of public space.

Part 3: Technology

How do we play with technology?

Technology is increasingly used for play. The film explores how computer games are becoming more social,  Paulina Bozek describes the process of designing ’social games’ for major games consoles and we are taken on a geocaching hunt through London.

Part 4: Theatre/art:

‘‘The traditional theatre is a very stultifying experience’

The idea of sitting back and watching a performance being the only way of experiencing theatre is being challenged by new wave of theatre practitioners who are exploring ways of giving the audience more agency.  We talk with Duncan Speakman who introduces us to his audio piece ‘my world is empty without you’ and to Matt Adams of Blast Theory who discusses the history and future of theatre.

Contributors:
Alex Fleetwood   -  pervasive game designer

Holly Gramazio  -  pervasive game designer

Michael Wesch  -  Assistant Professor of Cultural Anthropology, Kansas State University

Thomas Brock & Jack Case  – Game Organisers

Howard Rheingold – Lecturer on Virtual Communities , University College Berkeley

Clare Reddington  – Director, Pervasive Media studio

Simon Johnson & Simon Evans  – pervasive game designers, Simon Games

Dr Quentin Stevens – Senior Lecturer in Urban Design , University College London

Matt Adams – games designer and artist, Blast Theory

Paulina Bozek – Development Director, Atari London

Duncan Speakman – Artist

Credits:

Filmed and directed by:
Ivo Gormley

Assistant Producer
and editor:
Matan Rochlitz

Music Composed by Daniel Harle

Additional camera and edit assistant:
Dave Green

Additional Camera:
Matan Rochlitz
Dave Green
Amy Rose
Naor Elimelech

Additional footage, stills and audio from:
Hide&Seek
‘UNC Flash Mob Rave in Davis, 2009′ The Daily Tar Heel
Pong, Atari Incorporated 1972
Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare, Activision 2007
Rock Band, MTV Games and Electronic Arts 2008
The Nearest Tube app, AcrossAir
Twittearth, Digitas

L’arrivée d’un train à La Ciotat‘,  Auguste and Louis Lumière, 1895

‘Uncle Roy All Around You’ by Blast Theory, 2003

‘Southwark Fair’ William Hogarth, 1733
‘Interior View of the Music Hall’ Boston, Author Unknown
‘My World is Empty Without You’ Duncan Speakman

With thanks to:
The Hub, Kingscross
The Southbank Centre
Institute for Contemporary Arts
The Barbican Centre
St Monica’s RC School
Roland Harwood
Rohan Gunatillake
Dave’s mum
Pete Law
Ian Drysdale
Chas Stredder
Soho Theatre
The Bricklayers Arms, Putney
The Tornadoes FC
Daniel Davis-James
Association for Learning Technology
Peter Rattenbury-Neate
Hide&Seek
Pete Law

produced by
thinkpublic

In association with
NESTA

Here’s a quick summary of the game:

Scoop! is a game for 3 teams of 15 players. It takes about 90 minutes to play. Each team is a rival tv news crew. The Red Team are radical lefties. The Blue Team are staunch conservatives. The Yellow Team are tabloid muck-rakers. Each team has a digital camera, a bag of props & costumes, a mobile phone, two walkie-talkies, and a tip-sheet, and an impossible deadline…

The game begins with the presentation of the rules and the tip-sheet – a list of stories that the teams will have to cover. There are two importnat principles to absorb: If you can’t make the news, fake the news – it’s a cut-throat rolling 24-hr news environment. The story must be got at any cost, even if you have to make it up. Shoddy working practices make great news stories – if you can film your opponents doing anything, that’s a bonus for you and a penalty for them.

In addition to the stories on the tipsheet, there are two politicians (one Red, one Blue) out there giving speeches and kissing babies; capture them on camera for bonus points!

Once the teams are ready, they start recording on their cameras simultaneously. There are two rounds of filming. After each round, teams return to base and watch the films they have just shot in a live 3-screen presentation, during which their news reports are scored.

The complete rulesheet for the teams can be downloaded in pdf format here

For us, this is the result of a design process that was longer and more collaborative than that of our usual productions; a process that has led to a game with far greater depth and ambition. For players and participants, Scoop! should be a very different kind of pervasive game experience, with a shift in our approach to the relationship between narrative and spectacle.

Over the past days and weeks, we’ve been working hard – crafting props, working on scoring mechanisms, shooting video, casting performers … and now we’re ready & raring to go!

Over the weekend, we’re scheduled for two runs of Scoop! – The first run is on Saturday, between 2.00pm and 3.30pm. The second, final run will be on Sunday, from 4.00pm to 5.30pm.

For those of us behind the scenes, Playmakers has been an exciting, challenging, and – most importantly – highly entertaining project. So thanks to all of you who’ve participated & contributed, and we hope to see as many of you as possible this weekend!