just in teractive : Big Game

Students in the Interactive Media Division, the newest part of the USC School of Cinema-Television, designed the game as a part of a class: CTIN 534 - Experiments in Interactivity I. During the semester, students played and analyzed many types of games. Professors Bernie DeKoven and Tracy Fullerton mandated a final project for the class: the creation of a "massively multiplayer" game that takes place on campus.

Large-scale games involving relative strangers are as old as tag and capture the flag. While the Interactive Media Division has a noticeable video gaming bent, students have a chance to study pre-digital gaming, and design entertainment that uses more of your body than just your fingers.

Getting fourteen people to agree on any one project was a major undertaking; proposals included a giant maze to be navigated blindfolded with help from cheerleaders in McCarthy Quad. Or a game of croquet to be played with battering rams and human-sized balls. Early playtests included chalking portraits of David Hasselhoff around campus, inviting students to take a picture with the stenciled head and post them online.

Students learned that getting busy people to participate in a public game can be challenging. How can you make something exciting, inviting - easy to try, and rewarding to play over time?

Large-scale gaming is inviting, the students agreed - giant playing pieces are both visible and tantalizing. They drew inspiration from Frank Lantz's "Big Urban Game" in Minneapolis, where citizens of Minneapolis/St. Paul were invited to move one of three 25-foot-tall inflatable game pieces across the city.

Giant-sized playing cards offered a mix of the exotic and familiar. Everyone recognizes the two of clubs, or the Ace of diamonds; but to see them four feet by three feet, walking across campus? Students debated whether to make up new games, new cards, new rules. While they had some fun exploring different possibilities, students decided that the simplicity of a deck of 52 cards would be inviting, while the giant scale should be suitably mindblowing and thoroughly challenging.

The cards are designed to be so large that no one person could expect to carry more than one or two. For a full game of poker, you'd need three or four other people to help you manage a hand, and keep it hidden!

Come join the games: Founder’s Park (between THH and ASC and VKC), Wednesday, 30 November 2005, Noon-3pm.