FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:
USC CNTV - Interactive Media Division Students Plan:

gBig Gameh

in Founderfs Park
Wednesday, 30 November 2005
Noon-3pm

USC - November 29, 2005 - Big Game is coming to the University of  
Southern California!  Playing cards that are inappropriately big have  
been sighted around Founder's Park - there are signs that this  
Wednesday afternoon there will be some kind of wild public play.

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fs Park (between THH and ASC and VKC),  
Wednesday, 30 November 2005, Noon-3pm.