Bucket Hunt

Team PEN15

Genre:
Board Game Communication Method: Computer Item: Bucket

Game Overview:
Essentially the aim of Bucket Hunt is just that: hunt for a bucket. A bucket will be hidden somewhere around the RMIT University city campus. The players play a board game on a computer (made in Macromedia Flash) to get clues and hopefully figure out the location of the bucket.

Aim:
The aim of the game is to test players in their problem solving skills as well as their teamwork and co-ordination skills.

Number of Players:
The game is played by 3 teams of 5-7 people working on separate computers, with separate flash board games.

Physical Location:
The game is played within the RMIT University city campus but it can be adaptable to any other location if the game master changes the clues.

Special Paraphernalia:
Teams will need access to computers that will have the Flash games working on them. Headphones are also supplied for each team to use to listen to the clues.

Goals:

• The goals of the game are:
• Teams choosing someone as their Listener (if they want)
• Teams would be working out the clues.
• Piecing all the clues together
• Working out the location of the bucket.

How Players Achieve the Goals:

• Players will achieve the goals by hitting the [ROLL DICE] button in the Flash game.
• This would then activate an audio clip depending on which square the player lands on.
• One member of the team listens to the audio clip and conveys it to the rest of the team.
• Once the player icon has landed on a square the team has 7.5 minutes to work out the clue and hunt for the bucket.
• The more clues you work out the more likely the team will find the location of the bucket.
• If the team does not return within the 7.5 minute time limit, they incur a 1 minute penalty until they can roll again.
• If the team has no idea about the location of the bucket, or returns within the 7.5 minutes, they must still wait until the 7.5 minute finding period is up.
• If they hit the [BACK] button before the 7.5 minutes is up they can avoid the 1 minute penalty.
• If the player hits [BACK] button they will start from square 1 again and work their way around the board once again, hopefully landing on different clues to increase their chances of finding the bucket.
• These steps are repeated until one of the teams is able to piece enough clues together to find the bucket.

Rules:

• There are 3 teams
• Each team has 5-7 players - Each team sits at a separate computer
• Each computer has the Flash Board Game running on it
• All team members must (re)enter the room before the dice can be rolled
• The players cannot look for the bucket until they land on the bucket square
• The Flash game is programmed to land on the bucket square once every round, e.g. If the player is on square 18 and then rolls a 4, they will still be moved to the bucket square rather than square 2.

I tag you tag me: a folksonomy of Internet Art

I tag you tag me: a folksonomy of Internet Art (http://del.icio.us/I_tag_you_tag_me) is an ongoing colaboratively curated show/social experiment on folksonomy creation created bt Luis Silva.

Social bookmarking allows for users to easily store lists of resources (websites, for instance) and have them available to the public, allowing people with the same interests (or not) to share and have easy acess to relevant information on a specific subject. But the most important feature of social bookmarking lies in the categorization of these resources by the users themselves. Tagging is the word that comes to mind. Tagging consists basicly in the possibility these social bookmarking services have of allowing the users not only to bookmark something, but to informally assign tags (relevant keywords) to it, thus creating meta-data about the tagged resources in a collective way, rather than individually, something that can be seen as a second layer of meaning, but determined by the users rather than the original producer of the content. This is what is called folksonomy, a user-generated taxonomy used to retrieve and categorize web content.

The departure idea for this project is thinking of tagging as curating. If tagging creates meta-data about pre-existing content, it can be seen as the creation of a discourse about it. And if that content happens to be an online artwork, tagging both allows for a subjective juxtaposition of art works and the elaboration of a critical discourse about it. Curating then. But this isn’t new. This is regular curating done in a schematic way, using a different tool to get the job done. But since tagging is a social activity in its essence, giving birth to folksonomies, it allows for social curating, with social selection of works and social production of discourse about them. This is what this project intends to be. Rather than traditionally curating a show through tagging the projects with the name of the show, we will be asking people to tag some of their favourite Internet art pieces with a few defined tags and some that they can choose freely. The idea is that this device will then create a folksonomic net art exhibition done collectively by a group of people. It can be seen as a social experiment, aiming at finding out what will that second layer of meaning be like, or if it will work at all. A challenge then. I tag you tag me, or a random folksonomy of Internet art. Let the tagging begin.

Luis Silva would like to ask you to add content to the show. We're using a del.icio.us account, so log on to http://del.icio.us/ . the username is I_tag_you_tag_me and the password is ole166. And then tag as many net art pieces as you like, assigning them with tags you find useful or relevant in any way. I have already tagged a few works. You can use the same tagging system I did, or instead, you can use something different, meaningful to you. The choice is really up to you. You can add content or organize it as you consider best.
If a work you want to tag is already tagged, assign it with other tags so it reflects what you wanted in the first place.

Hope you have fun helping to create this ever evolving, ever changing, unfinished, unfinishable project.

$5000 MONA Horse Bazaar Prize

MONA (mona.net.au) is offering world’s richest prize for the production of panoramic content

The Mona Horse Bazaar Prize for panoramic content is an open digital art prize for the production of screen-based content that best uses Horse Bazaar’s unique panoramic projection system. The screens are custom-built for the environment and extend for nearly 20 metres around the bar. Casting aside the traditional 4:3 screen format, visual artists are asked to produce digital content at an 8:1 ratio. The Mona Horse Bazaar Prize aims to cultivate the appreciation and production of panoramic virtual décor. This is an acquisitional competition; winning pieces will become a part of the MONA art collection.

Entries Close Friday 13th July 2007

For more information visit horsebazaar.com.au/hbprize
Or contact justin@horsebazaar.com.au

Location-based Games Assignment

This was a team-based assignment which required Media Cultures II students to devise a game taking into account 3 parameters -- inclusion of an object, game genre and communications technology. These were assigned randomly based on lists generated in class.

The following posts are the documents that each team produced for their games. Some teams also produced websites, wikipedia entries and/or flickr sites of their games.

All games were tested by other teams who individually provided written assessments. These can be found in the 'comments' section of each post. Most games had 'games-masters' who oversaw the testing and wrote assessments of their team's game too. These are usually included as the first responses.

Super Paper Tennis

Team :: Smarties

The challenge:
To create a game with the elements ‘Chair’, ‘Paper’ and ‘Tennis’ combined with a location based activity.

The solution:
A team oriented game that should take no less than 15minutes to play, perfect for a short break and stretch out. It’s divided into two segments and it’s geared for ‘office dwellers’ and ‘lab rats’ and other workers sitting at a desk.

Segment 1:
is a fast one minute round of ‘Paper Tennis’ as two teams compete. The court is divided by a double row of office chairs, the idea that this game can be brought up at any boring computer lab to lighten the mood and hopefully cure stiff backs. With one team on each side they each have fifty paper balls starting off.

The objective:
To get as many paper balls as possible on the opponent’s side when the 1 minute game ends, a game master will deal with the timing. The team with the least balls on their respective ground at the end of the match wins.

Segment 2:
After a fast paced and shirt warming segment 1 the second segment calms the pace down so the lab workers may stretch out by doing a location based activity. The winning
team picks a random ball; on each ball a number is written. The loosing team now has to push the winning team on office chairs forming a snake to the end of the outer hallway, take the elevator down to the level which share the same number as the ball. Then they push them back the hallway stretch and take an elevator back to their original floor (or something corresponding to your workspace). The idea here is that each time someone plays this game, the random ball picking and corresponding floor will be different in most matches so after a short and funny workout, the workers go on a small trip exploring a different floor of their ever changing working environment with the losers pushing the winners around on office chairs.

How to set up the game at RMIT computer labs:
Special paraphernalia:
100 sheets of recycled paper from the VISY Box in computer lab 37.
One timer or stop watch.
A roll of coloured tape.
A few Lab Chairs.
Preparation:
Roll the sheets into tight balls. Mark them with a number between 5 and 10.
Number of players:
Equal numbers on each side. Over ten players total will be pushing it.
Physical location:
Hallway outside computer labs. Some throwing length is needed.
Instructions:
Make two rows with the chairs basically closing the two teams from each other. The seats should be facing the players. Tape the ground between the two rows of chairs with coloured tape to further distinguish the borders. Place half the balls on each side. The Games Master should try to stand out of the way, if one team has one less team member the GS should step in and assist during the game to equal the numbers out. There is only one round and it lasts one minute.

After both game segments are done (see top) there’s a small RMIT twist to this game that the winners receive a prize when they are safely back at the computer labs. Everyone including the losers receive a piece of candy to regain their strength.

Did you know that:
Tennis can be traced as far back as the ancient Greek game of sphairistike (Greek: Σφαιριστική), and is mentioned in literature as far back as the middle ages in The Second Shepherds’ Play, in which shepherds gave three gifts, including a tennis ball, to the newborn Christ. Sir Gawain, a knight of King Arthur’s round table, plays tennis with a group of giants in The Turke and Gowin. Another mention came in the late 16th century, when William Shakespeare mentions “tennis balles” in his play Henry V, when a basket of them is given to King Henry as a mockery of his youth and playfulTennis