Interview was conducted via email because Alex was in Sidney shooting a film

• Whats your first impression of the idea?

Audio guided urban games are a great concept. One of the great frustrations about travelling in foreign cities is the constant sensation that if only you knew a local, you would be getting a much richer experience than the one available from your guidebook. I think from your description that this is something that a large group of people play at once – so that they can finish at the same time. From the perspective of getting travellers and locals to collectively participate in an event, generating social contact, this is great – but I’m confused as to how you square this with something that can be downloaded from a website. The event is time specific but an online travel guide should be usable by anyone at any time…

• Have you ever used sound in this way, ie. to giving instructions to the player?

It’s a common tool. I’ve used it in chase games, where players have to answer a ringing phone to get instructions as their next location, or by iTrips (portable radio transmitters) where players are hearing one end of a conversation at one location and need to match it up with the other half of a conversation (being broadcast in a different location on another iTrip), or by telephoning a hotline, etc. I’ve often thought that irreverent museum guides downloaded to your iPod would be a really fun thing. There was an interesting game in Come Out and Play 06 where players went on an audio tour of Baghdad at locations across New York. It mashed up the audio of Bagdhad with the visual of NY to notable effect.

• Do you have a process or methodology when you design urban games/experiences?

We’re evolving one… Traditional principles of games design all still apply. http://mitpress.mit.edu/catalog/item/default.asp?ttype=2&tid=10659. Other questions that we tend to ask are: How do we control this game in a public environment? Can we make the game self-policing? In what ways will players interact with the public, and how can we make these interactions positive? What is the narrative of our game? How do players’ expectations (paranoia, enthusiasm, imagination) affect their game experience? How much is the narrative of the game pre-set? What are the outcomes of the game? How can players record their experiences?

It’s best to keep the barriers to entry as low as possible. Requiring players to download something and arrive at a specific time with it loaded on to headphones is already quite a substantial undertaking.

Successful urban games evolve naturally out of simple rulesets, transforming players’ urban experience as they go. Narrative helps players project beyond their usual understanding of the use of a public space. These thoughts are all quite random… Apologies I don’t really have time to think this through properly…

• We want the players to interact with each other without feeling uneasy. In your experience what’s the best way to achieve this?

Feeling uneasy can be a really good part of playing an urban game – nerves, uncertainty are big adrenaline drivers and heighten experience. For example in Cruel 2 B Kind (www.cruelgame.com) when you don’t know whether the people you’re about to compliment are players or not. However what I think you mean is how do you ensure positive interactions. Make the things you ask people to do to be positive – again, in C2BK, you are paying strangers compliments, so even if you do try to assassinate a complete stranger, they are unlikely to mind! Your conflict to a megadeth soundtrack – a gun fight – has the potential to be quite aggressive. You might want to reinterpret it in a way that takes the potential for the wrong kind of conflict out of the game.

I’d also be concerned about running a game on London transport that takes ‘passenger rebellion’ as it’s theme. That’s quite a sensitive location and a sensitive topic. Remember that you are enabling a group of playful strangers to project a narrative into a public space… Officials and security personnel find this very challenging and could easily seize upon that narrative as an excuse to give you hassle.

• Our biggest limitation is the fact that players cant talk to eachother because they have earphones on. How can we get the players to collaborate without the use of language?

text message? taking the headphones off for a sec? Playtest the game and the solution will become clear.

• Any other comments?

It’s hard to offer more constructive criticism without more information to hand. If you want players and constructive advice I suggest you email mr_reelings_assistant@gideonreeling.co.uk and ask if anyone from Hide & Seek can come down and play. They’re playtesting some games for come out and play Amsterdam next weekend & you should get involved!

Thank you very much for lending us hand with this. None of us have had any previous experience with this so we are all running blind at the moment.

everyone working in the field is running blind… that is what makes it so exciting.