Are you in or near Manchester? Are you interested in pervasive games? If so, chances are you already know about Larkin’ About, a whole day of games running from midday to midnight, using greenroom as a base.
There’ll be a Journey to the End of the Night, plus quite a few games that Sandpit regulars will have encountered before, including another chance to play Nick Howard’s “Buttle”, previously seen only in Liverpool. More information on Larkin’ About’s Facebook group.
Tuesday December 1st, 2009 by Holly in blog | No comments »
One actor, moving in secret from town to town. Clues printed in a daily newspaper, letting people know where he would be. A substantial prize for whoever located him; hundreds and then thousands of readers following his exploits and trying each day to find him. Special trains from Victoria running to the seaside towns where he was due to appear! Fifty thousand people crowding into Richmond Park in a single afternoon, when his predicted route took him through!
The fugitive was “Lobby Ludd”, and his role was to drum up readership for the Westminster Gazette. Many thousands of players hunted him (and the spin-off Mrs Lobby Ludd), for many, many weeks, in surely one of the biggest pervasive games ever. The year was 1927.
The Lobby Ludd phenomenon is something we’ve been vaguely aware of for a while—it’s certainly one of the most remarkable precursors of the pervasive games movement—but I had no idea it was so huge until I stumbled across this astonishingly exhaustive article. Ten pages, complete with a recording of the special Lobby Ludd song, “sold as sheet music through the Gazette’s pages, and scored for a ukulele accompaniment”!
And while we’re boggling at pervasive games of the past, see also this article by the same writer, Paul Slade, on a 1904 Weekly Dispatch treasure-hunt that sent players digging up gardens across the UK—and other similar hunts, including a proto-ARG where the clues were concealed in a detective story!
“Before he could secure his prize, Randall had to narrow down the possible cities to Newcastle and Carlisle, rule out Carlisle by deducing that Tabritz’ foreign pronunciation of the city’s “Citadel” station could be mistaken for “the hotel”, find a district of Newcastle that sounded a bit like “Edward Green” and realise that the serial number Meggs had overheard must be attached to a lamp post. He then had to go to the Newcastle suburb of Jesmond Dene, find post number 6594, work out where the tube was buried in relation to that post, return to the site after midnight and – finally – dig it up.”
Wednesday November 25th, 2009 by Holly in blog | 1 Comment »
Just a quick reminder - there is a Sandpit TONIGHT, Monday the 23rd, at the Southbank Centre. Turn up from 6:30 to pick your games; play begins at 7pm, and the night winds on until, at least if the past is anything to go by, the dozen most persistent players get kicked out to finish one final game of Werewolf in the cold, cold winds outside.
There’s a translation theme, and a pile of new games - including a few from designers that are new to the Sandpit - so do come along and join in!
Monday November 23rd, 2009 by Holly in blog | No comments »
A pervasive game with an actual prize? Surely not! But yes: Hodder and Stoughton are promoting Stephen King’s new novel Under the Dome with a fortnight-long pervasive game where you can actually win real things.
The prizes (an advance copy of the book, a night in a luxury hotel) are all very well, of course, but what about the game? Slightly unusually for a pervasive game intended for promotional purposes, it’s really nicely executed. 300,000 words of the new novel have been divided into fragments; players can sign up to receive a fragment, and hide it wherever they like—online, physically, whatever they feel like.
Meanwhile, seekers are looking for the fragments, guided by clues on a map, working to piece together the book (or a version of it). The physical clues are mostly in London, but there are plenty of hidden fragments online as well, and if you sign up to receive one you can hide it wherever you like.
The game runs until the end of the week, with a live event (warning: facebook link) on Friday.
Monday November 2nd, 2009 by Holly in blog | No comments »
i heart tree by jonny2love.
Nothing planned for tomorrow (or today, if you’re reading this on Saturday)? Never fear: London will be home to not two, not three, but four pervasive-ish game-ish events from designers and artists you might know from the Sandpit.
Worried that your loyalties are going to be divided, and you won’t be able to decide what to do? Don’t fret - that’s covered too! Fire Hazard’s Dead Reckoning (zombies, nerf guns, Hampstead Heath) is comprehensively sold out, as is Coney’s Small Town Anywhere (hats, secrets, beautiful lighting). That leaves only two events you can actually go to, and those two don’t even clash!
Herne Hill, hunts, prizes and tunnels
In the afternoon, there’s a hunt around Herne Hill from Gethan Dick and Myles Quin (who brought Pulgar Libre and The Reality Reality Helmet Experience to Sandpits earlier this year). A specially produced map will send players around Herne Hill, uncovering clues at each location, and leading eventually to a final… enigmatic something… and a party in a tunnel.
The hunt is free, there are excellent prizes, and we’ve even heard rumours that the tunnel party will involve dancing to ukeleles, which is surely everything anyone could want from a Saturday afternoon.
Locks, keys, theatre and mystery
In the evening, on another side of London, Tin Horse Theatre will be putting on their new piece, Lock With Key, at the Pirate Castle Halloween Party. If you’ve been to a recent Sandpit you may know Tin Horse from The Interpreter; if not, rest assured that it’s a wonderful game and Lock With Key promises to be just as beguiling — albeit somewhat more mysterious, as we’re not actually allowed to tell you any more about it…
Friday October 30th, 2009 by Holly in blog | No comments »
Red Bow Tie by cspiegl.
This post was written by Nick Howard to share his experiences of running Buttle at the Liverpool Sandpit. Nick’s new game Manifesto will be running at the BAC Sandpit on Monday 19 October.
I’m honestly going to start this by saying that if I can run a Sandpit game, anyone can. Plenty of what I’d planned for my game (Buttle, at the Liverpool Sandpit on the 24th September) ended up changing before or during the show. I didn’t plan to wear a cummerbund and drink brandy. I didn’t plan to ruin a fictional engagement. I certainly didn’t plan to present anyone with a plastic leg.
I’m an English student, in my final year, at the University of Liverpool. I’ve directed a little student theatre—enough to know that bossing actors around is good fun. It’s probably no wonder then that my first game for a Sandpit involved bossing around the audience as well.
The idea was simple. Four actors pretend to be 1920s Wodehouse-style aristocrats, while fifteen players pretend to be butlers (complete with bowties-on-elastic). The actors give tasks to the butlers (’get me a drink!’, ‘find my umbrella!’) and, for their pains, the players receive tips: vast quantities of play money. The player with the most cash at the end of the game is the winner.
(more…)
Friday October 16th, 2009 by Holly in blog | No comments »
Photo by edmittance.
After a whirlwind tour of Sandpits from Cardiff to Edinburgh to Brighton, we’re back in London on 19 October for an exciting schedule of new games, old games, and games designed by some of the people we met on tour. Come along to BAC to form a bickering political partie, become a piece of bacon or a side-order of beans, enter a group therapy session, plot to denounce your enemies, and much more. There’s a full schedule here, so take a look, and do come along on the 19th if you can make it!
Monday October 12th, 2009 by Holly in blog | No comments »
Recently, as part of The Sandpit UK Tour, we were Cardiff with the lovely National Theatre Wales. The BBC were there too and here’s what they got up to: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/8241005.stm
Wednesday September 23rd, 2009 by the Sandpit Team in blog | No comments »
Just a quick reminder that this weekend it’s time for Igfest, Bristol’s wonderful interesting games festival. There’s all sorts of stuff happening, and we’ll be playing as much of it as possible - though hopefully we’ll have recovered our energy by Sunday afternoon, when we’ll be running a Sandpit between 1 and 4pm, as part of Igfest and also the fourth stop on the Sandpit Tour. If you’re anywhere in the vicinity, do come along! And if not, check out the other tour dates, because there’s a good chance we’ll be coming to somewhere nearby…
Friday September 11th, 2009 by Holly in blog | No comments »
The 2009 Hide&Seek Weekender is here!
The games start tonight at Royal Festival Hall, with an evening of Beyond Werewolf - social games full of deduction and betrayal, where you can hone your bluffing and backstabbing skills as a stockmarket trader, a bank robber, a supervillain, a revolutionary, an acquaintance of Baron Munchausen, a robot, a werewolf, or something else besides…
Games continue all day Saturday with Mexican thumb wrestling, James Bond Twitter missions, binocular scavenger hunting, paparazzi photographers, wooden cities, cuddly toys, text-message narratives, collaborative playfulness, mystery solving, laser-dodging, one-step-removed movie watching, news-crew filming and a little teleportation.
And on Sunday, games are designed for all ages, with treasure hunting, animal acting, music puzzles, potatoes, balloons and more.
No need to book in advance, just turn up and grab stickers for the games you want to play. For a full, live lowdown of the weekend, you can follow us on Twitter at @hidingseeking.
Friday July 31st, 2009 by the Sandpit Team in Uncategorized, blog | No comments »
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