I started with two objectives:
1. Force players to draw strangers into the game and directly interact with them
2. Make it a promotional game for a website/movie
It became a game about wrangling strangers and photographing them with promotional materials for a friend’s website, 5secondfilms.com.
PDF of the real-world game prototype, “Wranglers”: Download file
Document text without the nice formatting:
Wranglers
Wranglers is a location-based promotional game in which teams of players move, or “wrangle,” strangers into pre-defined areas and take pictures of them holding promotional materials for points.
This promotion will be for the comedy website, 5secondfilms.com.
Goal
Earn the most points by taking photos of strangers holding your team’s 5secondfilm cards in your team’s designated area.
The more strangers you photograph at once, the more points. Players earn additional points by convincing the strangers to pose like a raptor.
Setup
At least six players are needed.
The players divide into three color-coded teams—red, blue, and white. Players are given colored armbands corresponding to their team.
The game should take place in a heavily trafficked area such as an outdoor mall or shopping center. Three circles—one for each team—are drawn in chalk 10 feet apart in an open space.
Image may be NSFW.
Clik here to view.
The players are given two items:
1. Two identical instruction cards
2. One-hundred identical color-coded promotional cards per team to be used in the photos with strangers for points
Instruction card text:
1. Get strangers into your team’s colored circle – the more, the better.
2. Take pictures of the strangers holding your team’s promotional cards.
a. Each stranger is worth 1 point times the total number of strangers in the picture → if you take a picture of 2 strangers at the same time, they’re each worth 2 points.
b. Make them pose like raptors for double points!
3. Team with the most points in 15 minutes wins.
Tips:
1. Keep one teammate near the circle ready to take pictures
2. Spread-out to grab passer-by’s as well as groups farther away
3. Try to convince strangers to stay in the circle until you’ve got a bigger group to photograph (3 people in one photo is worth 9 people in 9 different photos)
To win more prizes after the game:
1. Friend “5secondfilms [team color]” on Facebook
2. Post the photos on Facebook and tag them with your new friend, “fivesecondfilms [team color]” the same week you’ve played the game
3. The team with most points on Facebook wins [insert prize]
Promotional card description:
Cards are color-coded by team and contain a graphic and web address for 5secondfilms.
Tallying Points
The moderator who drew the circles and passed out game materials does an initial point tally. Moderator takes back leftover materials and erases circles. After one week, moderator logs on to the three Facebook accounts 5SecondFilms Red, White, and Blue and tallies points again for the official score.
One photo’s points = (number of strangers in photo) per stranger. Strangers posing as raptors are worth two times the numbers of strangers.
Potential Directions
Facebook friends of players will be exposed to photos from the promotional game and have an opportunity to click through to the 5secondfilm profiles. The use of Web 2.0 extends the game beyond initial participants to the social network of each individual.
The promotion can be made even more effective by adding a broader game in which the recruited strangers can participate. The promotional cards the stranger holds in the photos could include unique codes that can redeemed online for a chance to win prizes or to sign up and participate in a meta-game. By taking a photo and receiving a promo card, strangers can join afterwards online and follow the larger progress of their team as the location-based game occurs multiple times in different locations.