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In collaboration with game design luminaries Jane McGonigal (42 Entertainment) and Ian Bogost (Watercooler Games), MIT’s Comparative Media Studies program will be sponsoring the Boston-Cambridge premiere of the new public street-game, Cruel 2 B Kind.
When? October 31, 2006 / 6:30 – 8:30 PM
Where? Several blocks near Harvard Square
What? A free game of benevolent assassins, complete with prizes and costume contest!
…What? For more information, go to cruelgame.com!
How? Sign up online, right here.
The CRUEL 2 B KIND website provides the following description of the game:
Cruel 2 B Kind is a game of benevolent assassination.
At the beginning of the game, you and a partner-in-crime are assigned a secret weapon. To onlookers, it will seem like a random act of kindness. But to a select group of other players, the seemingly benevolent gesture is a deadly maneuver that will bring them to their knees.
Some players will be slain by a serenade. Others will be killed by a compliment. You and your partner might be taken down by an innocent group cheer.
You will be given no information about your targets. No name, no photo, nothing but the guarantee that they will remain within the outdoor game boundaries during the designated playing time. Anyone you encounter could be your target. The only way to find out is to attack them with your secret weapon.
Watch out: The hunter is also the hunted. At the beginning of the game, you and your partner will also be assigned your own secret weakness. Other pairs of players have been given your secret weakness as their secret weapon, and they’re coming to get you. Anything out of the ordinary you do to assassinate YOUR targets may reveal your own secret identity to the other players who want you dead.
As targets are successfully assassinated, the dead players join forces with their killers to continue stalking the surviving players. The teams grow bigger and bigger until two final mobs of benevolent assassins descend upon each other for a spectacular, climactic kill.
Will innocents be caught in the cross-fire? Oh, yes. But when your secret weapon is a random act of kindness, it’s only cruel to be kind to other players…
Not sure you’re cruel enough to play as an assassin? Don’t worry – you can still experience killer kindness. Just show up to any game site at the right time. You can hang out, watch the game, and play along as an “innocent bystander”!
Let the game begin!
