Scared Witness: Play Folk #8

The first time I watched 8 of my friends venture off into the woods, the darkness swallowing them up as they walked away from the streetlamp by the flagpole that was the only source of light, I felt a chill in my spine. One of them was the murderer. They were all looking for the same person, who was hiding somewhere in the park.

A tiny but might contingent of us came to play in the dark. This park had been specially recommended to me by LA’s Bureau of Parks and Recreation, and they did not steer me wrong. It was dark by the time we arrived at Rustic Canyon Park: me dressed as The Cat in the Hat (also a game designer!); Willa as a sea lion and a shark; Clinton as a Wizard; Dais as kung pao chicken; plus Maclen (perfect attendance!), Erin, Will, and Billy the Red with no costumes but clearly identifiable as good sports and first-rate playmates.

So it was a tiny but mighty group that played a game for scares and thrills that October night. I first encountered this game at Come Out and Play SF last year. We played it around city streets, but it can be played in a house or a park after dark: it’s sort of a variation on Sardines. One player is the witness: that person gets a head-start to go hide. The other players go looking for the witness: one who is trying to murder her, one who wants to execute the murderer, one who can revive the murderer, and three others who, if any 2 of them (or one plus the murderer-killer) find the witness and “hide together” (whatever that might mean), the good guys win. If 10 minutes go by and nobody can find the witness, the bad guys win. If the witness dies, the bad guys win.

It only took a minute to explain the rules. I passed out cards and we played. (It’s a free to print-and-play game online).

The first couple of games were over very quickly. The witnesses were too easy to find, and the murder would slay the witness every time. But after we played a few more times, we all knew the grounds better and the witnesses were better at finding good hiding places. Also people began to go off together, as a team, and lie about the identity on their cards.

Sometimes the games became a chase: the murderer chasing the witness, the executioner chasing the murderer. To kill a player, you draw the hand across the neck. The rules caution you to be safe. We were, mostly, for a running and hiding game played in the park. I totally found Erin Dean and murdered her behind a dumpster.

It was pretty much perfect for a Halloween game. We all took a turn being the witness. In the penultimate game, I was the witness. I ran all the way around the multi-purpose building, jumped over a fence, and hid in a courtyard that was only about 15 feet from where the other players were closing their eyes and giving me my 3 minute hiding head start, but protected from view by a low retaining wall. I also hid in the darkest corner behind a tree. I waited 8 minutes, crouched beneath a stop sign, waved at the cars who shone their headlights on me, and then burst out into the most prominent clearing of the park, under the flagpole and the light hoping the good guys would find me before the murderer did. They did, and the good guys won.

For the final game of the night, Dais was the witness. I warned him that it had to be the most epic game of them all. I drew the murderer card. Maclen and I went exploring down a corridor lined with kids’ toys. He had his skeptical eye on me and I pretended to be suspicious of him too. We both claimed to be townspeople. Later we met Erin and Willa, who also claimed to be townspeople. There are only 3 townspeople cards in the deck. I accused them all of lying and ran away.

With only a minute or so left in the game, I spotted Dais. He was easy to find, because he was still dressed as a chicken. He ran to the open arms of Erin and Willa. I chased after him. And just as he was about to be safe in their embrace… the clock chimed ten minutes and the game ended. A win for the bad guys. Huzzah! Dais delivered: it was the most epic game of the night. He’d been hiding under a truck parked on a side street of the dark park.

Willa figured out the auto-timer on my camera and we got these group shots.

If you think this kind of mischief sounds fun, come and join us for the next one.

The other thing I’ll remember about this game is how we hung our unwanted costume items on the flagpole.

Play Folk #7: Quidditch

Isn't Al an amazing photographer?

This game was about a month ago and a lot has happened since then: in my personal life, and there was also IndieCade and Come Out and Play in SF so there have been a lot of games since then. This won't be an old-school style epic length post, but I still have fond memories of the day.

Major thanks go out to the Lost Boys for allowing us to crash their practice and for being so kind and patient. The event was advertised as 2 hours and I asked the managers what they were going to do and they said, "Scrimmage for another hour" so while some of us took off, a few others remained to play.

The rules to Quidditch (or, as I called it, Muggle Quidditch: no one else calls it that) are available online, but the Lost Boys athletes explained them to us over and over, and welcomes us newbies into the game. Quidditch is great: if you like running. I am not an athlete, so I was pretty spent after playing for 20 minutes or so, but it delivers all the wind-in-your-hair, get-outside-and-move exhilaration you could ask for, in spades.

Westwood Park was a great spot, full of pick up games of all varieties, and our game attracted plenty of interest from passersby. Greg S. became a lifetime member.

Um, what else? The main thing I remember was my experience as the Snitch. I confess that it was my agenda all along to be the Snitch, and after playing a bit as a Chaser, Vanessa and some of the other athletes gave me some coaching on how to play the Snitch.

There's a real skill to it: it's not just a crazy man with a tennis ball in a sock dangling off his butt. (Like I said, if you want to know the rules, they're out there: I'm not going to Google it for you.) Fending off two oncoming attackers is really hard. They trained me on just one. I'm happy I did not know that the woman who helped train me (and I'm afraid I've forgotten her name) was a marathon runner, a trained Seeker, and a formidable athlete. I mean, the lattermost was clear, but I didn't know just how unevenly matched we were, which worked to my benefit.

Vanessa taught me the ropes and I practiced fighting her off. I'm just going to call her Tank Girl. Hands on shoulders, OK. Hands on boobs, not OK. Like I needed to be told that. So eluding her and fighting her off as she tried to yank my sock out was tough enough, but once we played for real, and Greg was the other Seeker, it became very difficult. The bummer is, if you suck as a Snitch (and I sucked), you end the whole game, so it's doubly bad, because those people are having fun. Well actually a lot of them looked pretty hot and tired but just because I was too old and slow to outrun the Seekers, they didn't want their game snuffed out.

My second time as Snitch in a non-drill situation, I was so exhausted by the end that I got on my hands and knees and crawled to the shade for water. "That was good," said Vanessa encouragingly. "You lasted a couple minutes longer that time." "DON'T PATRONIZE ME," is what I could have said if I'd been able to catch my breath.

My third time as Snitch I caught on to a great tactic: if you can yank the broomstick out from under the Seeker, they have to run and touch their goal. This changed everything! First of all, I realized I could run faster than them because the broomsticks are so cumbersome, but yanking the stick out is an enormous advantage for the Snitch.

This technique worked great and allowed me to fend off Greg and Tank Girl for a few minutes, my best performance as Snitch by far. In fact the only reason I didn't do it more and last longer is I didn't want to be a one-trick pony. I should have been a one-trick pony. As soon as I tried to engage them in combat, it was all over.

A marvelous, exhausting, energizing day. I'm glad our next game will be less athletic. Speaking of which, you should come! Here is the link: https://www.facebook.com/events/1492310124365405/

Group photo by Al, who was probably the best Quidditch player of the bunch as well as a fine photographer.

Final note to say that this was our first play date without our friend and co-founder Lily. She is missed. I hope London is treating you well, chica.

Play Folk #6: Ministry of Silence

Bookstores, puzzles, and cake. It's all the makings of a good night. Our outing this month was to The Last Bookstore to play the secretive game Ministry of Silence clandestinely. It is a game about censorship and secrecy for 16 players and is a group favorite from of one of our guides, The Games Bible. It's the first game we played where we designed our own puzzles. Sure, we've made variants while playing before (Tombstone Billy anyone?) but fresh versions for a game that formerly only had one solution is new.

The first round was designed by Myles and highly utilized the hush hush attitude of conspiring with others. Each player was given a numbered clue and told they could only talk to the number right above or below them. Myles is a master puzzle hunter and made very interlocked puzzles for us. There were a few team efforts trying to decode the variety of puzzles.

As if gathering twelve clues weren't enough, you had to avoid being caught by the Ministry of Silence officers. Or you could get caught and go catch other people. Many a secret meeting happened in the beautiful back rooms and hidden shelf areas of the store.

I particularly enjoy the bloody kool aid someone spilled in the name of silence. Players had to figure out all the puzzles, acquire the correct key, and find the right person bearing a Play Folk button to win the game.

The winner of our first game was Charlie, backed by the force of an alliance of roommates. He continued his streak as the winningest player of public games Myles runs.

Our second game was designed by Play Folk member Chris. We're blessed with awesome and involved friends and members of our group. Thanks for making a puzzle Chris! The two rounds could not have been more different as the focus shifted from shifty eyed meetings to taking hard looks at the books and records in the store.

Clues were to be found found in every section of the store tucked into specific pages of particular copies of books. Chris did a wonderful job of utilizing the exact bookstore and did some sneaky rearranging when he was the confederate for the first game with the necessary books standing out in the crowd.

The final book was well hidden in the "buck a book" stacks upstairs. For the latter part of the game a third of the players wandered around searching the area. Chris smartly hovered nearby the end but claimed it was for the cool fresh air of the big fan. Myles was in the clear lead as he found the last book only to be done in by his assumption that there was only one clue in every book. He shared his information with Doug, who wisely tailed him to victory.

Congratulations to both of our winners! Thanks for coming out and enjoying a beautiful bookstore and delightful games with us. Somehow the red team did not win this month but we all did when we wandered over to Syrup for cake.