At around the time Bungie Studios released a game called Marathon I came up with a party game that was like a video game in the real world. It has some variations but the version I like best is the one devised by my old friend Simon Von Wolkenstein.
You outline an area about the size of half a tennis court. There are two teams each of two players, a soldier and a general. The soldiers or meat puppets stand inside this playing area. They are blindfolded. They wear headphones. Cordless is probably best. Outside the playing area are two generals. They have microphones that transmit to the headphones of their soldier or flesh avatar. Two full water pistols are placed in the playing area. The safeties are off. The blind folded soldiers are turned around once to disorient them.
The object of the game is to wet the other team’s soldier first. The generals must give the soldiers coherent directions to find and pick up the water pistols to aim at the enemy soldier and wet them. While at the same time making sure to avoid the moister of the enemy combatant.
This is surprisingly difficult. This requires great trust and responsiveness on behalf of the soldier and calm clear instructions from the general. If the general is a bit scatty or highly-strung you get shouts of “No! No! Not that way the other way. Look out. RUN for it!” yelled into the ears of the soldier.
When this is first set up it’s hard to get volunteers but once it’s been demonstrated people want to go again and again.
I call the game Actual Reality
