Swashbucklers, Final Project

 Hello everyone. This was the team Swashbuckler's final project. You can find links to the blogs of the other members of my team here:
Zach Marschke: http://gamingthesystemuw.blogspot.com/2013/08/team-2-final-project-review.html
James: http://gamingthesystemuw.blogspot.com/2013/08/group-2-swashbucklers-project-reflection.html

How our game works: 

The point of the game is to stand at red square with pirate outfits holding a main sign that says

Arrr Mateys! I've lost my treasure. Can you please help me find it on campus? I promise I'll give you all my booty if you find it! I lost my voice during the great storm at sea last night so I can't talk.

Please make sure you have at least 10 minutes to spare! I will also show you where my mini treasure chests are located on the way, and would like permission to have your photo taken with them.

Arrgg! Let's so find that treasure!"

The main person, after being enticed by the sign and costumes, would put on the hat sitting on the silver barricades excited to find free treasure. This will be the object and essentially they will have no idea they are transporting it for us. It would be hard to get it off them considering that the other teams can't touch it and I can't think of very many ways to get a hat off someone else without possible risk of injury to their head.

The camera man, who will be with me from the start, will begin taking pictures of the person as I guide them to different checkpoints.

We will have a checkpoint guardian to quickly run and place treasure chests as we go to them in order (doing this in order to prevent stealing by random people).

Eventually we will reach the finishing goal, where the treasure guardian will be with the large final chest. We'll snap a picture and end the game.

Roles:

Lindsay- Main Pirate Captain/Main Sign Holder/Leader of Object
Kelly- Final Treasure Guardian
James- Camera man & backup sign holder
Zach- Flag guardian & backup sign holder

Item: 

Pirate Hat, made by Kelly

Home Base: 

The edge of red square along the giant silver pillar things sticking out of the ground

Assigned materials made/gathered:

Lindsay: Pirate costume, make the large main sign, make large final treasure chest, find/make prize for treasure chest, get pirate hat for self (Cookies already eaten & not shown as prize for large chest)

Kelly: Pirate costume, make 2 or 3 small pirate maps (at least one original and one backup), make/find prize for treasure chest, pirate hat for our random person to transport

James: Pirate costume, coin bags, cheap plastic gold coins (number of bags will hopefully be determined Wednesday when the flag marker locations are revealed), prize for large chest, camera

Zach: Pirate Costume, 2 backup signs, prize for main chest, get/make small treasure chests

Photos of flags:

 Game Results:

 We really had no idea what to expect. My hope was that our costumes and signs would get people curious and ultimately have them reading our sign and playing our game. As the minutes went by and people swept past, our enthusiasm turned into disappointment. I found it really difficult that I couldn't talk, and most people didn't want to read the lengthy sign or have the time to play the game. Luck wasn't on our side this time, which is pretty much what we were relying on. 

Playing the Game: 

We played a mock version of our game with Armstrong. I pointed to the pirate hat, he put it on, I gave him his collecting bag, and then walked towards the first flag with him following. Each time we reached a flag, I pointed to it and he stood next to it to have a picture taken. He also made sure to collect the tiny treasure chests when I pointed to them. Just walking the entire course only took 8 minutes, I probably would have been running if we had gotten an actual random person. There seemed to be no problems with the way our game was set up and was executed properly. 

 What we should have changed: 

There's a variety of reasons why the game probably didn't work, and we don't have exact proof leading us to any one cause. Here are some things that we could have changed that might have led to better results:

• Simpler sign: I thought it would be fun to make an entire story on the board, hopefully enticing them to play our game. Turns out no one wanted to even bother reading it. Next time I would probably just add a sentence or two saying Help us find our treasure.
• Don't tell people how much time they need: Doing this probably deterred people away because most claimed they didn't have enough time. I thought I was being courteous by adding it, but our plan only took 8 minutes to get from one base to another and wouldn't really take up much of their time in the first place.
• Change the entire theme of our game: Perhaps people don't really have that much interest in pirates... probably made us seem more like hobos. 
• Better costumes or props: Not all of our teammates were as dressed up, like Zach for instance, who was assigned to run ahead of our participant and place treasure chests. Maybe having a cardboard pirate ship would have been cool? 

 Overall thoughts: 

We all did really well overall. We equally split the work and contributed to the project. We really put a lot effort into it. Even though our game didn't work, we were able to use Armstrong to replicate the game process for our records. It was just a matter of luck, which wasn't on our side that day.