I'm a puzzle-treasure-hunt enthusiast, but I understand that's not the only worthwhile kind of game. I have figured out that I tend to like "pervasive games," games that take place out in the world. So when I was heading to NYC, I tried looking for news of such things in NYC.
I found a few things, including a blog post about The Brooklyn Museum's Gallery Tag, a game in which you "tag" pieces of art by going to a mobile web site, entering the catalog numbers of a piece of art, then "tagging" that art with things you notice about it: dog, cross, earrings... There's a set of provided tags to look for, or you can make up your own.
I went to the museum. A few hours later, I emerged blinking and bleary and with the game's high score (still the high score as I write this, a month later):
That's not a tribute to mad game-playing skillz, though. I can imagine a fun game based around scavenger-hunting in a museum, but... the path to a high score in the existing game was not much fun. I'd step up to the next piece of art, go over the list of tags, start applying tags. If there had been fewer approved tags to seek, I think I would have explored the museum more. As it was, there were so many things you could tag a painting with, you didn't wander the museum. Instead, you'd just step up to the next piece of art, process it, then on to the next.
The game might know of 15 tags, but maybe only let the player use five of those. And maybe if you've tagged 20 things as "Lion", then the game swaps out your "Lion" button for a "Beard" button so now you're looking for beards.
You could also imagine occasional quests to "unlock" some tags: assign the player to look at three particular pieces and figure out what they have in common. If you enter "Mirror", then you have the "Mirror" tag available.
Or perhaps, have all of the tags unlocked as in the current game, but some tags would have a higher point "bounty" than the others. If no player has tagged a "Lion" recently, maybe "Lion" should be worth more points.
Anyhow, I made my way through the museum until my phone's battery ran low, tagging art and thinking about game design. I don't remember much of the art, though. (Though Randy Dudley's "Gowanus Canal from 2nd Street" was cool in the way that some of Charles Sheeler's stuff from the Rouge River Plant was cool.) (And Edward Dreis' "Gravel-Silo" had a nice covered conveyor.)
![[>]](../../images/next.gif)