swarm toolkit

The Comfort of Strangers uses ipaq PDAs and Bluetooth to create a series of social encounters driven by risk and common interest. Players use anonymity and group formation to live and survive urban experience. They find comfort in strangers.

Ruleset

Players are given an ipaq PDA and a pair of headphones. Each device runs a simple programme that monitors the position of other players. Each ipaq will be allocated to one of two teams; the Lovers or the Dancers. Every time a player encounters a member of your team, the player is informed by a voice whispering in their ear and their life goes up. Every time a player encounters a member of the other team the same voice informs them and they lose a life point. If life drops to zero the programme stops running and the player is out of the game. When only one team remains alive, the game ends with the surviving team members winning. 

Ideas

The game immerses players in the crowd, exposing them to the ambivalent feelings aroused by city life; the freedom of anonymity and its loneliness. Out of the drive to stay in the game, the swarm dynamics underlying the game engine generate opportunities for ad hoc social groups. Players engage and negotiate with other players, using cooperation as a game strategy, but also, we hope, coming to an understanding of social action that is based in enlightened self-interest, but also intuition.