Urban Game Casualties

I need to stop hurting myself. I was involved in this massive and awesome game of tag across Manhatten called Journey to the End of the Night and a group of us was stealthily moving from Battery Park to Broadway when a guy on a bike with yellow caution tape wrapped around his head started chasing us and I totally wiped out, skinned my elbow, bruised my knees and collar bone and tore my Nightmare Before Christmas Shirt. However, the Chaser decided to take mercy and chase one of the charming British Blokes who joined our motley crew instead. So I limped to the next checkpoint, pursued several times by additional caution tape-wearing chasers, only to discover that we were one charming British Bloke short.
All in all it was quite an intense game, but fun, and definitely something that can translate to other venues. This would be crazy at school. But I think I'd wear elbow pads.

Our group spent the weekend at Come Out and Play!, an urban games festival. Another totally sweet game I got to participate in was Cruel 2B Kind a "benevolent assasination" game, where participants attack with compliments. It culminated in huge mobs of people yelling "NICE SHOES!!" and "ARE YOU THE CAST OF CATS?" across Broadway between 48th and 58th. We were done in early by a guy in a Cubs cap acting like he needed directions. Damn his sneakiness. Also, Bob, the man from The Institute for the Future of the Book was playing, along with Alex, one of the Charming British Blokes from the previous game. Sadly, both evaded our deadly efforts. It was wonderful, though, and there were cupcakes and sparkly hats at the end.

This whole festival took place at Eyebeam, a gallery in Chelsea that seems to specialize in awesome. We managed to finagle a tour through their R&D lab, where people were doing digital animation,and their education and outreach department. The giant warehouse space used to be, apparently, an S&M nightclub and parking garage and is currently housing an exhibit about synthetic meteors over the NYC skyline. The opening night of the urban games festival featured "Guitario Cart," where two people controlled a game of Mario Cart by playing various cords on their guitars. They also played Mortal Combat with their guitars -"Modal Combat"- but they focused more on playing a song than playing the game, so it was more like the characters were dancing to the music/kicking each other in the face. The opening also featured this guy:

His nametage read "Software Pirate." Sweet.