Setup
- Six Terminals are set up at even intervals, roughly ten feet away the screen.
- Of the six, three have puzzles, three have wheels attached to them
- Big screen shows a spaceship viewport, zooming past the stars. Text asks for three volunteers
Phase One – Onboarding
- Three terminals turn yellow, and only turn green when our three volunteers press the activation buttons on them.
- Video:
o “Thank you, brave volunteers, for accepting guard duties on this freight ship. While the rest of the crew remains in hypersleep, you three will maintain guard duty as we pass through the uncharted Pirate Zone. Pirate attacks on space freighters have increased in recent years, and we will be taking every precaution to –“
- Boom. Video cuts out for a second, then re-appears. Text flashes “System Down”. A pirate space ship appears on the viewscreen.
Phase Two – Defense
- On the Screen, a pirate ship fires a torpedo. A clock begins to tick down. “45 seconds to impact.”
- The three terminals that don’t have wheels on them light up red. The players are directed to run to those terminals.
o Terminal 1 – Connecting Puzzle: Use Trial and error to figure out which plugs go into which sockets.
o Terminal 2 – Wheel Puzzle: three concentric rings with 16 programmable LED’s light up in a way that seems random. When you spin them around, though, you can see that there’s a specific configuration in which everything lines up.
o Terminal 3 – Sliding Puzzle: some sort of puzzle with sliding potentiometers that I haven’t figured out yet.
- When each puzzle is solved, the terminal lights up green.
- If the clock ticks down and the torpedo hits before the system is online, the crew dies.
- When all three puzzles are solved, the screen powers up and says “System online.” A glowing shield powers up. The three terminals that the players are already at go dark, and the other three terminals glow green.
Phase Three – Offense
- Crosshairs appear on the screen. Part of the pirate ship glows red. The video screen says “aim for the weak point.”
- The clock
- The three terminals with wheels on them allow the crew to control the craft.
o One controller controls pitch,
o One controller controls roll,
o One controller controls yaw
- Once the crosshairs have been locked on to the ship for three seconds, our offensive torpedo is “locked on.” We fire a torpedo.
- If the team fails to fire a torpedo before the enemy torpedo hits, then we don’t die, but the system goes down and we have to start again.
- If the team fires a torpedo, then we still take damage and have to restart the system with the puzzles. It takes three hits to win the game.
Theory of engagement: This will engage participants in that gamers will need to work individually, and in groups. The puzzle phase will make people act individually as they each use their intuition to figure out the best way to solve an individual puzzle. Communication will be encouraged as players try to figure out just exactly what’s going on. If a player finishes before the others, then that player can go over and help their fellow gamers to solve their puzzles in time. Once the puzzle phase is over, players will need to work together instinctively, rather than through spoken word, to really be able to navigate the ship.
The game relies on some tried and true gaming techniques to hold it together: it’s essentially a classic three-hit “boss fight” with a ticking clock. However, added elements of communication, a big display that encourages an audience, and a physical layout that requires players to move themselves will make this a fresh and exciting experience.
