writer, game designer, maker of small wonders
writer, game designer, maker of small wonders
The Pickfair Directive is an Alternate Reality Game with a major media-making component designed and deployed at USC’s School of Cinematic Arts at the start of the pandemic to motivate creativity and build community over distance. The “sequel” to Reality Ends Here, it utilized over a dozen websites, three online chat and avatar-based platforms, and multiple social media outlets, and ran 24/7 for almost two years on a skeleton crew of two designers/puppeteers, and 2-6 student volunteers.
Over 150 original works were created, and the game was touted as a major success in holding together the student community. The Pickfair Directive was an IndieCade 2021 nominee, and principally designed by Jesse Vigil and Martzi Campos, with graduate students Katherine Yu and Adam Saltsman assisting in seasons 1 and 2, respectively.
From Season 2: in which players tried to resurrect an NPC that was (for real) lost in the mail, but accidentally created an evil robot instead. He hijacked a real class orientation to deliver this challenge to players and unsuspecting non-players alike. As an avatar of the evils of content mills and unscrupulous unsustainable creation, C.H.A.D.bot offered merch to the player fastest to respond to a random prompt to create a short film or content clip.
Major thanks to USC SCA for being cool enough to allow some really subversive and totally awesome content into their classes in the name of ethics and collaborative creation… and for trusting me to not go too far.
One of my favorite moments from the game: an immersive murder mystery that radically repurposed a COVID-era virtual conference tool to run live interactive theater. Our players even dressed up.
I spent two years of my life on this project, every waking hour for six months each of the two seasons. Compared to other things I’ve made and designed, it was a small target audience/player base. But it was so rewarding. I never did get the hang of sourdough breadmaking during the pandemic, but I did this, and I guess it helped a little.