what’s better than a pickup game? a semi-planned, semi-improvisational pickup game with a group of strangers in a public space, following strange rules and using the environment around you and/or mobile technology to coordinate and fulfill objectives, that’s what! in the last few years, pervasive gaming has been on the rise. inspired and influenced by flashmobs, live-action role playing (LARPing), street theatre, and the increasing popularity of cellphones/PDAs and other personal mobile electronic communication devices, people have been finding ways to connect on the streets, for silly, bizarre, fun, interactive experiences.
we’ve long been fans of Improv Everywhere, the New York City based improvisational theatre group the coordinates large-scale, orchestrated happenings, like the now-annual Pants Off Day on the subway, where lots of people, er, take their pants off on the subway and ride in their skivvies.
a great example of a pervasive game is Pac-Manhattan, where a group of people dressed as Pac-Man characters played out a game of PacMan on the streets in NYC, using the street grid as the game’s layout. the player’s movements were dictated by other players who were tracking them at a control base via GPS and communicating directions via cellphone.
when we were in london in March, we went to Sandpit, a festival of pervasive games, run monthly in varying locations all over the city. there were running-around style games, there were games built off of texted suggestions, games to play with a pack of cards or a pad of paper, games where you needed to interact in character in order to collect pieces of information, etc. there were all sorts of ages, professions, and nationalities, playing together. it was a lot of fun, and gave us a lot of ideas.
for even more ideas, ludocity is a wiki-style collection of tried & tested and in-progress pervasive games. perhaps SCREWY will soon concoct such a game and implement it!
the hijinks of molly & tara 
