Narod Network Project - Activity I

Instructions for Activity II

The Identity Game!

Hello. My name is Aren (that's supposed to be me, in the picture down there) and before we start, let me give you my address so we can talk. Here it is:

aren@narod.org

I will be running a game that I want you to play with students from all over the world. It's a real game, with winners and losers, scores, penalties and prizes... and hopefully a lot of fun.

Here's the idea: Can you help someone find out which city you live in without mentioning its name? Can you figure out where people live if they just describe how they get to school in the morning, or if they send you a recording of the sounds of their street, or a picture of where their parents go shopping? If you can, then you might earn a lot of points, and become a winner in the Identity Game.

This is how it's played: The game is played in a group made up of five teams, each team representing a school in some city, somewhere in the world. The identities of the cities are kept secret and each team is represented by an animal during the course of the game, and each group is given a color. If your team is the Snake in the Blue group, for example, then you will be competing for points against the Ram, the Camel, the Fox and the Moose in the Blue group, while teams in the group of color Red compete among themselves, and so on. In the end, the final score you get will be compared with the scores of all the teams in all the groups.

You will receive an email telling you your group color and the animal that represents your team.

The important part: I will give your team a list of question about daily life in the city where you live. You can answer those questions in any way you want, but without using words, names, or other kinds of information that make it too easy to guess the identity of your city. So, for example, if you live in Paris and I ask you for a picture of the city, you can't send me a photo of the Eifel Tower! That would be too easy. A picture of the street seen from your classroom can be just as interesting for the careful observer, and will not break the rules of the game.

This is how you score points: When all five teams in your group of cities answer the questions, the answers will be posted on the Web. Now you can look at what information each of the participants has submitted, and try to guess the secret identities of their cities. In the mean time, each of the other four participants will try to guess where you live based on the answers you gave. So here is how your team can win points:

+2	You get 2 points for each city you identify correctly. So a maximum of 8 points if you guess the identities of all the other four teams in the group.

+1	You get 1 point for each other team that identifies your city correctly. So a total of 4 points if you succeed in having all the other four teams guess your identity (but no cheating!)

But you can also lose points:

-1	You lose 1 point for each wrong guess. You can say "I have no idea which city that is." But if you say "it's Bombay!" and it turns out to be Paris, you lose a point.

-2	You lose 2 points for each question you don't answer, out the required four. That's because not answering makes the others' job harder. Plus you miss out on some of the fun…

One more way of getting points: If I really like your team's answers, I might reward you with a lot of bonus points. I like answers that are:

Tricky at first glance, but very informative if someone figures out how to find the clues.
Well made, fun to look at, read, hear, or experience. Be creative and enjoy the process.
Designed to make people understand what it's "really" like to live in your city: not like a tourist brochure, but more like actually being there.

The Questions: There are seven of them, but each team only has to answer four. You can choose any two of the odd numbered questions (1, 3, 5 or 7) and any two of the even numbered ones (2, 4 or 6). So, for example, a team can decide to answer the set of questions 2-3-5-6 or 1-2-3-4 or 2-4-5-7or... well, you get the point.

The Identity Game Questions
Click on each title below
to read the question.

1	A city weekend
2	An intimate photo
3	On the way to school
4	The sound of everyday life
5	Through the kitchen
6	A mystery map
7	Heard in passing

One last thing: I want to tell you why I think you should play this game.

First of all, I'm pretty sure you will enjoy playing a global game, competing with others like you, maybe even winning a prize… But I also know the Identity Game can be exciting in other ways. All of us have some idea about what it must be like to live in foreign cities. We see pictures, hear stories and some of us may even have spent a little time in cities far from our own. But do you think the rest of us realize what life is really like in your city? If you lived in Paris, this would be your chance to show us that your daily life is not about seeing the Eifel Tower, but has more to do with what people around you are interested in, how you spend the first hours of your morning or what sounds, sights, smells and tastes can only be found in your city.

By playing the Identity Game you can tell us about the small excitements, boredoms, things you really like and others that bother you in your surroundings. In the process, you can also find out about the small secrets of the cities of other teams. And of course, you can enjoy the game, and maybe even win.

Talk to me if you need anything. Good luck.

- Aren

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