P0: Cruel 2B Kind
Partners:
Alwyn Tan
Amy Ngyuen
Jessica Chen
“Nathan! I can’t believe you are making me do this! This is so awkward!”, my friend exclaimed indignantly after I explained the rules of the game. Although he ended up agreeing to participate, my friend was quite apprehensive, and rather mortified, to play Cruel 2B Kind.
Our group modified Cruel 2B Kind in order to create a more simple and intuitive experience for our players. Our revised rules were as follows:
The play-space was confined to CoHo in Tressider. Players would attempt to “assassinate” one another by using one of three random acts of kindness against another. They could either compliment a person’s hair/hat, clothing, or shoes. However, the players wouldn’t know who the other players of the game were (only that they would be restricted to the play-space). If the player successfully compliments another player, the complimented player would be “killed” and their name would be reported to the game-makers via text. If two players encountered and attempted to assassinate one another simultaneously, the winner would be decided based off of the rock-paper-scissors model. Hair beats clothing, clothing beats shoes, and shoes beats hair. If the players tied, they would both walk away and were unable to attempt another assassination for 30 seconds. The game ends once one player remained or 30 minutes elapsed.
My friend found the rules straightforward and didn’t have any questions about the game besides why on earth would you make me do this?! Though he dreaded spending potentially 30 minutes in complete embarrassment, he followed through and entered the arena.
Thankfully for my friend, his time in the arena was short. Surprisingly, and hilariously, half of the 4 players were eliminated in the first 5 minutes of the game starting. About 2 minutes after the game started, 3 of the 4 players found their way to a corner of CoHo and were standing right next to each other.
The other game-masters and myself could not hold in our laughter at the situation. Not long after the players stood together, our phones buzzed as two people were eliminated in quick succession. However, the 4th player was nowhere to be found — even the game-masters could not find him. We were worried he left the arena due to the extreme embarrassment when we spotted him walking past the other player. Shortly after, we received a text confirming the final assassination — the game was over.
Although all the participants felt like the game was super embarrassing, they were all smiling and laughing after it was over. We learned that all of the players deployed the same strategy — avoid talking to anyone and hide in the corner of CoHo while looking nervously around to spot other potential targets. My recruit in particular mentioned that it was very obvious who was playing when they were standing next to each other, but no one wanted to compliment one another for fear of being wrong and facing the embarrassing consequences. My friend ended up breaking the ice by asking another player if they were part of the game and they responded — “yes, nice hair”-eliminating the first target of the game. Due to the close proximity, this lead to the quick assassination of the remaining targets.
Upon reflection, we realized that while the modified rules were more simple to understand for our players, we did not account for their desire to play the game. The incentive to win was not nearly enough to overcome the resistance to experience embarrassment. If we had to rerun the game we would make the following changes:
- Provide an incentive /prize— our players needed something besides simply winning to incentive them to get out of their comfort zone and compliment others
- Move to open space —CoHo was far to crowded and the live band discouraged our players from going up to people and complimenting them
- Observe less obviously (duh!)— our players mentioned that our laughter and picture taking made it obvious when the targets were in close proximity
