The Oberlin Review
<< Front page News May 5, 2006

Obiegame’s Thrilling Finale

At exactly 9:05 last Saturday evening, I rang the third doorbell of a house whose address, along with instructions on when and how to arrive, was given to me in an anonymous e-mail message. I was led into a room where about a dozen darkly clad students were finalizing arrangements for the evening. Then, after watching the car chase scene from The Bourne Identity for inspiration, the students filed out of the house and disappeared into the night.

These men and women are the organizers of this year’s mysterious Obiegame, and I had been invited to observe the final night of the game.

According to the creator of Obiegame, Aaron “Mooch” Mucciolo, OC ’02, the game is essentially an interactive story in which the players are characters in a fictional world.

“If you allow yourself to get lost completely, you could believe it,” said Mooch. “It’s a movie you’re a part of, a book you’re trying to figure out. The difference is that with an interactive story like Obiegame, you’re trying to figure out what’s right in front of you.”

Senior Carson Shelton, who has played Obiegame for the past two years, characterized the game similarly. She said, “During a game, it’s a world of its own. They literally create a world you have to figure out. It’s like detective improv.”

The mysterious nature of the game is compounded by the fact that the players do not know who the organizers are. For the players, the organizers are the elusive people who make up the story, distribute clues and are a constant part of the players’ lives. Shelton experienced firsthand the power of the organizers last year when she received an email with a picture of herself in a rifle target.

Obiegame begins when teams consisting of one to ten players sign up for the game via email. After registration, each team is told that they will receive some kind of clue that will mark the start of the game. This year the clue was a three and one half inch floppy disk that was mysteriously given to a member of each team.

Once the first clue is given, the teams must follow a trail of clues that will, over the course of time, lead them to their objective and reveal a complex story with side plots, real and fictional characters, and even more clues.

This year’s story involved a vaccine discovered by a member of a secret Oberlin society, the Charter Club. The unfortunate scientist was killed by rogue Charter Club members who wanted to suppress the discovery, but not before he hid the vaccine and left clues to its location. It was the job of the Obiegame players to follow these clues and recover the vaccine before it could be used by the bad guys.

Only four teams out of an original 31 made it to the final night of play. On that Saturday, each team met with one of the game organizers at a rendezvous point, who, in the role of a member of the secret Charter Club, gave the team a clue that started them on a treasure hunt that would eventually lead to the coveted vaccine.

On that night, I was taken to the rendezvous point for team Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close, who I was to follow for the rest of the night as a “junior Charter Club engineer” after being expressly forbidden by the organizers to reveal my true identity.

For the next three hours I tagged along as the team members figured out a book code in the library, followed a floor plan to the Cat in the Cream, unscrambled coded messages and tried to figure out whether or not I was an enemy mole. I got caught up in a simulated fight between two Charter Club members in Talcott basement and watched them be held at gunpoint while the team members tried to figure out which one was telling the truth.

Unfortunately, I was not there when several team members recovered the vaccine, but I joined as the team met up for a final Obiegame party and the announcement of the winners.

A few days after the game ended, I was able to talk to several members of team Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close, the team that tied for first place, as a journalist instead of a junior engineer.

Junior Erica Tempesta apologized for her team’s earlier suspicion of me, explaining, “We had no idea what was going on when the game started, what was supposed to be happening. It was just like ‘go!’ and it makes you really paranoid.”

She added, “I’m still looking around and thinking about things as if they were game clues. I’m like, ‘Oh wait, the game is over.’”

Despite the intensity, the time commitment and the paranoia, most players thoroughly enjoyed playing the game.

Senior Shawna Hein, another member of team Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close said, “It’s totally worth it, and I feel the more people who play, the harder and cooler it will be.”

Hein, Tempesta and the rest of team Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close will be splitting a $150 dollar gift certificate for Oberlin shops as a reward for tying for first place.

Worth it indeed.
 
 

   

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