User:Tash/grad game

From XPUB & Lens-Based wiki

Hello deviants,

INSTANT WARNET is a critical live action game, which pokes and prods at networks of harassment on social media. As a player, you are invited to role-play characters on the massively multiplayer arena of Instagram, with the goal of infiltrating and disrupting its more hostile practices and spaces.

Composed entirely of found techniques, scenarios and language used by the world’s most cunning trolls, buzzers and campaign operatives, this game asks you to flip the script, and rethink your own responses to online abuse and misuse.

Unlike gamification, which applies game design elements to non-game contexts, INSTANT WARNET functions on top of the already existing gaming mechanisms in social media culture. Here, skilled players win attention instead of points, trade influence instead of items and manipulate algorithms instead of rulebooks. Left unchallenged, these online public spaces have become sites of daily power struggles between mainstream and alternative identities, louder and quieter voices.

INSTANT WARNET is what happens when such spectators and bystanders are asked to enter the arena. Instead of looking away, logging off or letting things go, we'll live vicariously through our performances and learn to talk back to the very mechanisms that try to police and play us.

As such, the primary objective of the game is to:

  1. Gain attention — learn to make noise with your voice and your agenda
  2. Gain expertise — become more media literate and socially resilient


How to play

  1. In teams of 2, either choose out of the list of available game characters, or decide to create your own character.
  2. Then, open a new account for these characters on Instagram. On mobile, go to Settings > Add Account > Sign Up with Email.
  3. Follow each other's accounts, and the gamemaster account, @raksasi1.
  4. Each team gets a deck of 'Maintenance' cards, each of which can be played only once, in place of an action card of your choosing.

Level 1:

  1. One team starts by picking up one card from the first action deck. Every team then gets 5 minutes to perform the actions on the card, as many times as they want, and using whatever channels they decide. Play 3 rounds in this level.

Level 2:

  1. One team starts by picking up one card from the second action deck. Every team then gets 5 minutes to perform the actions on the card, as many times as they want, and using whatever channels they decide. Play 3 rounds in this level.

Level 3: '

  1. One team starts by choosing an action from the handbook. Every team then gets 5 minutes to perform the actions on the card, as many times as they want, and using whatever channels they decide. Play 3 rounds in this level.
  2. Document the engagement you receive. More attention = more points.
  3. The team with the most points after 9 rounds, wins.


Rules

  • Stay in character until further instruction
  • First rule of improv? Always say yes!
  • Always screenshot your engagements in order of play
  • Always tag / mention the game's main profile in your posts & comments, this way we can document your actions @raksasi1
  • After the game, decide together whether to kill / donate the profile


Point System

  • For every follower at end of game: 1 point
  • For every like on comments or posts: 2 points
  • For every flagged comment or post: 3 points
  • For every DM conversation: 5 points
  • For every reply to a comment or post: 3 points