Well Phooey.

[tablesaw]

I just stopped into my house after the Puzzle Party, intending to get directions to my aunt's apartment, but I'm suddenly crashing. It's probably for the best. I spent almost all of yesterday preparing the game and still went over to my parents' house for dinner with a cousin and aunt. That kind of counts for a Freedom Friday, I guess, a sedate one, at least.

The game went over relatively well. I presented clips of various mashups and asked players to identify the artists. This was originally conceived as a response to the games of Music Man, who likes bringing in music games, but about music before 1960, and usually pre rock-and-roll. Every time he divides teams, he asks if there's someone who is good at identifying music, and I always raise my hand, hoping that our definitions of music will collide.

Lots of people liked the game, and it moved quickly. Several of the older attendees weren't into the game, which I expected, but I still overestimated the pop-music knowledge of the group. I'll try to put the game online soon, so you can compare, or perhaps cramerica or perhaps tinhorn2 can comment, but there were a lot of people either not recognizing common songs or artists. For example, I was surprised that some people weren't able to identify Eminem, who has a distinctive voice, and who appeared several times in the game.

I know I haven't been to the parties in a while, but it seemed like a really good group. Marc seemed to have invited his own subparty form out of town, which was great. I'll write more about what happened later, but right now I just think I'm going to curl up in bed with a book.

Comments

[tinhorn2.livejournal.com]

Back from a couple hours at Cram's (after the local gathering, where we played Wits & Wagers, Apples To Apples, and Telephone Pictionary -- is the last one funnier at at 1am or is it always that funny?)

I very much enjoyed the Mashup Game, perhaps equally for getting to hear the various clips as for actually playing the game. With perhaps also an equal part of that kind of game being right up my alley -- I'm definitely no music maven, but my brain tends to trap all kinds of pop-culture lint that I can pick out when needed, often surprising myself (compare the 50-50 trivia at last year's NPL Con, which I placed first in). It does not surprise me that some in the room may not have resonated fully with the game -- in some ways this was a trivia contest, and if one decides from the beginning that one is not interested in the subject matter (even though one should not pre-judge such things), it is easy to tune out. Compare -- about 4 minicons ago, Panache ran a Geography Trivia game. My brain *doesn't* trap geography lint. And during that event, though I of course participated best I could, it was hard for me not to think: "I came here for word and similar games, not to see who knows most about geography, which clearly isn't me." I wonder whether something similar was going on with some people during the Mashup Game. Shouldn't have, since your game was much more than questions about music -- it was also deciphering the songs and the fun of hearing the mashups. But still, while I really enjoyed the game, and will probably spend a chunk of time tomorrow (today?) Internetting about them, I can see why the game might not have made a perfect mashup with some people in the group. Anyone who didn't decide to jump in with both feet might well not have paid enough attention to identify even some of the well-known voices, in a way that they might have if they had "really" been trying. And of course, if I hadn't worn people out with a 90-minute puzzle right before . . .

That said, from my observation, the majority of the people were definitely having a lot of fun with it -- certainly the several to my immediate left (one of whom was Cramerica) and the several to my immediate right. It was very refreshing after the, um, "music" of the first game of the day (I wonder whether your music game got unfairly tarred a bit with that brush). And I expect that you'll have a higher hit rate with the online crowd, but really, the concept and execution of the game were quite good, and a whole bunch of us really got into it and enjoyed it.

[cramerica.livejournal.com]

It was a terrific game (even though I have a tough time telling rappers apart), and the great music was a bonus. Speaking of which, the bonus round was beautiful. I'd download that even if I'd never heard of the game.