Meche, our new best friend

Meche, our new best friend
Originally uploaded by Avant Game.

"This deck of cards is a little frayed around the edges, but so am I, and I've got fewer suits." -Manny Calavera

Meche, who is curled up in my lap as I type this, is the new best friend Kiyash and I made last night. We named her Meche after a certain noirish heroine from one of the greatest games of all time. After a fall of playing with the dead, it seemed appropriate to name our new love for a character inspired by El Dia de Los Muertos. Also, Kiyash and I spent one of the first months we were dating (back in 2000) holed up in my Upper West Side apartment playing the game. It was the perfect way to bond and get to know each other.

"Love is for the living." -Manny, again

Meche is 11 weeks old, born just a few days before Kiyash and I eloped to City Hall. She is a purebred Shetland Sheepdog who seems to have gotten (maybe) a bit too much of the blue merle gene. She has a very unusual amount of white fur, a half-pink/half-black nose, and one blue eye and one brown eye. She looks just like a panda from the front and just like a kitty from behind. I've never seen a sheltie that looked like this sweet girl before.

She is incredibly sweet, trusting and calm. She slept quietly and peacefully all through the night in her crate, and this morning woke up excited to play with us. We love her so much and are so happy our new lease allows us to have a friend like Meche!

With bony hands I hold my partner/ On soulless feet we cross the floor/ The music stops as if to answer/ An empty knocking at the door/ It seems his skin was sweet as mango/ When last I held him to my breast/ But now we dance this grim fandango/ And will for years before we rest.

My Erdos Number

Today I finally got around to tracking down definitive proof of my Erdos Number.

It is 3.

1. Cutting a Graph Into Two Dissimilar Halves. Paul Erdos, Janos Pach, Mark Goldberg, Joel Spencer. 1986. 2. XY Interpolation Algorithms, K. Goldberg and M. Goldberg, Robotics Age, May/June, 1983. 3. Unsupervised Scoring for Internet-based Collaborative Tele-operation, Ken Goldberg, Dezhen Song, In Yong Song, Jane McGonigal, Wei Zheng, and Dana Plautz, IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA), April 2004.

Not bad for a girl in a performance studies program! Now: where is the Cafe Press store for "My Erdos # is _" merchandise?

Burning Man, meet E3

Sign of Hex168
Originally uploaded by Avant Game.

I'm in the Mojave desert this weekend for the gamer festival that marks the launch of the XBox 360. Think: Burning Man meets E3.

While I'm playing GUN at 2 am in the desert with thousands of other gamers, you can watch me on MTV and MTV2 all week on A Gamer's Paradise, which is a special 1/2-hour show all about the Hex168 game that 42 Entertainment produced as a lead-up to the desert festival.

My role on the Hex168 project was to design an experience that would get hard-core videogamers out into the real world doing playful things with their friends. Over 2500 stunts across the U.S. later... well, you'll see: The show premieres tonight on MTV at midnight, again at 6:30 on Monday, and repeats 1o more times across the two networks throughout the week.

Graveyard Games Finale, LOS ANGELES

Graveyard Games OAKLAND 009
Originally uploaded by Avant Game.

Play now, or forever hold your R.I.P.

Tombstone Hold Em will continue to live on in grassroots tourneys at cemeteries around the world, but Saturday November 19th is your last chance to play your respects with me at an official Graveyard Games event.

Rumor has it that first-time players and experienced tourney vets are flying in from all over the country for this one. You definitely want to be there.

*

GRAVEYARD GAMES. You're never too dead to play.

On Saturday November 19, 2005, Graveyard Games will be in Los Angeles so you can meet the living and play with the dead.

You're invited to sunny Hollywood Forever Cemetery, “resting place of Hollywood’s immortals”, to get to know your local dearly departed, pay your respects, and learn Tombstone Hold 'Em — the secret poker game you can only play in a cemetery.

(See photos from previous games in San Francisco, Washington D.C., Kansas City, New York City, Atlanta, and more. For a little backstory and other playful things to do in a cemetery, visit Last Call Poker’s ALL IN page.)

Instructions

1. Arrive at the front gates of the Hollywood Forever Cemetery (directions and map for 6000 Santa Monica Blvd.) between 1:30 PM and 2 PM local time.

2. Look for the tournament's host. She'll be holding a deck of cards and will have further instructions and supplies for you.

3. Bring a single flower to place on a grave to show some respect, and to signal that you're one of us.

4. Take a few minutes to explore your section of the cemetery. Look for any poker chips left on tombstones. You'll need these to play.

5. Be sure to look for the grave of someone you can prove died on your birthday. You can use that tombstone as a Joker during the game.

6. Tournament begins at 2 PM. Learn the rules before you come if you're serious about winning. We’ll have extra instructions on hands for any friends you bring along.

7. The winner is crowned at 3 PM. No fancy prizes, but lots of respect and maybe a special memento from Lucky's estate. And everyone can keep the chips they earn as a souvenir.

8. Afterwards, you’re invited to nearby Sharky's Mexican Grill (map and directions to 1716 N Cahuenga Blvd) to raise a glass to the players you’re leaving underground at Hollywood Forever.

Being Dead is No Excuse

Graveyard Games ATLANTA 101
Originally uploaded by Avant Game.

Pictured here: Robogriff, the winner of Saturday's Tombstone Hold Em tourney in Atlanta's historic Oakland Cemetery. Taken at the very moment he was declared the winner. Have you ever seen such a beautiful, all-out smile in a graveyard? Charming, I love it.

With a senior historian, a board member and the director of the cemetery on hand to welcome our 25-odd Graveyard Game players, Oakland cemetery showed us the true meaning of Southern hospitality.

Speaking of which: Before the tourament, I ducked into the cemetery's gift shop to buy the charming "Being Dead is No Excuse: The Official Southern Ladies Guide to Hosting the Perfect Funeral". I just couldn't help myself; the guide seemed so utterly aligned with the ethos and spirit of the Tombstone Hold Em project's own motto: "You're never too dead to play."

Full photo coverage of the Atlanta game here.

Invitation to Play: Graveyard Games ATLANTA

Graveyard Games NEW YORK CITY 107
Originally uploaded by Avant Game.

On Saturday November 12, 2005, Graveyard Games will be in Atlanta so you can meet the living and play with the dead.

You're invited rain or shine to historic Oakland Cemetery’s "most tangible link to the past" to get to know your local dearly departed, pay your respects, and learn Tombstone Hold 'Em — the secret poker game you can only play in a cemetery.

(See photos from previous games in San Francisco, Washington D.C., Kansas City, New York City, and more. And for a little backstory, visit Last Call Poker’s Atlanta page.)

Instructions

1. Arrive at the front gates of the Oakland Cemetery (directions and map for 248 Oakland Avenue, SE, Atlanta) between 2 PM and 2:30 PM local time.

2. Look for the tournament's host. She'll be holding a deck of cards and will have further instructions and supplies for you.

3. Bring a single flower to place on a grave to show some respect, and to signal that you're one of us.

4. Take a few minutes to explore your section of the cemetery. Look for any poker chips left on tombstones. You'll need these to play.

5. Be sure to look for the grave of someone you can prove died on your birthday. You can use that tombstone as a Joker during the game.

6. Tournament begins at 2:30 PM. Learn the rules before you come if you're serious about winning. We’ll have extra instructions on hands for any friends you bring along.

7. The winner is crowned at 3:30 PM. No fancy prizes, but lots of respect and maybe a special memento from Lucky's estate. And everyone can keep the chips they earn as a souvenir.

8. Afterwards, you’re invited to nearby Six Feet Under to raise a glass to the players you’re leaving underground at Oakland Cemetery.

a full house for New York City graveyard games

Graveyard Games NEW YORK CITY 031
Originally uploaded by Avant Game.

Over 50 Tombstone Hold Em players gathered in Brooklyn's Cypress Hills Cemetery this weekend on the most gorgeous fall day I've seen in years. Some of the best Tombstone Hold 'Em players I've met anywhere in the country, too.

A 10-block walk across the Brooklyn-Queens border down Jamaica Ave took us to Mike's Pub for a post-tourney meetup. It will never make a top 10 city hotspot list, but Mike's Pub is a definitively Cypress Hills experience.

The estate photographer's photos of the New York City graveyard games are here!

Behold: My slides from the Austin Game Conference

mcgonigal_AGC_slides
Originally uploaded by Avant Game.

Back from the Austin Game Conference, where I gave a design-track lecture called "Alternate Reality Gaming: Experimental Social Structures for MMOs." The unofficial title of the talk was "Too weird for GDC." Also, the culmination of the talk was a lively 100-person game of massively multiplayer thumb wrestling. The slides are now posted here.

If you are interested in experiencing firsthand any of these lovely experimental social structures, might I suggest you get your gamer self to one of the following upcoming experimental games? I will be there to play with you at the November 5 Graveyard Game in New York City, the November 12 Graveyard Game in Atlanta, or the November 19 Graveyard Game in Los Angeles...