RUN — Sam Schwartz

./Run is a four-player co-op board game/video game hybrid emphasizing transmedia connections and issues surrounding “big data” and personal privacy. Players play as vigilante hackers against the game system framed as a large corporation holding the personal information of countless individuals. The game’s title is a pun—“./” in a terminal is the command to “run” an executable, effectively making the game’s title “Run Run.” We draw inspiration from a myriad of existing games including (but not limited to) Golem Arcana for its integration of digital enhancement and Netrunner for its cyber/hacker themes. ./Run’s aesthetic draws from stereotypical hacker/computer science tropes (i.e. green Unix terminals) as well as various contemporary events and organizations tied to social networking and personal information.

./Run features a circular game board composed of concentric circles, comprising three layers of rings that players are allowed to traverse with “running cards.” CS-related puns are also present in the different types of movement cards; for example, one card allowing players to “Climb Down” to a deeper level between levels is titled after the “CD” terminal command (short for “change directory”), which allows one to traverse in and out of various folders in a system. The “echo” and “touch” cards operate in a similarly punny manner—echo repeats the action of another run card just as it repeats whatever is typed in the terminal, while the touch card does nothing (it only updates the timestamp of a file when used in a terminal). Each ring has four color-coded computers which need to be hacked (through minigames) to open paths of corresponding colors to the next floor. The purpose of designing the board as a circle is not only to allow for a greater freedom of movement than in a linear board, but also to emphasize that players are literally running in circles in an attempt to infiltrate and fight the corporation. The win condition of getting a player into the innermost circle also elucidates one of the central conceits of the game: while players have achieved their original goal of “defeating” the company, they find themselves trapped in the center, reflecting to an extent the ultimate futility of their struggle.

Original RUN card sheet with clockwise and counterclockwise arrows and the commands cd, echo, and touch — The original print sheet. Players commit movement cards before finding out which hacked routes will open.

The primary digital aspect of the game lies in the minigames played to “hack” computers and open pathways. All minigames can only be accessed while in a board tile with a computer that has not been unsuccessfully hacked before, and are played during the stress phase, which lasts exactly thirty seconds. Minigames involve various data-related tasks, including searching through someone’s “Mugtome” (a play on “Facebook”) in attempt to uncover some of their passwords and listening to audio clips and reacting accordingly. Originally-composed fast-paced music plays in the background of the minigames to establish the high-speed environment and emphasize the “stress” of the stress phase.

Our choice to create a game with both physical and digital elements was inspired by Marshall McLuhan’s assertion that “The medium is the message” (both Jacques and Sam took Media Aesthetics for Hum). We seek to emphasize the effect of the digital on the physical, as demonstrated by real world systems already in place including China’s “Social Credit” systems where everyday activities are influenced by a government rating of an individual’s online activity. We attempt to achieve this effect through the use of the digital minigames to affect the player’s actions in the physical board game realm. The failure state of a minigame not only induces a failure screen to be shown on the computer, but also raises the threat level by two on the board in an attempt to mimic the punishment received for poor online decisions in accordance with the Chinese example used for inspiration. On the contrary, we also believe that the physical can have an effect on the digital—the physical game space requiring physical interpersonal connection and teamwork is not reproducible in a purely online/virtual environment, and influences the strategies employed to win the game. The computer color on the game board also determines which minigame the player will play, reflecting the effect of the physical on the digital. Additionally, through the physical elements of the game we sought to evoke the feeling of sitting around a table and planning a heist.

Another theme we seek to address in ./Run is that of privacy and big data in the modern “information age.” At the beginning of the game, players are prompted to enter some personal information and identify themselves, consequently placing their own data in the game system. We attempt to use this information against the players in the game, both for an emotional effect and as a game mechanic to make minigames more difficult—for example, in the “Mugtome” game previously mentioned, the player is increasingly bombarded with personally tailored attacks from the system as the difficulty rises, increasing the amount of time needed to find and sort through the relevant information for winning the minigame itself. Additionally, the reward for winning the game is access to a file containing a list of procedurally generated names and associated personal information, including medical statuses such as mental health, etc., that also contains the information that the players entered about themselves at the start of the game. This file not only illustrates the extent of the knowledge the corporation has, but also reveals that the player has been reduced to just another entry in the system.

We face a few concerns in our final product, some of which are inherent to our system design and others that we would perhaps be able to address with more time/resources/technical expertise. Firstly, the relative lack of replayability due to the “surprise” end file being discovered seems to be an organic result of any creative process involving a twist/shock-factor. We think that this lack of replayability could potentially add to our message, acting as a parallel to our desensitization as a society to privacy breaches, both by and against corporations. Players may recognize the futility of their actions when they realize that hacking into this corporation has given them access to information that has little use without analytical technology and the context of how the information is used. This situation is similar to the real-world examples of Facebook and its associated privacy scandals, where public outcry occurs for a brief time until nearly all is forgotten or diluted and everyone carries on with using the service despite the newfound revelations. Another concern we had was the use of smartphones to play minigames, as raised by many commenters on the presentation. While we fully agree that the integration of smartphones as the digital component, reflecting the increasingly smartphone-based data collection present in modern society, would be an effective component to add to the game, we are not capable of creating a smartphone version given our current team coding expertise and time limit. The games are all browser based, however, and as such may work on a mobile browser as well (although not recommended). Assessing the state of the game in aggregate, however, we would have liked to have performed more play-testing and difficulty tuning given more time and/or better time management. We see this iteration of ./Run as a prototype of a game that could feature longer and more complex gameplay with fine-tuned minigames.

Rulebook

1 Introduction

./Run is a cooperative game for four players, who play as a group of skilled thieves working to break into Mugtome, a massive social media corporation that has questionable practices when it comes to users’ personal information. To do this, they must discretely hack the many layers of security that guard the company’s headquarters, while moving quickly and not making too many mistakes, lest they let the security department become aware of their activities. Pulling this off requires skill in both the planning and execution of each part of the heist.

2 Materials

1 game board
1 alertness tracker
4 player pawns (in different colors)
4 computers with internet access (not provided)
4 hacking tokens (1 in each pawn color)
5 terminal lockout tokens
30 running cards (6 each of clockwise, counterclockwise, cd, echo, and touch)

The board consists of three rings of spaces, called the outer, middle, and inner rings, as well as the goal space at the center. It also contains three layers of secure paths, which are located between adjacent rings, and between the inner ring and the goal.

3 The goal

The players win if one of them gets to the goal at the center of the board. They lose if the alertness tracker reaches 9 or terminals become locked out in a configuration that makes it impossible for anyone to make it to the center.

4 Setup

Have each player choose a pawn and places it in any space on the outer ring such that no two players start on the same space. Place the alertness tracker at 0 on the alertness track. Shuffle the running cards and place them in a spot where they can be reached by everyone. Choose a game ID and have each player log into runrungame.herokuapp.com and enter the same ID. Place the hacking and lockout tokens in piles next to the board.

5 The Turn

Gameplay proceeds in a series of turns, which continue until the players either win or lose. Each turn consists of three phases: planning, stress, and resolution. The phases proceed as follows:

5.1 Planning

During this phase the players may discuss their strategy for the turn and decide who is doing what. Players can choose to hack, run, or hold (although the latter is generally bad). To hack, a player must be on a space with a terminal, and only one player can hack each terminal. Players choosing to hack must also choose the path they are hacking (which must be in an adjacent layer and of the same color as their terminal) and place their hacking token on it. Any player may choose to run, but all the runners share the same deck, so having more runners will make it more difficult for them to choose a good route.

The developers recommend you listen to Jamiroquai - Virtual Insanity during this phase, but that’s not mandatory.

5.2 Stress

During this phase, all players who aren’t holding will attempt to perform their chosen tasks in 30 seconds. Before that time starts, all hackers should go to the website and select the color and ring of their terminal. All hackers should start their tasks at the same time, and the runners should start drawing running cards during that time as well. This should cause all the hacking timers to be synchronized, and they can also act as the timer for the runners. If no one is hacking, set a 30-second timer for the runners.

While the timer is running, each hacker should attempt to complete the task on their screen. At the same time, the runners repeat the following process: draw a card from the running deck, decide whether to keep it, and then either put it face-up in a discard pile or face down in front of you. If you already have cards in front of you, you can only put a new card directly to their left or right, not in between them. Running cards will resolve from left to right, so the order is important. Once cards are in front of you, you cannot move or discard them, or look at any of their faces. Each runner may continue drawing until they have three cards in front of them, the deck runs out, or they run out of time. A runner must have three cards in front of them to be able to move.

When the timer goes off, players move on to resolution.

5.3 Resolution

First, resolve the hacking attempts. Each hacker should have “success” or “failure” in large letters on their screen.

Failed hacking attempts cause Mugtome to be alerted that something might be wrong. For each failed hacking attempt, move the alertness meter up by 2 and place a lockout token on the terminal. Additionally, remove the hacker’s hacking token from the board to indicate that the path was not successfully hacked.

The remaining hacking tokens on the board should correspond to successful hacking attempts. The paths they are on are considered open for the turn. The paths to the center space each have two colors. These paths must be hacked from two terminals simultaneously to open up.

Next, each runner flips over their run cards and resolves them from left to right. For each clockwise card, they move one space clockwise. For each counterclockwise card, they move one space counterclockwise. For each cd card, they move along a path going inward if an open path is available. For each touch card, they do nothing. An echo card counts as a copy of the card before it. If the first card is an echo card, it counts as a touch card.

If a runner attempts to run inward when no open path is available, that card does nothing, but they continue to resolve any other cards they have. For example, let’s say a player has the sequence counterclockwise-cd-clockwise, with the intent of moving counterclockwise, taking a path inward, and then moving clockwise from the path’s destination. If the path is not successfully hacked, their second card does nothing, so they move counterclockwise and then clockwise, ending up in their original space.

After movement, if a player made it to the center, the players win. If that happens, click on the “I reached the center” button on the website to receive your reward. Otherwise, move the alertness marker up by 1 because spending time in the facility makes the corporation suspicious. Then shuffle the running deck and move to the next turn.

6 Hacking Tasks

Mugtome’s security is distributed across four separate networks, represented by the four terminal/path colors. Each network controls a different type of security system.

The red network can be used to control paths that are protected by a password. It’s also connected to the internet, and some of the Mugtome employees who set the passwords have a habit of leaving their personal Mugtome accounts logged in. Red paths can be hacked by visiting Mugtome and reading the posts made by one of these accounts and guessing what password the account-holder might have chosen.

The blue network controls doors that are guarded by numerical passcodes. However, some company executives decided that constantly typing these codes was taking too long, so they asked IT to implement a voice-activation system that allows them to speak the code instead of typing it. IT knew this was insecure, but they did it anyway to avoid getting fired. However, they did manage to convince their bosses that to make the innermost layer more secure, they should require verbal codes to be spoken in Basque, which is unrelated to any other language. Incidentally, this network also has access to the company’s audio surveillance recordings. Blue paths can be hacked by listening to a recording and typing in the passcode that can be heard in the background.

The green network controls doors that are secured by DNA scanners. However, an issue with the scanners makes it so the information they read can be edited before the system authenticates it. Green paths can be hacked by editing the string of DNA read from the hacker to match the DNA of an authorized individual.

The orange network is the result of a failed experiment in network integration that has yet to be completely dismantled. Orange paths can be hacked with a random hacking task of a type used to hack one of the other colors.