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Assassins Ball at PAX East 2015! Feedback Requested!
MarsChelios
Registered User regular
Registered User regular
You walk into a massive space filled with people; bright lights and loud sounds grab your attention. Your eyes narrow as you scan the crowd searching for your prey. Suddenly a chilling sensation sweeps up your spine; you are being watched. You duck around a corner sneaking a quick glance over your shoulder and see... nothing. But you can’t shake the feeling that someone is hunting you.
Welcome to Assassins Ball, a community social game played during PAX East 2015 in Boston, MA, March 6th - 8th. To play in Assassins Ball you need to be attending PAX East 2015 for at least one day.
What is Assassins Ball?
The premise is simple: You are an assassin with a mission to find specific players and assassinate them, gaining prestige for yourself and your allied faction. After you confirm a kill on your target you will receive a new mission and the process starts over.
For this game I'll be running a Kickstarter campaign for initial materials funding. Following forum rules the link to the campaign will not be posted in this thread but can be found on the game websites main page (http://www.phenixone.com). Please do not post the link here and ask any question pertaining to the campaign through PM or through Kickstarter itself.
For anyone wondering, this has been given specific clearance versus the kickstarter ban on the forums from the Administrator. However, any questions related to the kickstarter itself would be best left to PM or on the kickstarter page. Please do not use this thread to discuss the kickstarter (other than if you want to post that you're participating in Assassins). You will also notice that @MarsChelios has been careful to not link to it directly, this is by design.
Your Kit and Tools
Each Assassins Kit comes with a large 3" Player Button, a smaller 1.5" button that denotes your faction, and a small card that you will show to players who assassinate you so they can confirm their kills. These materials are stored on a heavy card within an envelope for easy storage, safe shipping and travel.
Player Badge
Each assassins kit comes with a 3" button called the Players Badge. This button allows you to identify people playing Assassins Ball and see whether they are a potential target at a glance.
The button has both a standard pin-back and a clothing magnet attachment to ensure that it stays on. The button should be worn on your left arm facing out or on the upper left side of your chest.
Kill Confirm
In addition to the player button each kit comes with a Kill Confirm card that will be used so other players can confirm they have attacked the correct target. This card has a prominent QR Code printed on it as well as an alphanumeric backup code.
After assassinating a target a player can scan the QR code or make note of the code to confirm they have attacked the correct target.
Website
The games website (http://www.phenixone.com) will be your main tool for learning more about Assassins Ball, registering your kit and receiving missions. You can also view your prestige and ranking compared to other players overall and in your allied faction.
How to play
Once you've received your kit you will need to go to the games website and register your player button; You will need to create an account that requires a valid email address prior to this step.
Missions
Missions are comprised of a primary target, a range of secondary targets, and an optional faction. Any player whose player symbol matches the primary or secondary target symbols listed on your card is a possible target.
Once a mission has been assigned, you will notice that a timer starts to countdown on the website. After a few hours' the timer will reach zero and if you have not found your target you may request a new mission.
Assassinating Players
Should your target be performing an activity that would be disrupted by you approaching them please wait for the player to finish their activity first. Players are encouraged to be creative when assassinating players but please:
- Do not use prop weapons
- Do not do things that could be considered threatening (Physical contact, proximity)
- And above all don’t ruin someones fun
Being assassinated
If a player approaches you and informs you they are your assassin show them your Kill Confirm card but do not let them take it. Once they have recorded the code they will hand it back to you. That's it!
Factions
Factions are powerful organizations who employ assassins like yourself to further their goals. Each faction can be easily distinguished on Player Buttons and Mission Cards by their sigils, shown below:
Intel
Intel is valuable information being carried by other assassins (even those in your own faction). The process of collecting, harvesting, stealing, etc. Intel is referred to as Gathering Intel. Intel is intended to be a social system used when running into players.
Gathering Intel
You can gather intel from any player (other than yourself) by visually noting the Badge Code on their player button and entering it on the Intel page.
Your faction needs to verify each piece of intel you submit, so there will be a period of time before you can gather intel again from that player. There are some limitations when gathering intel from players, listed below:
- You can gather intel from a player up to five times.
- You cannot gather intel on a player you have already assassinated. Assassinating a player will automatically submit one last intel for that player to your faction, if eligible.
- You cannot gather intel on yourself.
This is just the beginning for Intel. Just as assassinations have changed over time expect intel to grow and evolve as well. If you have a comment or idea on something you'd like to see with assassinations, intel, or something brand new let us know below!
Meetups
Meetups are pre-specified places and times where I'll be available to answer game questions or to resolve any issues you're experiencing. Meetups are also a great way to find and assassinate your fellow players!
Meetups are free game and a great for racking up a few quick assassinations. Keep in mind that being assassinated:
- Does not eliminate you from the game
- Does not affect your score
- Does not affect your current mission in any way
Meetup Schedule
All meetups during PAX are currently planned to be on Level 2 of the BCEC in the South East Lobby (near the escalators, to the left of the Condor Theater). Make sure to follow us on twitter @PAXAssassins to receive game updates or in case we need to shift locations for a meetup. I request that you plan ahead and be on time to avoid missing me as I will be keeping to this schedule pretty tightly.
Friday, Saturday and Sunday Meetup Times
- 9:30AM - 10:30AM
- 3:30PM - 4:00PM
At all meetups look for our sign! It will look something like this:
Murder Spots
Murder Spots are unsupervised places and times where players gather, hang for a bit, and get their assassinations on.Like meetups a few Murder Spots will be scheduled throughout each day. Feel free to start your own Murder Spot by tweeting a place and time to us @PAXAssassins and add the #murderspot hashtag. We'll review and retweet to players as fast as we can.
What's next?
Don't see something covered here or uncertain about something? Got a suggestion or constructive criticism? Think this is awesome? Let me know below! I'm very excited about this years game and I hope you are too! If you're posting a question for me, please place @MarsChelios in your post so I can be alerted and respond promptly.
Help get the word out!
Assassins Ball grows primarily through word of mouth. With the all or nothing nature of Kickstarter I need your help more than ever to make sure Assassins Ball is at PAX East! Help me get the word out or let me know any suggestions you have on reaching people!
Here's some ways I'm connecting with people:
MarsChelios on
+2
Posts
Bit of a copy/paste error there, thanks for bringing it to my attention! Updated the OP, here's what it says now:
One of my favorite PAX memories was when my friend and I found my target in the cafeteria. He had his buddies with him as well so we were afraid if we moved on the kill we might get taken out ourselves. So P.I.-like, we tried to tail him in hopes they'd split apart. Ended up losing them in the expo hall, but still, it was super exciting.
Good Fix, I was kinda worried there for a second. Ill be sure to join in.
Thanks @KnownDominance! Welcome to the game!
So what factions are you guys going to pick?
I'm in if you remind me Tym
We should a late night of truce and play some table top games. That's if anybody is free.
Assassins Ball 2015
Pax East 2012 & 2013 Attendee
To make things easier to remember there will likely be one location for the meetups every day. For those who have been to PAX East before let me know if you have a suggestion on a good place to meet in the convention center!
Edit: To clarify, the KS link on the site's homepage, not on the "learn more" page.
Thanks @DaveRH!
I think there is a typo on the rules segment on the site, under the Assassins Kits segment:
:P
I'm usually partial towards Cthulhu, but I dig the Robot Ninjas description a little more.
Updated. Thanks for letting me know!
Updated leaderboard and Visualizations
For quite a while the games leaderboard has been little more than a table of players and their scores. No longer. The new leaderboard is designed to be a more streamlined experience showing you the top players, your own position, and players that are immediate threats.
Along with this upgraded leaderboard will come additional visualizations of your exploits, those of your faction, and the overall player population. More details to come on what those will be closer to PAX. Got an idea for a visualization? Let me know!
Intel Returns
As a faction member you hold valuable secrets other factions would love to get their hands on just as your own faction would love to learn their rivals dirty secrets. Intel is a game mechanic being added to this version of Assassins Ball (past versions had a similar mechanic that previous players will recognize) that lets you interact with any player.
Intel can be gathered from any player regardless of your mission. Each piece of intel you collect will add a small amount of prestige to your score. While a single piece of intel will not rival even the sloppiest of kills, it's not inconceivable that intel could be the tie-breaker for you towards the end of the game.
I'll have more info about these new features very soon. Let me know if you have any questions!
I've been quiet lately here but only because I've been making some awesome stuff happen behind the scenes of the website. I'll be dropping some details about that in teh next day or so but just wanted to say thanks to everyone playing! If you were on the fence before now is the time to get in the game!
Smart Missions
One of the coolest additions to the upcoming game is one that wasn't initially planned. In an attempt to add more data to the game to visualize, missions have received two pieces of data: difficulty and rank.
Mission Difficulty
A missions difficulty is set when it is generated based on the current state of the game. It's a representation of how hard it will be to find the target from a simple kill (matching Shape only) to the perfect kill (matching Shape, Color & Faction; If you're not sure about the types of kills check out the rules page on the site for more info). In cases where a mission is deemed too difficult the game will toss it out and give you one that's not.
The difficulty of a mission affects how long it takes for it to be reset; as difficulty increases the reset time decreases. This means that should you receive a mission with a hard difficulty you won't have to wait as long to reset it as a mission with an easy difficulty.
Mission Ranking
A missions rank is set when it's confirmed and represents how closely your target matched the mission parameters. A simple kill receives the lowest rank (D) while a perfect kill receives the highest rank (A). Some say an even higher rank exists to exceptionally quick and accurate assassins.
Mission ranks will be used as a tie breaker. Players who complete missions that overall are higher ranked will show up higher than similar scoring players with lower ranked missions on the leaderboards.
I went to the site to try and register, but didn't see where I could. Is that not active yet?
Nah, I'm just joking (great movie though). I received my invitation today and skipped around in joy. I'm very excited for this! Thanks for putting this all together!
EDIT: This is the icing on the cake. I'm more excited for PAX than I ever have been!
It should be available. Make sure you have Assassins Ball at PAX East 2015 selected in the top left, click the down arrow in the top right to show the list of available games. If you're still not seeing it let me know and I'll look into it more!
Edit: It also appears that at the moment you need to be signed in to see this page.
When I tried to create an account, the site was erroring out on me. I will try again today.
edit: Ok, now I can register, but the confirmation email sends a link that is invalid (directs me to gmail.com/users/.....)
edit2: Was able to log in despite not getting the confirmation email link to work.
Hooray! You'll be able to see your first mission 18 hours prior to the game starting, there should also be a countdown on the Current Mission page as well.
I Meant to post the Intel update here today but got sidetracked this morning, so here it is!
Intel
Intel is valuable information being carried by other assassins (even those in your own faction). The process of collecting, harvesting, stealing, etc. Intel is referred to as Gathering Intel. Intel is intended to be a social system used when running into players.
Gathering Intel
You can gather intel from any player (other than yourself) by visually noting the Badge Code on their player button and entering it on the Intel page.
Your faction needs to verify each piece of intel you submit, so there will be a period of time before you can gather intel again from that player. There are some limitations when gathering intel from players, listed below:
This is just the beginning for Intel. Just as assassinations have changed over time expect intel to grow and evolve as well. If you have a comment or idea on something you'd like to see with assassinations, intel, or something brand new let us know below!
Thanks and thank you for playing it!
This info is getting sent out now. First scheduled meetup is Friday morning 9:30AM-10:30AM in the South East lobby of Level 2. I may be available on Thursday as well for giving you your kits, will have more info on that as we get closer to PAX.