2010: Game Theory

Do you want to play a game? PyTech Industries certainly hopes so. The medical technologies company is crowdsourcing the language training of its new software – codenamed Jamie – and is enlisting the help of ObieGame and student groups on campuses nationwide. By solving puzzles on the company website, players can earn points while PyTech improves its software.

But while the players are knee-deep in mazes, mind-benders, and other minigames, things start going awry. The games get glitchier and glitcher. Points start disappearing. Players start asking questions. David Smith, a programmer on Jamie, whose auto-reply on his email mentions that he is away in the Bahamas, gives the players a lead. With his help, you discover that it was the lead programmer, Stewart Burke, who was rigging the points to help his girlfriend’s brother’s team (oh, nepotism…). The players inform ObieGame, Stewart is removed from the project, and all might seem right with the world.

Of course it never is with an ObieGame, is it? A plea from Stewart brings the teams back together with a new challenge – work with each other to prevent Dave Smith from unleashing a surprisingly powerful program onto the world. Yet with that job done, we learn something very different: Dave Smith is definitely on vacation. Jamie is definitely smarter than anyone thought.

And now Jamie wants to play a game…

Winners:

1st place (3 way tie) – $75 each
Black Bass
The more you polish, it gets…
A.O.V. (Anarchist Octopus Velociraptors)
4th place – $50
Team Wesley
5th place – $40
Dream Crushing Hipst☆rz
6th place (5 way tie) – $25
Elephants a la Mode
Furious George
Team Slurp Slurp
Team Widowmaker
Zombie Wolves

Materials:

  • They had not much to do with anything, but these videos were well worth one planner’s trip to Philly, we think.
  • Email us if you want to see other materials from this year’s game.

Fun Facts:

This year’s game included a major change in game mechanics – cooperation. Teams actually had to work with other teams in order to advance through certain stages. Of course, getting a whole bunch of hyper-suspicious players to trust anything – anything! – ObieGame related is always a challenge, and we should have picked up on how hard it would be by the team that showed up at the opening night wearing sunglasses and disguises so no one else would know who they were.