Thoughtcrime
The Rubbish GameThe Soho Stag HuntDown in the tunnels under London Bridge, among the chairs and tables and plastic swans and roof-hanging sharks of Shunt, there's very little radio interference from the outside world.
For Thoughtcrime, this was pretty important. We'd written four scripts: the internal monologues of four different Shunt visitors. Actors had recorded the scripts, then hidden short-range radio broadcasters on their person (along with one surreptitious headphone each, so they could listen in themselves). As they played the monologue through the broadcaster, silent to anyone without a radio, they acted along to their thoughts.
Players explored Shunt with the help of radios, searching for and listening in on the actors' thoughts: a novelist working on a first draft; an aspiring clairvoyant; a scientist newly out of a job; and a young woman on a very boring date. While listening to the monologues they tried to match up the thoughts to the person - hidden among Shunt's usual clientele - who was thinking them. The first player to identify all four actors was the winner.
Links:
- Shunt, where Thoughtcrime ran
- Ruleset for Thoughtcrime
- Photo by Fabrizio Kevan Davis, co-designer of Thoughtcrime