Damp Assassins - aftermath

Posted in: Events

After injuring my knee and not having an MMS phone anymore I figured I'd just spectate the Damp Assassins.

But as Darren and I sat chatting with Will the Judge, the possibility of being involved in a phone-facilitated drenchfest in such good weather was too much to pass up, and off we headed to Argos to score weapons...

Naturally we picked the biggest, most manly equipment. The Triple Aggressor. 1.7litres of super-soaking capacity. Pump action. Water grenade. Detachable mini "handbag" pistol. Designed by NASA scientists.

Elite Water Warriors

Since I'm lusting after Sony Ericsson's as-yet-unreleased S700 I haven't quite made it to the land of MMS yet. So tagging along with Darren we joined the fray. Within seconds we were assigned a target over MMS. Game on.

Now, the game had about half a dozen of us playing over quite a large area: within triangle of Gt Eastern St, Old St, and Shoreditch High St. This resulted in a fair bit of wandering around in the hopes of finding a target. The second game saw the area much reduced which made it somewhat more fun. It could've been even smaller -- fragfest!

After chancing on a cache of players Darren swooped in for his kill but in the excitement was taken out shortly after by his assassin. A tactic learnt.

Piling back to HQ aka Bricklayer's Arms we met up with the rest of the players and debriefed. Rossi came to my rescue very generously lending me her MMS phone! Game on, again.

After plenty of wandering about, some quite tactical moves, and a bit of luck I ended up being the last of two: Ray and I finished off with a duel at 10 paces.

Duel!

This turned into a hilariously pitched battle around a loaded skip. As far as I was concerned it was an excuse to saturate a couple of well-dressed pedestrians. "Whoops." After Ray's confirmed kill (of me) everyone pretty much soused everyone else.

The (Very) Damp Assassins

The Arsenal. And beer. Note just how ridiculously big the Triple Aggressor is. Muhaha!

Thoughts on game strategy

The MMS target assignation was a novel twist to the game. Playing outdoors in an urban area with almost no car traffic, plenty of little back alleys, and twisty paths was really good fun. Like hashing it's a great way to learn about an area too. Congrats to the team for coming up with such an excellent venue.

Since your assigned target isn't your assassin (you don't know who is after you) it made for some entertaining interactions with other players, "are they after me? Is this a bluff?" and plenty of "arms"-length circling around each other.

However, the basic rules of "shoot your target, MMS soaked opponent to Judge, receive another target, repeat 'til one survivor" actually reduces (in a game theoretic way) to "every person for themself", i.e. "kill 'em all", a deathmatch. So the actual assigned target is not really that important as you have to zap everyone ultimately anyway. The MMS of the squirted opponent back to the Judge is still worthwhile and makes for a spectator sport at HQ (or online if it went that far). Apart from one time, I didn't go after anyone not specifically assigned as it was more fun to share hints about who'd been where, who was after who, etc. Tactically though, not so good.

Mobile phones, mobile players?

Quite a few of us, faced with exploring the backstreets of Hoxton for long periods without sighting a target, thought about playing on a bike, skates, or a skateboard. At first I didn't like the skateboard idea but compared to the other two you could unload off your vehicle for agile close combat pretty damn fast. Interesting to see how wheels in whatever form might pan out.

Variations

* Team deathmatch, half against half. I imagine this wouldn't make any use of MMS at all.

* Capture the flag, ditto and probably have to be refereed. Would have some cooperation though.

* The same format we played but have multiple targets assigned, and first to nail all of them. (Since people would be assigned more than once, shot players would have to be able to rejoin so they could get nailed by their other assassins ;-). Having multiple targets increases the chances of stumbling on an assigned target, and doesn't reduce to a deathmatch (so MMS necessary).

* Others?

Anyway, enough analysis. A great afternoon! Looking forward to the next one...

(Interested? Join the Damp Assassins mailing list.)

Posted by Paul Makepeace at July 24, 2004 23:00 | TrackBack