1) show a little warmth to your wintry rivals
2) shatter the icy hearts of innocent bystanders

to be held on
Saturday, 12.06.08

from 2 to 4 PM

Anyone you encounter could be your target. The only way to find out is to attack them with your secret weapon: an act of kindness. Will innocents be caught in the cross-fire? Oh, yes.

you must pre-register here*

("okay, i registered, now what?")

* you may also register on the day of the game at Columbus & Jackson between 10AM and 1.45PM (you may be seen by other players - register on game day at your own risk!)

RULES

synopsis:

You will be assigned 3 verbal acts of kindness; speak these phrases to possible targets within the game area. Other players will know to surrender to you; non-players will go along their merry way. Defeated players will join the team that defeated them.

Players on the same team must stay together and must attack other teams in unison. Assassinations must take place within approximately 5 feet of the target to be successful. Acts of kindness must be geniune in order to be successful; anything less will just be embarrassing.

Each player will carry "booty," which they will award to the player that successfully assassinates them. Booty can be anything... I prefer chocolate, personally.

If two teams assassinate eachother at the same time, the winner will be determined by which act of kindness was used, in a rock-scissors-paper fashion (this will be announced prior to the start of the game).

before game time, please look over the official
rules of benevolent assassination
and print out your pocket field rules
to carry with you during the game

NOTICE:
this game will be played outdoors,
in the freezing cold - players must dress
to be comfortable for up to
2 hours without going indoors.

Cruel2BKind designed by Jane McGonigal and Ian Bogost [www.cruelgame.com]
hosted in Chicago by CGØ

Watch the Cruel 2 B Kind Video. Learn how to become a benevolent assassin -- and watch a 200-player game unfold on the streets of San Francisco

Discuss this game on the SFØ events posting, the Facebook events posting, or with your friends and neighbors in real space.

List of Teams already registered (updated 12.5.08):

Lying Liars
Deadites
The Portage Park Assassins Guild of Chicago of Illinois of the United States of America of North America Including Mexico and the Kamchatka Peninsula
dinosaur
beetlebomb
nameless
Petsmart
stephanie
sui gerneis
Time and the Rani
Team Handcheck
nihilists
thugs
Lisa
Intesitea

"Cruel2BKind is a unique type of urban game in that it's structure is purposefully designed to compel its participants to reach beyond the inclusive circle of players and interact significantly with the outside world. While approaching non-players with random acts of kindness is essentially a happy byproduct of the basic action of the individual players, the function of the entire game is consciously to affect the non-playing occupants of a large public space. I have come across no other street game - or any spectacle theater - that approaches audience interaction so elegantly: the performers (the players) are not necessarily knowledgable of - or accountable for - their involvement in the overall effect of the game. As an exercise in spectacle theater, C2BK is particularly genius and beautiful. It is a great pleasure to present this game in Chicago." - Dax Tran-Caffee, CGØ member, organizer.

CGØ is the Chicago consistory of SFØ, an international grassroots collective living in a world of anti-consumerist entertainment.

The aim of these projects is liberty through genuinely free, self-conscious, authentic play

Investigate CGØ's past projects:

Journey to the End of the Night - Chicagø [4.19.08]

The Architect & the Urchin [9.19.08]

Thank you SFØ.