I was looking at the electrical shocking dog collars. You can use them to train dogs with a remote button. But could they be used for ....fun?

I propose a game like Marco Polo, played in an arena with several hundred participants. Each is wearing one of the shock collars, somewhere, and has a button corresponding to someone elses shock collar as well as the key to remove that collar. Their opposite has their button and key too.

The goal: find your match and remove the collars. Each player starts with 1000 points; point are deducted as time passes and you have not found each other and also deducted for shocking your opposite.

Some games might just be yelling matches with people pushing buttons and seeing who yells, and there is something to be said for that. But maybe some would organize themselves and do things systematically: an exercise in anarchy in the best sense as a form of problem solving and group organization.
-- bungston, Sep 30 2009

Or the shocked could have the shockings shocker key.
-- loonquawl, Oct 01 2009


Pointless cruelty.

[+]
-- 8th of 7, Oct 01 2009


Best if there's an odd number of participants - the leftover person gets a special prize.
-- tatterdemalion, Oct 01 2009


The leftover person would figure it out as her or she would never get a shock.

The electrical shock thing might camouflage the underlying coolness of the prject or maybe make people disinclined to participate. You could do it with cell phones too. It would be loud.
-- bungston, Oct 01 2009


Is this a metaphor for the structure of the universe?
-- wjt, Oct 01 2009


Seems more like a metaphor for cubicle work.

Maybe make it so two peoples' buttons connect to each collar and each button connects to two collars, and give the collars a buzzer that goes off if only one of the two buttons is pressed. What is needed to make the game interesting is a strong "tragedy of the commons" effect where each person can improve their individual outcome by shocking.
-- sninctown, Oct 01 2009



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