The Pickfair Directive
Written on October 25th, 2021 by Jake Wylykanowitz
Gamemaster
Discord/Twitch/Instagram/Twitter
In this multi-session event, players assist an AI by creating art projects to bring a secret society back to life during and after quarantine.
An Alternate Reality Game (ARG)-like developed with fellow students and staff at the University of Southern California.
Created for incoming freshmen at the School of Cinematic Arts, it follows the story of a rogue AI called Elysee Reinhardt and a mysterious organization known as the Pickfair Directive.
By solving puzzles and making creative works, players can meet SCA alumni and gain access to special events.
We showcased student projects on Twitch via a “pirate Twitch channel” and gave students a space discuss their art and how they relate to the world around them.
I participated in weekly meetings with the rest of the design team, 3 lead designers and 4 other gamemasters.
I worked with my team to create puzzles, ciphers, and challenges for players.
An interesting aspect of emergent narrative design was rooted in when I roleplayed as characters involved in the ARG on platforms like Twitter and Discord.
For example, I took on the role of an artificial intelligence who would reward players involved in a “shootout challenge” we came up with as a team.
One of the other designers took the lead on sending out prompts for the shootout, but I constructed the physical rewards of a single word tied to a 3D-printed model of Chadbot.
I then had to hide them around SCA campus, take a picture of each object’s location, and send it to the participating players so that they would receive their reward.
