The Cloud is a brand new digitally supported alternate reality game by Pop Up Playground and Tech Assault for VicHealth.
Set in “a minutes from now” future The Cloud is a mystery to solve, hidden all across the city. A community of people who play a game to stay fit and ready for anything. And a conversation about what it means to be human.
Explore the city.
Find the clues.
Decide what happens next.
What is The Cloud
The Cloud is a game that uses the internet, social media, digitally supported street game, online story telling and ubiquitous technology (smart phones, SMS, etc…) to set the players to solving an unfolding mystery.
The story told by the Cloud is a collaborative effort between the players and the writers. Like a role playing game, the writers offer a fictional/simulated situation for the players to react/respond to.
All official direct interactions with the game proceed as if there is no game.
The website, social media presence, on street game runners and in game communications will be themed within the narrative environment of The Cloud.
Part of the fun, is pretending its real.
The story of The Cloud is set within a community of people playing a game on the streets of the city, called The Run. The Run is a digitally supported game of territory acquisition, mental, physical and social challenges played in the CBD.
In teams of three to five, players search for clues, solve puzzles, discover and complete challenges and compete to capture as much territory in the city over a two hour period as possible.
Players are also offered training missions, available at any time via an online portal. These training missions are automatically conducted via Conducttr and purpose built software designed by Tech Assault.
Successful completion of the missions contributes to the collective story telling exercise and adds to players skill sets (metaphorically and literally).
The Missions, The Run and the social story telling game aspects of The Cloud are all designed specifically to encourage increased physical activity, to increase awareness of the personal habits and environments that impact on physical and mental health and encourage mindfulness as a coping strategy, to build self confidence in unfamiliar environments and self reliance in changing situations.
The Cloud, both in the game fiction and in the real world, is designed to make its players faster, stronger and smarter.
How the game works
We’ve set up a Tutorial Mission which lasts approx an hour (depending on how you play).
The Season Pass gets you access to all the other missions. Once you have a Season Pass, throughout the week you’ll get access to all the other missions via the website as they’re released each day. These missions also take as long as the player takes to complete them. The game lasts all week.
If you buy the Tutorial Mission and then want to keep playing, you can purchase a reduced price Season Pass for you can play the rest of the week’s missions too.
The final day, Sunday the 13th March, will include the last clues and The Run. The Run takes around two hours and is played across the streets of the Melbourne CBD.
Introductory game $5
Season pass $30
Tickets on sale now: http://www.trybooking.com/KFLI
The Cloud trailer by Victor Valdes