P0: Cruel 2B Kind – Ji Hong Ni (CS 377G)

Participants: Ashley Nguyen, Amarissa Ramos, Darren Hall, Vy Ta

My understanding of the original Cruel2BKind game was that it was very similar to Rock-Paper-Scissors Cheerleader where players around the room play against each other and little groups form as the “entourage” until one winner was determined. The “weapons” are swapped out in this case for phrases except that the whole group attacks in Cruel2BKind and only the winner in Entourage. Since it was a rainy weekend at Stanford, I made several modifications to the game. 

In my version of Cruel2BKind, I made the following modifications to the game. Since it was rainy and difficult to gather folks, we played stationary at a table in Tressider Union. The “weapons” were modified to use eyes as the mode of attack.  

Here are the rules:

1. All players sit at the table and avoid eye contact with each other. At the shout of “start,” each player can make eye contact with another person at the table. 
2. If the player doesn’t make eye contact with another person, they look away for 5 seconds and then repeat step one. If they do make eye contact, that is their “opponent” for the round. 
3. Once eye contact has been established, both players must close their eyes immediately. Once shut, each player is trying to open their eyes before the other. If they open at the same time, it’s a tie and the game continues. If player A is successful at opening their eyes before the other, they must use one of the three weapons in the example slide given before player B has a chance to say the weapon that was most effective against player A’s weapon. 
4. If player A manages to finish their weapon statement before player B has the chance to finish or start, player A wins. If player B finishes before A and uses the correct weapon, player B wins. 
5. The loser forms a team with the winner and they keep playing until one champion. 

The game was effective in the sense that it could be played when there isn’t a need for a lot of space or when space was not accessible. It also includes more physical accessibility for those in wheelchairs since there isn’t too much movement involved either. It just takes concentration and speed skills to win since players need to focus on reflexes and also remembering what weapon was effective against the other. Things that didn’t work were at times it was hard to determine who open their eyes first so there were times when things got murky. In addition, things I want to change in the future are that I want to incorporate more team dynamics since in my mod, it’s very similar to Entourage which only the winner advances to the next stage. It would be interesting to see how teamwork can spice it up.