Chatty’s “Keep me away from the Internets while I write stuff” game

I have like 12 000 words to write before the end of the month AND a new seminar to plan.

I can’t make it if I keep opening Twitter and check my email every 5 minutes like I often do.

That’s why, based on Jane MacGonigal‘s theory that we can make the world (or us) better with games, I wrote the following game:

2 Teams:

• Me, the Chatty DM
• All of Chatty’s Twitter followers (i.e. those subscribed to my Twitter feed )

The goal of the game:

Score the most points by April 8th 2011 at 10PM EST.

The rules:

• The Followers team wins a point for each member that calls me out whenever I publicly post anything online (blog, forum, social media or, especially, Twitter) between the hours of:
  • 8AM to 10 PM and
  • All times Standard Daylight Savings
• Exception: Instant Messages, Workgroups and Emails and my activity on the MyFitnessPal service.

• To score the point, the “calling out” must:
  • Be done on Twitter
  • Must include “@chattydm” in the tweet
  • Must provide proof of my online activity. (ex: A “reply” to one of my tweets or a link to a post).
• If, at 10 PM I the Follower’s team has scored no points, I win 10 points.

Team Points will be tallied on a daily basis on this post here.

To make this a cool social experiment, we’ll link to the Twitter account of anyone that catches me online.

Dave the Game will be this game’s referee.

The Stakes:

If I win this challenge, I get my work done by losing less time.

If I lose this challenge, I will draw a name among all those who participated and will give them the choice of a dedicated 1000 words blog post article on the subject of their choice OR a signed copy of one of the few remaining Deluxe 2009 One Page Dungeon Codex.

The game starts on March 15th at 8 AM EST.

Score:

As of March 20, 10 PM The score is

Chatty DM: 75

Followers: 60

Highlights:

March 15th

• 2h42 PM, sicnaxyz caught me posting a Pax East link on Facebook and answering its comments. It didn’t even cross my mind that I was doing something I couldn’t do, this is going to be harder.
• 15h20: Jane MacGonigal herself chimed in about my game: @chattydm That’s awesome. I hope you win and I’ll be watching if I need to call you out ^_^

March 16th

• 9h55, mmaranda notices that although I have killed Buzz and my Google account, it still broadcasts any IM status change… Including one I did after 8h AM. Seriously Google, WTF? Although I had taken steps to prevent that, Dave and I agreed to let the point stand.

March 17th

• I was a good boy and I won 10 points!

March 18th

• Carocloutier a friend of mine and player in my seasonal “Dungeon Reality Show” caught me changing my Foursquare status. Earning the followers team 1 point.
• Based on the fact that I only got caught on intermediate social media where my follow counts are much lower (I have like 5 on foursquares) cases I’ve decided to lower my scoring to 10 per day instead of 20.
• Also, before I get caught, I’m placing the MyFitnessPal social service off that list, because I intend to keep using it to track my exercise.

March 19th and 20th

• I breezed through the weekend and finished the drafting  my 1st assignment, I scored 10 points twice!
• Since this game is getting easier for me, I’m upping the stakes!  Following the grousings of @BrainClouds, I will no longer use Twitter during my lunch break… no more cop out as he says.  The rules were adjusted.

March 21st:

• Just to test the waters (and see if the game would be exportable after the experiment) I tweeted something towards the end of the morning.  Nine people busted me… So chances of this thing going viral are pretty low. Still here are the busters:
  • @BrainClouds is on to me like a Sentinel.
  • @Sicnaxyz was just as fast
  • @TriskalJM also jumped in the exact same minute as the 2 previous ones… I sense lists!
  • @pmgiroux punished me and even took a pic!
  • @TheldDM busted me while he should have been working too apparently.
  • @FTTank replied to @pmgiroux which had a pic, so I allowed the point
  • @wkinchlea called me on it few hours later  but rightly smelled a rat
  • @ArcaneSpringbrd chimed in
  • And finally @mmaranda closed today’s march of busts.

March 22nd Highlight

• Wasn’t busted, but I managed to slip a few Facebook “likes” and even uploaded a picture of myself on the Critical Hits FB page.

March 23rh highlight:

• In a fit of Rage while trying to get Batman Arkham Asylum to work on my PC, I tweeted something not very nice about Games for Windows Live. 11 people answered or RTed, mostly in support. Although most didn’t call me on it, I granted the other team 11 points. They are:
  • @TheldDM
  • @adamjford
  • @wkinchlea
  • @WyattSalazar
  • @KickerOE
  • @Shamusyoung
  • @ve4grm
  • @letechnophile
  • @chrislucas113
  • @spectere
  • @battlejack

March 24th highlight:

• Ever vigilant @Sicnxyz caught me adding 2 cousins on my Facebook friends list.
• To even the odds a bit, I’m lowering my daily score to 5, this means I can lose that edge rapidly if I get caught in  a storm of “gotchas”.

March 25th highlight

• Score!!!! 40-25!  Although I did some dickering around on Facebook before noticing what I was doing. I’ve also completed my 1st project (of 2).  Yay!

March 26th to 28th

• 3 Straight days without being caught… it’s starting to be too easy… or the addiction is leaving me.

March 29

• Sharing a cool link on the web, I get busted by 8 people. Score 60-32

March 30 and 31st

• I’m good and score another 10 points!  Score 70-32.

April 1st

• Will I get away with it…?
• Nope… got caught Twittering by 5 people

April 2nd

• I posted a blog post and twittered quite a bit… no one caught me The Game needs to end soon.

April 3rd:

• Kept tweeting, got caught by one person

April 4th:

• As I approach my goals, I feel the pull for Twitter grow stronger and I got caught twice. Score stands at 75-40

April 5th:

• I hit other milestones and I was caught many times on Twitter (17 as of 17h00))

April 6th

• The game winds down slowly, caught three times…