'Big Game' Safari In Manhattan

Cubicle Warriors Compete In Super-Sized Games Between Skyscrapers

(CBS)  In You Are Not Here, a player sets off with a map of Baghdad that has a reversed map of Manhattan printed on the other side. When the player holds the paper to a light source, it reveals that "tourist spots" of Baghdad — including the Baghdad Zoo or Iraqi National Theater — correspond to locations on the Manhattan map, such as Grand Central Station. By dialing in a code to a cell phone, players who reach a designated location receive a guided walking tour of Baghdad.

Although Phiffer says he was "pretty nervous at first about putting stickers" up marking the landmarks, his game seems innocuous in comparison to others.

Players of the game Insider took to Wall Street near the end of the business day Friday with pockets full of fake money. Within an hour, they were racing through the financial district, looking for insider tips on their shadow stock market, getting baffled looks from the real brokers.

Saturday, south of Central Park, teams of players ganged up on strangers in order to pay them compliments in a game called Cruel 2 B Kind.

Philip Buuck, 25, and his team were told via text message to try to assassinate their opponents by shouting at them "way to go!" Other teams were instructed to ask passersby if they needed help or compliment peoples' shoes in hopes of finding their intended targets amid the foot traffic.

Teams started out as pairs, but near the end of the game, groups of 30 or more people were shouting unexpected words of praise to surprised pedestrians.

"I heard one woman who was walking by say to the guy she was with, 'I don't know, honey. I'm just trying to stay away from them,' " said Buuck.

During the downtown game of commandeering pay phones, Chrysanthe Tenenetes, a 26-year-old magazine intern, said she got a lot of strange looks when bolting from one phone booth to the next. While "the peanut vendor on Broadway was pretty amused," some Greenwich Village residents were not.

"One woman was trying to use the phone – I didn’t know anybody actually used payphones anymore. I tried to get her to leave, like to signal something big was going on here, but she was really adamant." Tenentes said. "Eventually, I just gave up."

Instead of irking pedestrians, some games drew crowds. A staged séance — part of The Go Game — on a busy West Village street Sunday attracted tourists, who joined in the circle of players who were hoping to get clues from a lavishly costumed storyteller.

Nearby, a batgirl lurked on a bench. She bolted, head under caped arm, into the entranceway of a Banana Republic when another Go Game team approached. The teams were to search out the batgirl and photograph her in scandalous tabloid style.

"We got all sorts of photos, like a Kate Moss style coke-off-the-stomach shot, and one of another team 'unmasking' me," Donita Beeman, an actress hired for the game. "But then tourists started asking me to pose with them, too. I guess its not every day you see a masked girl running around in a black bodysuit."

[jmhughes4]

hey Christine (and your keyboarder web poster!

Restore the 'L" and get the quote right!
"putting pubic space in play."