Abrupt Goodbye

Collaborative story telling

Abrupt Goodbye is a collaborative chatting game released by an indie game studio. The whole thing is browser based and all of the content is user generated. I think that it's possibly a first foray into a entirely new type of game.

The premise is supplied: A blind man is waiting for a train, a woman approaches him and talks.

Abrupt Goodbye is cool for a number of reasons:

- It is infinitely replayable - each completed game extends the content of the game a little bit, so the next game is longer and more varied.

- It's totally asynchronous, but puts two 'sides' against each other. Each side is several players working together without communicating.

- The system is set up to be self-improving - as you choose your conversational options, you vote for the most interesting ones. So there's a constant positive reform going on there.

You can crowdsource communication the wrong way, (as with some blog comments), or you can do something really great with it, like Abrupt Goodbye. Go play, it rules.

The Comment Transcompetency Halo Effect

When you're reading comments on a [blog|youtube|forum|news article], and it's the kind of toxic or wide-open environment that breeds bad comments, you might experience the following:

• Comment 1: hay guise i think this is cool i don't know about you but i like pickles
  
• Comment 2: THE PRESIDENT IS A SCIENTOLOGIST MY COUSIN TOLD ME ABOUT IT PASS THE WORD ON
  
• Comment 3: This post kind of reminds me of Neuro Linguistic Programming or something. Also, the president is not a Scientologist. He is, however, a robot.
  
• Comment 4: Macs suck, they dont have viruses becuz nobody even cares enough to right them lolol

After skimming those comments, I get the distinct feeling that "yeah, maybe the president is a robot." It's as if anyone who can string along a coherent sentence in a real landfill of a comment thread becomes a trustworthy informant, and things they follow with seem a little bit less crazy.

That, right there, is The Comment Transcompetency Halo Effect. Now that you're aware of it, don't ever be fooled by it again.