:: Come Out & Play 2010 ::

The Come Out and Play Festival is a street games fesitval dedicated to exploring new styles of games and play.

Come Out & Play 2010 in San Francisco

Seek 'n Spell
The unlikely union of Scrabble and an Easter egg hunt, Seek 'n Spell is the truly mobile game for mobile phones!

When: Sunday Oct 24 at 1-3pm
Location:Waller/Stanyan Parking Lot
# of players: 1-10
Duration: 5-15 minutes. Multiple rounds will be played.
Required: iPhone or Android-based phone (some loaners available)
URL: http://www.retronyms.com
Seek 'n Spell is a game for iPhone and Android that challenges you to spell as many words as you can in the allotted time. But there's one small catch: you're not given the letters you need, you have to hunt down the letters yourself!

The GPS-based game is played in a park or other large open space, and when you start the game the phone displays a map of where you are. The map also shows virtual letters scattered about the playing field, and you have to go to the letter's location on the map to pick it up.

Collect as many letters as you can - you can have up to ten letters at a time - and start spelling! You can spell any word with at least three letters, and the more letters a word has, the more points you get. Whoever has the most points at the end of the game wins!

Think fast and run hard to get the letters you need to outspell your competition!

Designers: The Retronyms
(Come Out & Play alumni: '09 + Winner: best use of technology)
Retronyms is a small band of programmers and designers based in San Francisco that write software for the iPhone, Android, Mac, PC and Unix. They try to blur the line between tool and game, creating entertaining tools and games for consumers, especially in the multimedia space. They are very design driven and work hard to create software that looks great and works as smoothly as possible.

Seek 'n Spell gameplay video from Retronyms on Vimeo.

(photos by Amanda Berhsohn)