Braintrust FC
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I led a group of staff tasked with inventing and assembling outdoor games for summer campers.
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Acted as producer by assigning weekly tasks for the team on a 3 hours per week, 12 week production schedule
Hosted weekly meetings to critique and improve upon each other’s work
Personally accounted for designing 15 games meant for various ages and scenarios
Below are some of my favorites of the games I designed, yet to be tested.
A logo I made for fun, representing the origin of the term “Braintrust” being from camp’s Army Navy day and Bauercrest with its bolded B. Brain icon credit to Arief Mochjiyat from Noun Project
Ship Wars
This is the finale event for Pirate Day, where the camp is split into four teams. I wanted to create a climactic game that plays well into the pirate theme as well as engages campers of all ages.
Ships
Teams organize their senior campers (ages 15-17) and junior campers (ages 12-14) into battleships. The seniors carry twin mattresses to create ship walls used for blocking incoming fire. They also navigate the ship. The juniors inside the ship attack the enemy using dodgeballs by peeking out and throwing them. I balance the physical abilities of both age groups and encourage teamwork by placing the older, stronger seniors in a defensive role and the younger, smaller juniors in an offensive role.
The next step was creating an environment for the ships to battle, as well as incorporating the youngest age of kids somehow.
Setting
Gameplay
The ships battle in the ocean by moving around and exchanging dodgeball fire. If any member of a ship is hit by a ball, that player is eliminated and out of the round. Their ship must carry on without them.
When balls are thrown, regardless of result, ships cannot retrieve them. Instead, referees will clear them into the outer ring. The youngest campers (sophomores ages 7-11) will be waiting in a line at their team’s bases and promptly race opponents to try to capture balls and resupply their ships.
This method of competing for dodgeballs avoids too much physical altercation and allows for the bulk of the officiating work to be done in the ocean
Protect the Payload
This is an activity designed for the lower hill, generally underutilized because of its steep slope and narrow area.
It’s difficult to bring things up a hill, so what if the players had to drag a heavy box from the bottom of the hill to the top? That sounds like a payload from video games like Team Fortress 2 and Overwatch.
Goals
Offense: get the payload to the top of the hill
Defense: stop the offense from delivering the payload. I thought it would be interesting if they also had a stake in the payload. That came in the form of a flag atop the box for the defense to capture and deliver back to the bottom of the hill.
In TF2 and OW, the defense only wins if the offense fails after a set amount of time. I thought the addition of the flag would incentivize them to focus on the payload with an objective of their own.
Setting & Gameplay
Combat
Combat in this game consists of “rumble royale” (a staple of camp games, see below) and dodgeball elements
The players moving with and around the payload fight rumble royale style
The sideline players use dodgeballs to hit the rumbling players
The offense uses mattresses to block
Getting eliminated either by rumble or a dodgeball triggers a “respawn” mechanic
If on defense, the eliminated field player switches with the sideliner at the top of the hill
If on offense, the eliminated field player takes one of their empty sideline spots. This continues until they are all full, at which point field players begin to swap places like the defenders
This gameplay system allows the offense to make some degree of progression before all their roamers are eliminated to the sideline and they are forced to abandon the mattresses. Then, it will come down to exposed combat for a climactic finish at the hill’s crest (oh yes).
Bucket Domination
This game is designed for rainy days and uses empty containers (small ones) to collect rain as the marker of game progression. With inspiration from Battlefield and Call of Duty, along with concepts from Protect the Payload, I wanted to adapt another FPS game mode centered around rumble royale combat.
Rumble Domination
Two teams of 16 players compete for control over 3 circular zones
To capture a zone, a team must clear it of all enemies and maintain control for a few seconds
Fighting consists of rumble royale in the outfield
When a player’s flag is pulled, they must run to home plate to “respawn” before returning to battle
Bucket
A bucket for each team sits on the edge of each zone, manned by a referee with a lid
When a team captures a zone, the referee covers the bucket of the other team, allowing the rain to fill the bucket of the capturing team
Once a team’s bucket fills to a certain threshold, that zone will permanently close and be awarded to that team
The first team to close 2 zones wins the game.
Documentation for other games the group made can be seen here, including the ones I created designated with (Grossbach) after the activity name. I recommend using control-F for that… so many pages…