#CircleSprint co-op story game!

Hello everyone!

I realized earlier that gdocs' sharing makes it really easy to replicate the in person game of co-op stories. I can't think of the established name for this game so we're gonna call it the Circle Sprint! The game is to write as much as you can in one minute before the next person takes over and does the same thing, and then you repeat for as long as you want (I suggest 30 minutes). I suggest having more than two people, and not more than ten in a group -- even ten might be stretching it, but it could be fun once in a while. I think the best number of people for a game like this is five or six.

Anyways, here's how a #CircleSprint works:

1. Make a blank document on gdocs.

2. Share it, making sure everyone can edit the document, using the link function rather than bothering with email. (But you should probably use DM or a chat so random trolls don't join in) Everyone will come as anonymous, but with a colour, and you'll each match your text colour to your chat colour. For those of you who haven't used gdocs before, there's a chat window that will appear on the right side and you can talk to your fellows that way w/o spamming twitter with chat.

3. Have everyone open up http://www.online-stopwatch.com/full-screen-interval-timer/?c=s7oj8m4qr2 This timer is set to go off once every minute, with just a little ding. You all have to set them off independently, or you could assign a timekeeper. There's no preset end limit, so it will just keep going off every minute until you decide to stop.

4. Decide who goes first -- my suggestion is to use http://www.wizards.com/dnd/dice/dice.htm or whatever die roller app (or even real dice!) you have and roll to see who goes first, using highest number as first. Choose a die that reflects how many people you have, so there's less chance of rerolls. Just be honest with the results. It's not that big a deal, and if you're really too timid to start you can always lie and say you rolled a 1 ;)

5. Once you've decided the order, decide what kind of genre limits, if any, you want to enact, and how long you want to go. This discussion will give a little time to your first person to think of what they want to start with,  (as if you all won't have been already)

6. Get ready, make sure everyone is at their keyboards. Prepare your mind -- one minute doesn't sound like a lot but it really is if you just let the words come out! Don't worry about how stupid it is, just roll with it. This is for fun and should take you to fun places in ridiculous ways. Or maybe you can write a drama like this, I don't know!

7. OKAY START ALREADY JEEZ! Have everyone start their timers at the same time (approximate is enough, really) and begin! Stop as soon as you hear the alarm go off. Don't even finish the word. Let them. Pay attention, read -- don't go somewhere else if you're number four or five or something -- and know when it's your turn.

When your chosen time is up, stop and behold your creation! Everyone will have the link so they can all make their own copies and such, so you can continue to use them in later sprints, or even make parallel universe stories with different groups! This isn't really about ownership, it's about storytelling :D

You should also feel free to meet up with the video chat service of your choice (google hangouts, skype, something else I'm sure) rather than using gdocs chat, but that's only if you all can. Some of us have desktops with no cameras, or super crummy internet.

I'll try to organize some of these for later this week, but feel free to do them yourselves with friends -- I think it's a good exercise that makes you quicker while lets you have fun.