Outdoor Affair: An Inside Look into Being an Outdoor Game Master

The games! The skyline! The walking! On the last day of school, students of Victoria Junior College (VJC) attended Victorian Affair, an event where the J1 cohort headed to the Central Business District for an assortment of games and performances to celebrate the last day of the academic year. That day, the morning sun dawned on me, hopes high in my head, and my shoes were very, very wet.

Act I: Getting Acquainted

My OA began about a week before, after being added to the GM WhatsApp group chat. 

Of course, as a Game Master, we were part of the OA group under Committee Head, Sim Ching Young (23S42). At our first briefing, we were given our station assignments and further split up into the different locations for OA: the F1 Pit, Marina Bay Sands, The Promontory, and Marina Barrage. I was assigned to Dodgeball at The Promontory, along with Isaiah Fuan from 23S310. Though, not because I was scared of my original assignment’s balloons, of course. 

Members of the OA Committee (OA Comm) were also delegated to supervise each of the four major locations. They were in charge of bringing the game materials from the college to the location, and were the primary managers and advisors for the GMs at that venue. 

We were then given important documents for our Game Master duties. These included instructions for each game, the locations and routes, and a Google Sheet to tabulate the Monopoly money earned by each class. 

In the Sheet, dropdown boxes could be selected to award a class with a preset amount of money (usually $50), depending on win conditions. Classes earned more, usually double ($100), if they won against another class in one of the inter-class games. Such inter-class games included Dodgeball (my game), Balloon Fight at the F1 Pit, and the Relay Race at Marina Barrage.

Act II: The First (and Only) Dry Run

To be honest, I had never heard of The Promontory before the briefing. I was not sure what I expected at the time but when I arrived, I came face-to-face with a grassy field. 

There were limited descriptions for this grassy field aside from variations of ‘expansive’ and ‘green’.

Once the others arrived, and after I was reminded of where Downtown MRT was, we began playtesting the games.

We started with Baseball Frisbee. Essentially, the rules were the same as baseball, only that instead of a bat and a ball, there was a frisbee. Simple. Classes would play against each other for $100. The loser or a class playing amongst itself would be awarded $50.

Immediately, looking between the waterfront and the grass, the most obvious problem would be our lovely fellow Victorians tossing school property into Marina Bay. Quickly, the playing field was set up at a far corner of The Promontory, where most people would end up throwing the frisbee away from the water. 

With that fixed, we played a few rounds of Baseball Frisbee amongst the GMs. By roughly timing how long it took to travel from base to base, we settled on a size for the playing area before playtesting Flip the Cones.

Flip the Cones is self-explanatory. Two competing classes are each assigned a cone direction (‘upright’ or ‘upside down’) and then divided into smaller groups. With each round involving one group from each class, students compete to flip more cones into their class’ direction. A class wins $100 by having more cones flipped in their direction by the end of the game. The losing class, or a class playing amongst themselves, earns $50 for participating.

With Flip the Cones, playtesting was mostly for fine-tuning the time, space, and cones allotted for the game. Us GMs played a few rounds, then relayed feedback to our assigned OA Committee members; Lim Xinrui, Cynric (23S51) and Aaliya Shajid (23S64). 

Around this time, other members of the OA Committee started stopping by. Marina Bay Sands and Marina Barrage only had one game station each, compared to the three assigned to F1 Pit and The Promontory, meaning that the dry run ended earlier for them. Upon their modern-day steeds, they arrived by rental bicycle, coinciding with the playtesting for Dodgeball.

Unlike Flip the Cones, Dodgeball is not self-explanatory. Unfortunately. We did try a version of actual dodgeball but the balls ended up going everywhere. So, we pivoted towards a siege-type game. 

The defending team has to survive the barrage of balls from the attacking team while stuck in a limited playing area. Once hit by a ball, the defender is out. However, the entire attacking team is limited to 2-3 balls. Should a defender catch a ball from the attackers, they can revive one of the eliminated players. After one round, they swap positions. 

We played a few rounds. As they progressed, it was increasingly difficult to believe that the OA Comm did not delight in pelting us with balls. 

“I don’t know if it is difficult or if y’all are just bad at the game,” one member of the OA Comm commented. 

Now, I think us GMs would have been more offended if that was not absolutely true. As a result of our sheer gaming prowess, the time the defenders needed to survive was decreased from 5 minutes to 1 minute. And this was when we limited the number of balls to 2-3, alongside the introduction of the revival rule.

It was funny in a strange way. I remarked to Aaliya at how some people dream of travelling the world to even see this view. Yet, for us, it was just right there. A train ride away. And we got to spend our last day of school looking at that view.

It was with this rising hope that we looked onto Wednesday, the day we had been preparing for.

Act III: The D in D-Day Stands for Difficult

As morning dawned on 22 November, it was nothing short of a miracle as we were greeted to clear skies on Victorian Affair. Though I narrowed my eyes at a few straggling grey clouds in the distance, it was nonetheless clear of rain. 

I got to Exit A of Downtown MRT (the correct meeting point) at 7.40 a.m. and met Isaiah Fuan, the other GM at my station, there. Isaiah was actually absent during the dry run, so I filled him in on the details. Especially on how “Dodgeball” was not actually dodgeball. He looked slightly confused but that’s reality—sometimes all you can do is accept it.

At the text of our OA Comm, we headed to The Promontory at around 8.00 a.m., just as some of the classes started arriving. The field was empty in the morning and the equipment was all ready for setting up on the bench. We stepped into the field to place down the cones and…

The most affected station was Baseball Frisbee. Since it was too dangerous for anyone to run, they had to entirely reinvent the game to suit the wetter conditions. 

They devised a Foosball type of game to minimise the running. Players held somewhat fixed positions and passed the frisbee to each other. Javier Tan (Chen Yixuan) from 23S36 helpfully illustrated the rules of the new game on a board with a marker he brought. 

As the now Foosball GMs playtested their game, the other GMs went prospecting for dry land. The Flip the Cones team decided to set up near the middle of The Promontory, creating 2 playing areas. Isaiah and I meanwhile chose a spot close to the waterfront. We created 2 squares for 2 rounds to go on simultaneously and each delegated ourselves to one. 

There was a lingering concern that the balls would roll off into the bay, yes, but given that the teams would be throwing the balls into the squares, we decided it was a minor issue. The uneven ground actually worked in our favour here, stopping the balls from rolling too far away.

At 8.30 a.m., the OA Comm sent texts informing us on which classes we were waiting for. 

Then, after everyone was accounted for, classes started coming into The Promontory at 9.00 a.m. The traffic was actually lower than I expected, possibly because we were located at the far side of the field from Downtown MRT. 

With the first pair of classes, I allowed Isaiah to observe as I delivered the briefing. Since it was my first run through, I was of course nervous. I think it translated into my instructions as well. Nothing is perfect from the get-go, and there were some confused faces amongst the crowd. 

To rectify this, I gave instructions step-by-step. I made them form groups of 5 before giving instructions to the teams about to play. The smaller group seemed to help them pay attention and was easier to manage for me. It also helped that I restricted access to the balls while I gave instructions. Without distractions, it was easier for them to focus on me. 

After double-confirming they understood the instructions, they stepped into the playing area and I began timing them. Once a minute was over, they swapped. Isaiah and I tallied the total number of people each class eliminated after every team had a turn. Then, we announced and awarded the winning class accordingly. We adopted this system for subsequent classes.

I was quite glad that the games went rather smoothly. Especially since I managed to get along with Isaiah, whom I had just met that day. After 2-3 rounds of classes, we began to get the hang of it and settled into a routine.

I checked in on the F1 Pit GMs at about 11.15 a.m. Out of curiosity and concern. Fortunately, they had settled and were starting to accept classes. I watched a player excitedly hold a balloon over their head. It’s saccharine but it was nice to see that Rachel Lim and the OA Comm’s efforts had paid off. (Yes, I can be sappy like that.)

Afterwards, the swells of turmoil were firmly behind us and our boat through time had rolled into a tranquil sea. Whatever sea that was, it was the tropical kind, clearly. As noon approached, the sun grew bolder, sapping the strength from everyone in the area.

Tired and maybe hungry, the number of playing classes petered out. From 2 classes waiting in line at its peak, no classes approached the Dodgeball booth for the last 45 minutes. Instead, some had decided to rest up on the benches along the waterfront. They lounged around in casual conversation, enjoying the sea breeze. Isaiah and I tried asking if anyone would like to play but we had little luck.

Act V: Here, Hear! Until Next Year!–A Collage of Class and Non-Class Activities

Wasn’t that the truth? No matter how cheesy or sappy or sugary it is, you can’t deny that connections are what make or break one’s experience with VA. The point of VA is not only to celebrate the end of the school year, but more importantly celebrate the connections you have forged and fostered throughout the past year. 

VA places a lot of emphasis on the ideals of ‘class bonding’, ‘class unity’, and ‘class spirit’. But, reading the testimonies from my fellow GMs and the rest of the VA Comm, there is value in extra-class relationships. And in my time as a GM, I learnt to appreciate these more. 

So, I wanted to dedicate this last section of the OA article to commemorate the connections lived, created, and celebrated through our experiences during VA. Whether as a class, or outside of it.