If you’re planning on doing a subtlemob, please skip this post. Watch this video instead. This post is on my reactions as a subtlemob participant, and contains fun-stealing spoilers.

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After a day of panels and impromptu chats about where gameplay ends and interactive art begins, I went to play subtlemob by the Culver Hotel. Going in, I knew very little about the subtlemob. The instructions were to find a partner, and both download a half hour MP3 and meet at the secret starting area.

Some NYC friends had participated in a similar experience from Improv Everywhere. The Improvers were asked to follow the instructions, whether that was imitating passersby on the street, or forming a zombie dance mob in the park.  subtlemob also asked participants to synchronise their iPods and follow the instructions, but instead of drawing attention to ourselves, we were asked to be subtle and blend in with everyone else.

My partner wasn’t coming from IndieCade, so as I waited for him, I glanced around at nearby twosomes, wondering who was doing subtlemob, and who was just going to the movies or having dinner nearby.

At 8:30, everyone involved started listening. The recording asks you to walk around, to notice other people, to try to memorize everything  as if you’d never see it again. I was easily moved by the  theme of “as if it were the last time”. I was spending a long weekend in Los Angeles, almost four days crammed with fascinating conversations, the brilliant talks at IndieCade and impromptu discussion with awesome indie attendees. I’ve been meeting some internet friends in person, discovering new games, and enjoying LA. I was already trying to soak in as much as I could.

It was harder sell for someone who lives around the corner. My partner has lived in Los Angeles for years, and wasn’t affiliated with the IndieCade buzz, so he had to rely more on the narration.

As I listened to the disembodied voice, I started to recognize other duos doing the same thing. Although part of the instructions tell you to be subtle, it’s hard not to notice who’s walking whenever you walk, and leaning casually against the wall when you do, or looking in a shop window when you do. By the end, when participants were dancing in the street, it was easier to tell.

My partner and I didn’t really speak during the event, which felt like a natural part of the experience of following the audio instructions. Later I realized that this was never given as a rule. We decided who’d take which role with eye contact. (And? I was sometimes wrong. Turns out an eyebrow raised can be ambiguous.) Also, I learned that my partner likes to lead.

Playing through with someone I didn’t know all that well made me feel like we were both actors, playing a couple in the subtlemob movie. There was an awkwardness in putting my hands on my partner, a game-assigned PDA, but an intimacy in the group listening together and being led to experience the same things.

subtlemob made me simultaneously an actress in “as if the for last time”, following the directions laid out for me, and an audience, brought to heightened awareness of people around me. Acting came easily to my Hollywood companion, but I found it awkward at first to integrate the instructions with smooth subtlety. (Hello? I play videogames and write a blog about it — socially smooth isn’t quite my strength.) By the end of the recording, though, I was completely committed.

The narration did an amazing job of creating a group experience, which finished in a slowd ance in the street. As my partner turned me, I could see others waltzing or holding each other at arms length, junior-high style, but everyone smiling.

For the rest of IndieCade, I’d find I was talking to a subtlemob participant, and we’d just nod and smile, agreeing that it had been one of the highlights of the weekend.

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