In 2011 LUCUS was invited by Roskilde Festival to design a social smartphone game that could be played during the festival. As Roskilde veterans, we designed a game around the unique camp mentality we know so well from the festival.

Most camps have their own flag, which they bring to concerts and gather around. We wanted to play with that idea, so we placed three virtual flags around the festival grounds and explained the simple rules: whoever holds a flag when the game ends wins the prize. We made sure the prizes could be shared in the camp – a case of beer, board games or tickets for next year’s festival.

We built an extremely simple combat system: each flag had five hit points, and players could attack or defend once a minute. That was it.

The game that followed – the strategies the players invented and the scenes we witnessed afterwards – we could never have imagined.