History

Revision 1.0

• Brandeis University – Waltham, MA, April 2003. GMs: Josh Marcus, Nat Budin, Jaelen Hartwin.

The original Snaf University! It was meant to run for 8 hours, but only ran for about 5. In many ways it was the product of not enough experience, with which a lot of mistakes could have been avoided, but we got better… trust us. :)

Revision 2.0

• Intercon D – Chelmsford, MA, March 2004. GMs: Josh Marcus, Nat Budin, Jaelen Hartwin, Jon Sagotsky, Sam Hariton.

We rewrote Snaf University the next year to run at Intercon D. Jon and Sam, who had played in Revision 1.0, were brought in to help. The combat system, which had previously been based on the Wombat-Combat system used in “Etherlines: The Morning After” and “6×9: Peripheral Visionaries” was discarded in favor of Seesaw, a combat system of our own devising. The item search system used in the game was greatly simplified. The major plot of the game was almost completely discarded in favor of a new uberplot structure. Also, this was the first version of the game to feature the crew team.

Revision 3.0

• MIT – Cambridge, MA, May 2005. GMs: Jaelen Hartwin, Nat Budin, Chad Bergeron, David Durschlag, Viktoriya Fuzaylova, Sam Hariton, John LaRoche.

With help from Peter Litwack of the MIT Assassins Guild, we reworked the game again for a run at MIT. We wanted to make this game as comfortable as possible for MIT players, so the combat system was replaced again, this time with Peter’s Darkwater system, which is often used at Guild games. The item search system, already greatly simplified for Revision 2.0, was discarded entirely in favor of simply placing items and item cards around the rooms. The murder mystery plot, of which there had been hints in Revision 3.0, was fully fleshed out. Sam began the onerous process of simplifying the mechanics the computer character had to deal with.

Revision 4.0

• Brandeis University – LARP Weekend 2006, May 2006. GMs: Jaelen Hartwin, Nat Budin, Chad Bergeron, David Durschlag, Viktoriya Fuzaylova, Sage Shepperd.

Snaf University returned home to Brandeis for LARP Weekend 2006. In this revision, we cut out a lot of the cruft characters, including many of the members of the crew team. The email system was completely discarded, since very few players had ever used it. The janitor character, which had been essentially cut since Revision 2.0, was reintroduced with a brand new plot and goals.

Revision 4.1

• Foam Brain Productions run at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, 2007. GMs: Andrew Zorowitz, Tom Vorhies, Nathan Perelman, Nat Budin

Some minor, but important corrections were made to Revision 4.0 for the Foam Brain Productions run at RPI. Nat went to RPI to guest GM for Foam Brain.

Revision 5.0

• Brandeis University – Festival of the LARPs 2008 – April 5, 2008. GMs: Josh Marcus, Nat Budin, Viktoriya Fuzaylova, Sharone Horowit-Hendler, Jaelen Hartwin

The setting of the game was slightly altered in order to clarify things: it’s now an orientation weekend, not an admissions open house. We combed through all the puzzles in the game and gave characters more information to help them complete their plots. We also refactored some aspects of the murder mystery in order to make the puzzles more fair to everyone.