Focus on the North Bay!

Strong Wine Advisory

What’s up in the 707, you wonder? Well, as of late, lots of Go Game-ing. Since we’ve been up there so much, we figured it was high time to spotlight our favorite North Bay gamezones for your reading pleasure. Games up there constitute a mix of local 707 companies who want to play on their home turf, and other companies from all over the Bay Area who choose to do a retreat in Wine Country. It’s a great place to ‘get away’ for working groups, with awesome conference/lodging options. Plus wine, duh! Some of the companies we’ve worked with up there of late are: Onyx Pharmaceuticals, McKesson, Redwood Trust, E&J Gallo, and more.

We’ve transformed several North Bay cities into serendipitous ‘gamezones’ that come to life for a few hours of Go Game magic. Just in the last year Napa, Sonoma, Santa Rosa, Windsor, and Sausalito have hosted our special brand of team-building. Each one is great in its own way.

Napa’s got a great little downtown centered around 1st and Main, full of shops, bars, cafes and galleries. You can even sneak down to the Napa River for some nature clues.

Sonoma’s square (City Hall) is the focal point of that game — free ranging roosters and all! Lots of cool eateries surround the square as well as some interesting old buildings in the state historic park.

Santa Rosa’s gamezone is split between downtown and the big mall right next door, which is great for wet winter weather. It’s the most city-ish of all the zones up there.

Uncovering a Go Game Agent

Whether you’re a North Bay company, or just looking to do an offsite in Wine Country, we encourage you to get outside and PLAY in these really fantastic towns! It will be 1 cheesy-yet-romantic hot air ballon ride short of the greatest afternoon of your entire life.

The ending venues up there ALL serve great, local food, and pour a mean glass of wine. The weather, views and local flavor can’t be beat!

Here are some helpful links if you’re planning on holding a meeting up there:

Article about Team Building in the North Bay

Great Meeting/Conference Spots:

Solange Resorts in Calistoga

Meritage Resorts in Napa

Carneros Inn near Napa

Macarthur Place Hotel in Sonoma

Vintners Inn in Santa Rosa

Ah Portland – a thriving hub of innovation, coolness, coffee, footwear, and bike enthusiasts.

We adore this city, which is why we climb into our orange jumpsuits and visit it so often. The best part is, since this is truly a city of “eclectic tastes”, Portland natives hardly blink an eye when they encounter Go Game antics in the Pearl, Downtown, and Nike Campus.

For example, in any other city an epic ninja battle might raise eyebrows…

Or athletic dudes “vamping” for our Glamour Shot mission might turn heads…

Or perhaps impromptu arm wrestling contests…

planking flashmobs…

inappropriate breakdancing…

or anonymous love letters might stick out like a sore thumb.

But not here in Portland. Nope! You guys are completely unruffled by Go Game spectacle, and for that we love you. Stay strange Portland, we’ll see you soon!

Contrary to the belief of some, life does, in fact, exist outside of California. And so does The Go Game. Here in New York, The Go Game has a omnipresent…um…presence. Like a stealth superhero, The Go Game New York Game Runner darts through the night (actually more often the afternoon) saving the day for those afflicted by the 9 to 5 lifestyle.

A fine example of one such occasion happened last month. On November 4th I ran a game for a marketing company called Efficient Frontier. The group was fantastic – energetic, creative, and just plain fun. They took the West Village by storm, solving missions about chocolate hairdryers and cheese affineurs. They met with our snobby New York Art Collector, as well as our infamous Pick Up plant.

They vamped for awkward glamour shots in Father Demo Park.

They executed their creative missions with grace, wit and a whole lot of humor. Among them were these gems:

1) The latest greatest pointless trend (i.e. planking)

“Human Bench”

2) Finger movie (recreation of a classic movie using only fingers as actors…)

“Jack Drawing Rose, Titanic”

The entire group had a blast (as did I) and the energy and camaraderie was palpable.  But hey, it’s just another day at the office for this Game Running Superhero.

On November 4th we were invited to design a game for the founders of Burning Man. Needless to say, those guys know how to party!

Highlight of the day was a mission where teams had to re-inact Al Jarreau’s uber-cheesy 80s music video Roof Garden:

And they NAILED it:

On November 3rd, Radiolab hosts Jad Abumrad and Robert Krulwhich enlisted the help of Demetri Martin, Thao Nguyen, and the Pilobolus dance company to create an epic live radio experience at UC Berkeley’s Zellerbach Hall. The show was called “In The Dark” – an exploration of darkness that swung from one astronaut’s harrowing experience floating through space, to the contrasting realities described by two blind men, to the dawn of sight and the evolution of the eye.

We here at The Go Game are HUGE Radiolab fans. Like to the point where their podcast on games made us cry… twice. Needless to say, we were thrilled to design an interactive gaming layer for In The Dark. That night, event attendees had the opportunity to download our free iphone app and play alongside the two hosts as they explored the psychological intricacies of darkness. The game included crowdsourcing tasks, word puzzles, and creative challenges, and culminated in a “revealed location” where Radiolab fans met up with Jad Abumrad and Robert Krulwich for drinks at a local bar. It was a banger of a night!

Go Game crew & Demetri Martin

host Robert Krulwich explaining complex theories

host Jad Abumrad signing shirts like a rockstar