For those unfamiliar, here is a Wikipedia link regarding the Cooper Color Code:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeff_Coope ... Color_Code
One of my experiences came about 2 years ago while playing a game called Assassins. The game is commonly played in close-knit environments such as college dorms and the like. The game is organized by one person who does not participate in gameplay. Players sign up with the organizer in secrecy as not to reveal that they are players - this is essential to the gameplay. The organizer then assigns each player a target to assassinate, essentially putting organizing all the players into a large ring in which everyone has another player targeting him, and each player has a target. The game can be played with a variety of "weapons" - in our case it was water guns. A hit on any body part constitutes a kill, and must be done using the player's weapon - no throwing cups of water at people. There are established "safe zones", in which a player cannot be eliminated, which diminish as the game goes on, at the organizer's discretion. I live in a housing cooperative consisting mainly of college students, anywhere between 15 and 32 residents per house. The houses are spread over the "West Campus" area of UT, with a spread of about 20 blocks. In our particular game, the starting safe zones were anywhere indoors, and any block from the sidewalk in containing on of our houses. As the game went along, the safe zones shunk to only the house properties themselves, then anywhere but the house properties(including indoors all other places), then to the porches and interiors of the houses, then to only the interior of the houses themselves. In previous years, it had gone all the way to no safe zones at all.
Wikipedia also has an article about the game. You can find it here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assassin_%28game%29
At the time, I was working doing tech support for a small company that did Internet Help Desk support and my office was roughly 10 blocks away, directly adjacent to the UT campus. Imagine if you will, walking to work every day down the street bordering the largest university in the US, knowing there was someone - you didn't know who - gunning for you. This is Code Orange. And I spent 4 months of my life constantly in it. I can attest to the truth of what is stated in the Wikipedia article - "Staying in Orange can be a bit of a mental strain, but you can stay in it for as long as you need to." My only reprieve was when I was at home sleeping. Walking down the street was like that scene out of The Matrix - the Agent training program. Here's a refresher for those of you who don't remember:
Absolutely any one of the thousands of people I saw every day while walking to work could have been my assassin. You become very aware of your surroundings.Morpheus: The Matrix is a system, Neo. That system is our enemy. But when you're inside, you look around, what do you see? Businessmen, teachers, lawyers, carpenters. The very minds of the people we are trying to save. But until we do, these people are still a part of that system and that makes them our enemy. You have to understand, most of these people are not ready to be unplugged. And many of them are so inured, so hopelessly dependent on the system, that they will fight to protect it.
[Neo's eyes suddenly wander towards a woman in a red dress]
Morpheus: Were you listening to me, Neo? Or were you looking at the woman in the red dress?
Neo: I was...
Morpheus: [gestures with one hand] Look again.
[the woman in the red dress is now Agent Smith, pointing a gun at Neo's head; Neo ducks]
For 3 months afterwards, I was instinctively watching everyone and everything out of the corner of my eye, always aware of everything that was going on around me, and especially behind me. I still do this to a lesser degree, at what I now know as Code Yellow. Not a bad side effect from a college game, eh?
By the way, out of the 35 people in the game, I won. I won not because of my gunning ability, but because of my skills in avoidance. I made myself a difficult target, and only once had to defend myself against another player... and he was my target and from my house. During gameplay, I learned of attempted assassinations on myself that never came to fruition because of the avoidance measures I took. This is also something I practice to an extent today - change up my patterns enough that it's hard for an outsider to see an absolute routine. I believe this to be a deterrent (or at least an avoidance technique) to premeditated crime.
Anyone else have similar experiences? Please post them, I'd love to hear from you.
