News at 11

News@11 is a recursive storytelling game in which the players are anchors at a news desk or on assignment in a world going weird. The game is played in three rounds — Morning News, News at Noon and Evening Edition — in which the players take turns making up news stories, using elements from the previous rounds, as well as bringing new items in. They have to think on their feet and adapt their news stories to different newscaster roles. Each round, the players need to adapt the story elements they are given to the news segment they have been assigned. Being assigned a segment helps players build a starting story and in future rounds causes stories to blend and change in interesting ways. The three recursive rounds are at the core of the experience. Seeing the same news item start out as a relatively simple Home and Beauty segment, then in Sportsball a bit more odd and unbelievable, and finally as a Political where the hilarious chaos peaks adds to the zany nature of the recursion.