September 25, 2006 5:24 AM PDT
Abe Burmeister, lead organizer of "Payphone Warriors," one of the featured events at the Come Out and Play street games festival in New York City, explains the rules of his game to participants on Sunday.
Organized into teams, the game's contestants searched for pay phones to "own" in the area around Washington Square. A phone was owned when a team member used it to call a designated number and punched in his or her team's code. The aim was not only to own as many phones as possible but also to maintain ownership of each one for as long as possible by posting a team member to guard it.
Guards who abandoned their post to search for other pay phones risked losing ownership of the phone to another team. Teams earned points based on how long their phone ownership went unchallenged.
Photo by Daniel Terdiman/CNET News.com
