A frenetic start to the year and a few seasonal ailments slowed us down a bit – that’s why we haven’t posted any updates or news for a few days. We left off wishing you happy holidays with a picture of an unusual Christmas tree in an unknown city. Well, that city is Amsterdam, where it so happens that we were busy organizing an event in the first few days of 2009. On January 7th, the Italian employees of multinational pharmaceutical company Boehringer Ingelheim enjoyed an exclusive whaiwhai experience in Amsterdam called Vita Nova. This whaiwhai storyline was slotted into the agenda of a company meeting in the Dutch capital that was organized in collaboration with the Milanese event planning agency Chrysalis.

At 6pm on January 7th, in the bitter cold of the Northern dusk, about 60 people divided into teams went on a search for a secret linked to Rembrandt and the thousands of shades and undertones of the city on water. The Vita Nova gamebook was a collection of 15 stories about as many places in Amsterdam, plus a prologue and an epilogue. Just like we did for RCS in Milan, the content was put together specifically, ad hoc, for this special event. Once again, we demonstrated that our game-in-the-city platform can become a crucial tool to achieve diverse objectives and at the same time let people have fun. For us, the search for new stories about cities remains a thrilling adventure.

After a two-hour hunt that did not pass by without a few bursts of competitive spirit, the game came to end and the team that was first to complete the entire 7-stop itinerary was declared the winner. We might soon have a video, to show you all the Amsterdam players’ faces, who alongside the imaginary character Samuel truly breathed new life with Vita Nova.

Here is a brief extract from the prologue:

My name is Samuel Desden. Right now I’m traveling to Amsterdam, but my life usually unfolds in Manhattan. I’m an antiques dealer and I’m fond of art: my greatest joys are discovering masterpieces and finding artistic treasures. It doesn’t matter whether it’s a fragment of an ancient tapestry or a button from the Victorian era. I dig in, choose my treasure and sooner or later it passes into my hands. I’m good at what I do; auctions tend to work my way and I know the market – I’ve been absorbed in it for years.

And every valuable work of art has a story behind it, the story of its creator or the story of its thief.

But for now I’m on vacation. I want a little rest and a little something new. I picked Amsterdam; I’m going to meet a friend I haven’t seen for a long time. He lives here.

“Damn it, Samuel!” he exclaimed on the phone a few weeks ago, “Get out of that dusty past and come here for a few days. There’s always an air of newness in Amsterdam, it’ll do you good!”