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#arg #kip402

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MY MPE Project Design

Research + Design Dropbox link:

https://www.dropbox.com/s/dpdt1tgsm58i52r/Research%2BProject.rar?dl=0

MPE Name:

Dimension Postie

MPE Tagline:

A Dimension Door for Postcard Collectomania – a way to collect postcards around the world without traveling

MPE Synopsis:

How to collect the postcards from different countries with diverse stamps and postmarks within three months or less time, but it just sounds a little bit unrealistic for many people who seldom travel around. In addition, few tourists prefer to send postcards to friends, as e-mail is much faster and more convenient, not to mention the social media allows people to share their journey at real time. Therefore the aim of this project is to provoke the popularity of sending postcards and offer the users an easier access to collect them all, even to drive the international interaction and communication.

Setting:

The game will be run for three months. People from 50 most popular cities are invited to join the program. At first, players need to create their own online shops of postcards on the Dimension Postie site, and get some postcards which are representative of their cities as exchange commodities to post on the “display case”. Then they can go to another player’s shop to pick the favorite one and negotiate about the exchange. An agreed deal is based on satisfaction with both sides. Players will be encouraged to design and make their own postcards which are more customized. The 5 persons of the fastest to achieve all postcards of 50 cities and 5 of the most well-designed will win the game, and are rewarded with round-trip tickets of where they desire to go.

Character:

Postie – an animated image of a pillar-box as well as the icon of the website, who can offer information and answers to any questions about post and instruct users how to play the game. Players can also chat with it about any topics.

MPE Use Case and Mapping:

People from 50 most popular cities will be invited to join the program through social media, such as a Facebook link which directs them to a landing page. After they register, Postie will present them the game guide, like how to build their online postcard shops, where to get the nice postcards in their cities, where do the postmarks belong to, or how to make your own postcards? Players can pull in their friends to join the fun, on the other hand, to complete the task faster. There is a forum for players to interact. Postie as well as the players can share the cultures, customs and landscapes of their city, or some useful experience and tricks to photograph and design postcard on the site. And participants will be highly recommended to take up the camera and go outdoors to take pictures for postcard design. The records of completing a trade deal will be mark on their shop page, where they use to display what they have received. They can also choose to share the records and achievements on social media. At final, the 5 fastest winners and 5 best designers voted by participants will win a round-trip ticket of their favorite city.

MPE Sample interfaces:

Dimension Postie will be a web-based project, combining forums and online chatting to spark the conversation among players and develop the community network. User will get a Dimension account and personal webpage after they register. The interface of the homepage comprise of notice board, which announce the mission progress and latest news about travel and postcard, and of a navigation bar which link to their personal page and discussion forums. Furthermore, the personal page will be designed in the forms of online-shop, so that the participants can more easily run their Barter Club.

#arg #qut #kip402 #project design #poster desgin

Vanished

Synopsis:

Vanished, created and run by MIT’s Education Arcade and the Smithsonian Institution, and funded by the National Science Foundation, was launched on April 4th, 2011. It is an alternate reality game designed exclusively for children, inviting kids and teens 11-14 to participate in the role of scientific detectives, and attempted to inspire scientific learning through a fictional story. The older participants can also follow along with special “watcher” accounts.

Main Themes:

Vanished is a science-fiction themed alternate reality game

Content:

Setting:

Vanished began with contacts between the students and the scientists from the future, who determined that an asteroid strike caused human’s extinction after hundreds. The scientist contacted players through the game site, requesting their help to gather data to test their hypotheses about the disaster. As the game continued, players discovered that global warming cause extinction. Actually, future scientists were disguised by someone who came from another world and they thought humanity has the possibility of changing the future.

Characters:

a) Lovelace, an artificial intelligence who traveled back in time to assist in the investigation

b) Members of Project Phoenix, who are scientists in the future

c) Real-world scientists from a variety of fields

d) A few villains, including trolls and hackers, players encountered them among their own ranks

e) Moderators had in-game personas, like Storm and Megawatt, who played the roles of guardians and guides

f) Participant – middle school students and home-schooling community

User Participation:

Structure:

Each eight weeks of Vanishedcomprises a chapter with its own activities, scientific content, and multiple scientific mysteries that require real scientific methods to solve. Players were instructed to apply the newly learned knowledge to the puzzles and achieve points.

Gameplay:

² Online work

a) Graphic movies & Flash game: Each week, secret messages will appear on the site to be decoded, images will need to be analyzed and Flash games will reveal additional clues. Play games that will help to illustrate concepts, and unlock clues and hidden messages.

b) Video chats: Players will engage with scientists from the Smithsonian via video conferences, and learn about a broad range of scientific fields.

c) Discussions forums: Players will share their offline discoveries with others online to advance the story. In forums, players can discuss their findings and how they might apply to solving the mystery.

² Offline work

Players need to explore their own neighborhoods to do field research, For example, gather temperature data, photograph plants and animals and figure out how to convert units of measurement to those used in practices. Also, players were invited to visit Smithsonian museums to gather clues and learn more about each scientific field.

Rewards

Players earn badges and achievement points when they solve puzzles or demonstrate scientific thinking. The badges and points could be spent to unlock documents.

Interaction & Collaboration

At the beginning of Vanished, players received one of 99 unique codes and they had to assemble every code to advance. Otherwise assignment was random, so players actively asked others for help and become involved. What’ more, many documents required more points than any single player could afford, and so players had to pool their points together as a team.

Tools:

Dedicated Forums, game site, YouTube, thermometer and another science tools，camera, etc.

Impact:

Vanished enabled kids to learn critical scientific skills in the process of game，being able to form clear hypotheses and prove them, as well as increased their interests in science. For example, a middle school teacher Dransfield introduced the game to his seventh grade students and claims Vanished transformed his class. The students were fascinated and engaged week after week, and many expressed a desire to be scientists as a result of the experience.

Comment:

The Vanished team attributed the high level of active participation to the tight player community, like the active discussion forum and the students’ network. Besides interaction with the game’s characters was a favorite part for many players, and help strongly promote engagement. So the way it engaged the player is a useful reference to my practice because my project mainly base on a web forum.

Reference:

http://vanished.mit.edu/user/register

http://www.argn.com/2011/11/vanished_teaches_children_to_save_the_future_with_science/

http://www.argn.com/2011/03/the_smithsonian_and_mit_helps_your_kids_get_vanished/

#arg #case study

Sorcerers of the Magic Kingdom

Synopsis:

“Sorcerers” is a new interactive experience that debuted on February 22, 2012 at the Walt Disney World, Florida. Jonathan Ackley and his team spent four years designing and producing the game. Ackley wanted to exploit the nontraditional and nonlinear ways of telling the Disney story, that’s why he chose location-based game and develop the Sorcerers of the Magic Kingdom.

Main Themes:

Disney themed world

Content:

Setting:

It was new story happen in the Disney World. The villains from various Disney stories were recruited by Hades, ruler of the underworld, indented to do evil. Players become apprentices to Merlin, the sorcerer who is Hades’ chief opponent. In order to save the Magic Kingdom, players must stop the villains from capturing the shattered pieces of Merlin’s crystal ball. The game combined the treasure hunt with interactive trading cards to create an immersive experience for Disney fans.

Character:

The roles were all drawn from Disney:

a) Villains: Hades from Hercules, Cruella de Vil from 101 Dalmatians, the Evil Queen from Snow White, Dr. Facilier from The Princess and the Frog, and Scar from The Lion King.

b) Sorcerer: Merlin from The Sword in the Stone

c) Apprentices: The players

User Participation:

Structure:

Sorcerersbegan at the Secret Sorcerers’ training center on Main Street. Each participant was given a map of mystic portals, key card, and five collectible spell cards. Players got eight different missions to complete, which of each was played in a specific park location, such as Adventureland or Fantasyland, and time length varied from 15 to 25 minutes. In the meantime, participants had opportunity to play their favorite Disney role and need to act like them during the game.

Gameplay:

The players use the treasure map to locate the magic portals. Each portal has an identifying keyhole that guests swipe their key cards to activate an engaging animated instruction for the game. At the end of each presentation, players aim their spell cards at the video, which would direct them how to defeat the villain. Successful players are rewarded with stronger spells in the course of the game. By completing all eight missions, gamers can fight their way to Hades.

Tools:

Wireless technology through Verizon, engaging animations over the eight missions, 70 different collectible spell cards, a map, the well-designed physical environment

Impact:

“Sorcerers” works well for a wide range of ages, because the characters are drawn from over 80 years of Disney films, allowing older family share memories and delights with younger members. What’s more, it set up a new storytelling model to engage Disney’s fans, which also can be applied to another stories and themed world to enhance the experience of interaction.

Comment:

A well-known story or character is a great help to the compelling background for ARG, as well as a well-matched environment plays an important role on the location-based game.

Reference:

http://touringplans.com/magic-kingdom/attractions/sorcerers-of-the-magic-kingdom

https://disneyworld.disney.go.com/attractions/magic-kingdom/sorcerers/

http://disney.wikia.com/wiki/Sorcerers_of_the_Magic_Kingdom

http://www.wired.com/2012/03/sorcerers-of-the-magic-kingdom-brings-dueling-to-disney/

#arg #case study

Ed Zed Omega

Synopsis:

Ed Zed Omega, developed by Andi McDaniel and Ken Eklund, was launched on August 15, 2012 and run through November 15, 2012. “Zed omega” means “so over”or“something is done”. The highly personalized game focuses on different education discussion, hoping to bring something new to the conversation in the context of 1.2 million kids dropping out of school every year in America.

Main Themes:

A world of 6 fictional teens who decide to drop out based on the real context in America

Content:

Setting:

Ed Zed Omega is about the stories of six fictional teens who have decided that they are done with education, and that they’re not going back. Their guidance counselor, Mary Johnson, has convinced them to use the time they would spend in school to explore solutions to the problems they perceive in education. Through the narrative of these teens, the Ed Zed Omegaproject proposes to create a safe space for teens to speak out about their perceptions of education.

Characters:

The assorted characters were presented by actors and actresses of 6 chosen from 40 participants who have similar experience with education. It is noteworthy that nothing was previously scripted in the story, they grew organically. The cast members seem to project their own high school experiences heavily on the roles through social media, which made the game as real and authentic as possible. The main roles in the story include:

a) Six teens each have a different reason for dropping out of high school, including Edwina, Nicole, Xavier, Lizabeth, Clare and Jeremy. They call themselves the Zed Omegas – totally done with high school and unwilling to return to the education system. August 15 is the day they don’t return from their summer vacations.

b) Mary Johnson, their guidance counselor, tried to engage them with a self-directed study on education rather than convincing them they are wrong to drop out.

User Participation:

Gameplay:

The Ed Zed Omega players can interact with these teens as well as follow along with their progress in dealing with the educational problems and decision of dropping out through a wide variety of social media. The audience is invited to influence and become part of the Ed Zed Omega story through sharing their thoughts, opinions, and experiences with the teens in Zed Omegas site.

Tools:

Various social media, game website

Impact:

This narrative makes the process easier for people to start a conversation and draw in multiple viewpoints about education, what’s working, what’s not working, and what might be done to improve the experience of learning. Participants including educators and parents can get some ideas from a fictional character by playing with this narrative or following the conversation.

Comment:

A good character setting and excellent role playing in the game can enhance player’s sense of reality; also a real world-based game structure allows blurring the line between fiction and everyday life effectively.

Reference:

http://writerguy.com/edzed/index.htm

http://edzedomega.org/

https://www.facebook.com/edzedomega

http://www.wired.com/2012/08/ed-zed-omega-rethinking-education/

http://www.argn.com/2012/08/ed_zed_omega_a_serious_game_visualizing_new_approaches_to_education/

#arg #case study

EVOKE

http://www.urgentevoke.com/

The ARG (2010) was developed by the World Bank Institute and directed by Jane McGonigal. It was started with distress signal about a nation-wide famine from Japan in 2020. The mission of first week is to solve food shortage problem and help the world. During the 10 week course of the game, players faced 10 different crisis related to topics like hunger, poverty, education and so on. The primary gameplay happens on the EVOKE Network. Through weekly graphic novels took place in the year of 2020 on the homepage, participants learnt the missions, and then post blogs, images, or video files responding to the Quests. As alternatives, these issues also were discussed on the Ning and Unfiction. By successfully completing Missions, students can earn “mission runes” and badges to progress. The top 10 players will have the opportunity to be mentored by noted social innovators and business leaders with scholarship. http://vimeo.com/9094186

#arg #case study

SCVNGE

http://www.scvngr.com/

SCVNGE is a smartphone location-based gaming (2010), created by the US Army and Princeton University, offers the incredibly accessible platform for individuals to build challenges with friends for fun. The tasks might be a riddle, a dare, a question or more which are customized precisely for the location. Till February 2011, it was estimated that had reached over 1 million users. What’ more, it is a development platform allowing large institutions to purchase challenges and add rewards on the SCVNGR site. As of June 2010, over 1000 local business, educational institutions and organizations have built on SCVNGR by creating challenges at their locations. By going places and completing challenges, players can unlock badges and earn points, which can exchange real-world rewards, such as discounts or free items. They are also able to broadcast where they are and what they're up to their friends on Facebook and Twitter. https://twitter.com/SCVNGR

#arg #case study

Trace of Hope

http://elianealhadeff.blogspot.com.au/2008/09/new-arg-traces-of-hope-serious-games.html

This alternate reality game (2008) was developed by Enable Interactive and sponsored by the British Red Cross, combining storytelling, detective work and technology gameplay. The story is about a Ugandan teenager Joseph who is searching for his mother during civil war, and describes how the Red Cross offers displaced civilians assistance to trace their families, just as what they do in reality. Through communicating directly with protagonist, players could feel they were really interacting with Joseph’s world, and sought to hunt across the internet to reunite him with his mother. The game has created a game world that is as realistic and authentic as possible, resulted from the action parallels the real life struggles of thousands of people who suffer from the conflict. Players need to go to real websites and drawing on genuine lifesaving information to help Joseph on his journey.

http://www.redcross.org.uk/What-we-do/Protecting-people-in-conflict

#arg #case study

Tap Joint

http://tapjoint.com/

The game (2012) is on a well-designed webpage with an antiquated ambiance fostered through the interface design. A man sits at a Chinese restaurant, facing to an old-fashioned telegraph machine and pneumatic tubes on the wooden desk, as well as cipher key papers, which he used to contact with an unknown person on the other end of the telegraph. From first-person perspective, players can move the man like a puppet via mouse clicks so to operate the machine directly. Otherwise inputting different trigger phrases will generates different results, such as “HELP” leads to a mobile version, a keyword that enables players to control it through keyboard and any others that will output pictures, phone number, or video clips. As the man’s conversation continues, the world’s narrative is slowly revealed to users. Players have documented many of these triggers on the game discussion forums like Above Top Secret and Unfiction. http://www.abovetopsecret.com/forum/thread815281/pg1

#arg #case study

Love letters to the Future

http://deep-inc.com/portfolio/love-letters-to-the-future/

The game (2009), designed by Xenophile Media, was started with the future responds received from a girl called Maya in 2109, who’ve found participants’ messages recorded in the Time Capsule in 2009 and used an illegal technology to talk to us from the future. The encrypted messages were planted amongst the writings on the lovelettertofuture.com site, where people left the love letters to their future generations. The website has received over 2,000 text, image, and video submissions. Participants were encouraged to share the clues they notice on the site; also some decoding methods can be found on the Unfiction forum. Users need to play a location game held in cites around the world to unlock Maya’s final video. On the final day, 100 most popular messages voted by participants will be sealed in a time capsule at the UNFCCC in Copenhagen. All progressions were announced through facebook and blogger. http://loveletterstothefuture.blogspot.com.au/

#arg #case study

A Ghost Story

http://www.homeaghoststory.com/

A Ghost Story (2011) is an MPE project of a TV series, The Twilight Zone, which was developed by Fourth Wall Studios. It is an extended interaction with the audiences mainly based on website. Users can choose the involvement level for experience at the beginning of landing pages, filling in the contact information like email and phone number. Then they can enjoy the 20-minute video gave away the mysterious story about Home, his two sisters and the manifestations of mother. The video content was broken into 5 chapters by texts, emails, and online chats between characters. For example, when a character receives a phone call, the user’s phone rings and the video pauses until the call is answered. As the chapters progress, mama’s communications with characters slowly shift to you directly. It is noteworthy that the technology of RIDES platform allows audio telephone influence content displayed in real time. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LAwKB_k8C2E

#arg #case study

Case Study: Cloverfield - Slusho!

Movie Story：

A monster came from the Atlantic Ocean, where it was awakened by Tagruato submarines sent down from Chuai Station to investigate. The monster is a deep-sea creature with an unknown evolutionary history. It grew to its massive size through consuming large amounts of Seabed's Nectar, a natural steroid-like substance which is very addictive and causes increased cell division and growth, and is used by Tagruato's subsidiary company, "Slusho!", for use as their secret ingredient in their frozen drink of the same name. At some point afterwards, the monster went into a sort of hibernation.

Proccess of Event:

Start:

The arg was began with a trailer debuted in 2007, no one really knew what the hell it was for. All we saw was some shaky footage of a bunch of dudes in New York escaping from an unseen creature.

Then:

We didn't even know the movie was called Cloverfield: the closest thing to a title was the date 1-18-08 at the end of the only trailer. This led inquisitive fans to the website 1-18-08.com, which showed pictures of the characters from the movie plus photos of some sort of sea accident and random Japanese people. Also, someone in the trailer was wearing a "Slusho!" shirt, which J.J. Abrams fans recognized as a Japanese slushy brand.

Then:

In addition to mind-fucking the film's followers with sheer confusion, the website unveiled some of the back story. It turns out Slusho! is owned by a company called Tagruato, which has an even more extensive fake website.

Besides manufacturing soft drinks, the company has apparently branched out into other ventures like deep-sea drilling and space satellites. Tagruato's corporate website was frequently hacked by an environmentalist group called T.I.D.O. Wave,which, also had its own site.

Then:

Several Myspace pages were discovered for specific characters in the film.

One of those characters, a guy called Rob Hawkins, would announce in a January 2008 blog post that he had been offered a job at the Slusho! company in Japan (that's why they're throwing him a going away party (欢送会)at the beginning of the movie).

Among Rob's group of friends was a guy called Teddy Hanssen who was actually a T.I.D.O. Wave activist secretly planning to infiltrate the new Tagruato sea drilling station set up near New York City.

Teddy's story could be inferred through postings on the T.I.D.O. Wave website, plus the private webcam videos recorded by his girlfriend Jamie Lascano (password: jllovesth).

Then:

In January 2008, several news clips from around the world were uploaded on YouTube reporting on the unexplained collapse of the same drilling station.

Teddy was supposed to be captured by the Japanese since disappeared.

Chuai Station English News - CloverfieldClues.com

http://youtu.be/KarNwKx5mGY

Then:

Tagruato Corp. blamed the activist group for the destruction of the station, but it's pretty obvious from the clips that it was actually attacked by some sort of undersea monster.

Players who bought Slusho! Merchandise over the website or who won it in the contest to create a fan-made Slusho! commercial, had previously received a torn Tagruato memo mentioning a "dark secret" in the station.

This, along with some other information posted on the activist site, suggested that the company found the strange sea creature with their satellites and built the "drilling station" to study it, accidentally causing it to grow larger by exposing it to the stuff Slusho! All that was left was for the monster to march into New York.

End:

The game ended when 200 fans were invited to Rob's going away party, which was followed by a midnight screening of the film they had immersed themselves in for all those months. The biggest reference to the ARG is when we see the girl from the webcam videos passed out on a couch during the party.

#arg #case study

6 criteria of a successful ARG

6 criteria of a successful MPE in my opinion according to the research online

1. Compelling storytelling

That means it needs a good game world background and an appealing storyline that can grab people’s attention and motivate them to play, even immerse themselves in it.

2. Able to achieve its aim well

Some args are designed to promote a brand, movie, book, album or video game, etc. while others are made to raise awareness of global issues such as the environment and politics.

3. Be interactive and engaged

A successful arg enable to interact with its players intensively, making the participants feel their decision can make a big difference according to the choices and investments.

4. Addicted puzzles setting

The puzzles design in the game should not too hard or not too easy. They have to be interesting and enjoyable enough to get participants to continue. What’s more, player can obtain a great sense of achievement when they solve the problems and get tantalizing clues, trophies and rewards when they unlock a puzzle.

5. Make people feel realistic

A good arg is always trying to tell stories that feeltrue and authentic through utilizing the realistic elements or combining the real life events, which will increase the sense of involvement. Immersive scenario is easier to get people to care rather than only catch their attention.

6. Application of multiple platforms

Delivering a mission or args in multi-formats through multi-platforms can to meet people’s expectations for an enriched game playing experience, from smart phone to pay phone, from poster to twitter announcement, from bathroom to hacked website, the more platform it uses, more fun the players get and closer to reality.

#arg #research

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