ooo.... ARGs at UTexas | HASTAC

via hastac.org

By Scott Nelson (excerpt):

"This past spring, the Digital Writing and Research Lab at the University of Texas at Austin playtested one clue from an upcoming alternate reality game. We designed the game to coincide with our next year's first-year forum book, a text that all students in Rhetoric 306 use. Next year's book is The Death and Life of the Great American School System, a critique of the business model of K-12 education. We wanted to take these larger concerns of government involvement in education and apply them to both past and current situations at the University of Texas, but more importantly, we wanted to engage students with the rich history and communities in Austin.

As a genre, alternate reality games lend themselves to this type of engagement. Players explore real and virtual spaces in search of clues, and puzzles are often too complex to be solved by one individual. Thus, players leverage the power of collective intelligence by forming teams with heterogeneous backgrounds. The more diverse a group's expertise, the more likely they will have the necessary information to solve the puzzles.

Beyond the benefits of collaboration, alternate reality games draw upon a wide range of digital media skills. In designing our game, we wanted players to use the usual tools of ARGs web searches, cryptography, message boards, and wikis -- but we also wanted players to learn multimedia production tools like Adobe Photoshop and Apples GarageBand...."

Posted via email from Siobhan O'Flynn's 1001 Tales