Author: Jane Doh (Page 3 of 9)

Staff Writer

Jane Doh is the online gaming persona of an otherwise ordinary person. Jane has a particular love for grassroots and independent projects, especially those run out of basements and breakfast nooks, and is working on several creative projects of her own.

Elect Garrison Medill: The Next Mayor of Chicago

November 9, 2010 / Jane Doh

We’re just now recovering from the mid-term elections here in the United States, but Garrison Medill is making a fierce run to become Mayor of Chicago. This “outside the Beltway” candidate, a Pratt University graduate with an MFA in sculpture, calls himself a “forward-thinking mayor.” At his campaign kickoff party, Garrison Medill took a firm stand: “What Chicago needs is a strong push toward technologies of the future, so it can be a thought leader in this country and around the world.”

No, no, incumbent Mayor Daley (in office since 1989), did not suddenly throw up his hands and leave the top municipal seat of the Windy City. But don’t tell that to Garrison Medill â€” he’s the protagonist in an alternate reality game created by students in a Writing, Language, and Culture seminar focusing on alternate reality games at Columbia College in Chicago.

In this course, run by Dr. Brenden Riley (who has been featured in the Chronicle of Higher Education for his Zombies in Popular Media class),Â students are guided through a “collaborative approach to learning and work” as they design, build, and launch an ARG. Seventy percent of a student’s grade hinges on their participation in the development, implementation, and evaluation of their classroom-grown game.

Guided by the efforts of Riley’s class, Garrison Medill is reaching out to Chicago voters by making public appearances, including a live Mayoral Expo on campus where Medill squares off against an opponent. Medill has certainly made some waves among theÂ politicosÂ in Chicago. A number of community responses to Medill’s run for mayor can be found from the student community’s blog, Vote or Don’t, and the political blog, Not Another Daley. This is just a small sample of the online assets of this student-created game.

Cast your vote for the next Mayor of Chicago by checking out Garrison Medill’s campaign page or follow along atÂ the game thread on Unfiction.Â Will this plucky, dark horse candidate make it to the top of the municipal food chain? Doesn’t he just look like a natural-born Mayor?

DevLearn10: Paging Dr. Strangelearn

November 2, 2010 / Jane Doh

Life as a Mad Scientist can be really, really tough.Â Sometimes it’s difficult to get the other Mad Scientists to sign on to your amazing discovery, your new way of doing things, your “Eureka!” moment. Â Everyone has experienced bureaucratic inertia, office politics, and personal opposition to new ideas and innovation, but atÂ Dr. Strangelearnâ€™s Learning Laboratory, you can equip yourself with vital tools to overcome opposition, maybe even help others “learn to stop worrying and love the bomb.”

Dr. Strangelearn and his army of Mad Scientist friends are all characters in Tandem Learning‘s latest alternate reality game designed to enhance the upcoming DevLearn 2010 conference in San Francisco from November 3rd to 5th. The conference, sponsored by The eLearning Guild, will focus on technology-enhanced organizational learning and knowledge-sharing strategies. The Mad Scientists are being played by learning industry experts whose true identities will be unveiled at the conference and on Twitter. At DevLearn10, there will be sessions at the Dr. Strangelearn Information Stations where participants will have a chance to meet the experts.

This year, attendees of DevLearn10 will be exposed to many new learning strategies, and Dr. Strangelearnâ€™s Learning Laboratory will help DevLearn10 participants handle organizational objections to implementing those strategies when they get back to the office. Through the game, research, case studies, and academic papers are being shared with players to arm them with what they need to convince their organizations of the feasibility and value of new learning strategies.

Pistolsniffer Industries: Head into the Woods with Earl and Randy

October 14, 2010 / Jane Doh

The two adorable hicks depicted in the above video sell Sticky Itchers Shower Scrub, a men’s shower scrub so manly it’s “like a hand grenade wrapped in bacon,” and in the past 2 years they’ve developed something of a cult following in the ARG community. Just recovering from a bout of undeath from a previous game called Purity Towers, Earl de Rosa and his best buddy Randy Porknut have been kicked out of a Civil War reenactment society for being too manly. So, the pair has joined an ultra-secret organization and are heading into the woods in search of adventure.

Earl and Randy’s latest adventure is the newest alternate reality game produced by Pistolsniffer Industries. Formerly known as Funnel Productions, the grassroots team has created several well-received independent alternate reality games in the past two years for embracing a light humorous style and implementing several recurring motifs. The Pistolsniffer “brand” revolves around the characters Earl and Randy, and their trials and tribulations span the entirety of the Pistolsniffer/Funnel “game-ography.”

We Lost Our Gold: Pirate Booty Still at Large

September 22, 2010 / Jane Doh

As reported previously on ARGNet, a befuddled pirate-and-ninja crew lost a treasure chest filled with 10,000 gold-colored US dollar coins somewhere in the five boroughs of New York City. This past Sunday, incidentally International Talk Like A Pirate Day, the final episode of the eight-part We Lost Our Gold web series aired, bringing the plot to a close. However, the pirate booty is still at large.

In July, several trailers, media appearances, and hilarious press releases built up interest for the series until it began in earnest on August 1st. Over the course of the episodes, the crew retraced their steps through New York City to try and remember where they misplaced the treasure chest. Starting off easily enough with Episode 1, the clues clearly led treasure-seekers away from Central Park.

However, as We Lost Our Gold progressed, the clues became more numerous and more difficult and also rife with red herringsâ€”usually tributes to filmmakers. The episodes parodied different genres and popular shows, such as The Larry King Show, where it was revealed that the pirates had stolen the money from Glove & Boots, a web series-making puppet duo consisting of Fafa the Groundhog and his friend Mario.

Interview with Mystery Guest 2010 Creator Heather Owings

September 8, 2010 / Jane Doh

Mystery Guest logo This August, the Finksburg Library in Carroll County, Maryland, finished up Mystery Guest 2010, its second alternate reality game to encourage summer reading for middle-schoolers and high-schoolers in the area.Â Linked with the summer reading program, players earned Library Bucks to use at the Auction Wrap-Up Party where there were prizes like a hockey puck signed by Washington Capitals right-winger Mike Knuble or tickets to Geppi’s Entertainment Museum in Baltimore, MD.

As reported previously on ARGNet in July, participants were challenged to identify (and deal with) the rather unpleasant Mystery Guest, a literary character that fell out of a book. The game played out mostly through the Mystery Guest 2010 blog, with 4 teen voluneers acting as main characters and liaisons, along with the Librarian to keep things in line. Just as the Mystery Guest was identified, however, he escaped from the library.

ARGNet had the opportunity to ask a few questions to the organizer for the library’s first alternate reality game, Find Chesia, and for Mystery Guest 2010, Library Associate II Heather Owings, about what it’s like to create ARGs for local teenagers.

Capture the Pheon: The Smithsonian’s Latest Alternate Reality Game Debuts September 18

September 6, 2010 / Jane Doh

Two warring factions, the Staves and the Knaves, try to restore balance after intruders from the “real world” (the Seers) have upset their virtual world called Terra Tectus. From the makers of Ghosts of a Chance, the Smithsonian’s new game Pheon will debut this month with a live event at the Smithsonian American Art Museum, in Washington, DC, on September 18, from 12pm to 6pm. In addition to creative activities, the live event will feature clues somehow encoded into a belly-dancing performance.

A modified version of Capture the Flag, Pheon will divide participants into one of the two factions, and an online questionnaire will determine if you are a Stave or a Knave. Individual players and teams will complete various missions and tasks related to the museum’s art collections to earn points and advance the game’s plot. Players will go through three levels of play (Neophyte, Acolyte, and Lamplight Council) before they reach the final stage and are able to “write” missions to challenge lower-level players. Gameplay will be enhanced by character interactions, with the ultimate goal of capturing the Pheon, a virtual talisman that will restore balance to Terra Tectus.