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| parn:alternate_reality_games_tutorial [2013-04-16 14:24] – alkan | parn:alternate_reality_games_tutorial [2013-05-17 12:31] (current) – alkan | ||
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| ====Alternate Reality Games Tutorial==== | ====Alternate Reality Games Tutorial==== | ||
| - | Based on the [[:ARG Tutorial]] by Adrian Hon and Matt Wieteska((Adrian has a background background in neuroscience, | + | Based on the [[ARG Tutorial]] by Adrian Hon and Matt Wieteska((Adrian has a background background in neuroscience, |
| ===The prehistory of alternate reality games=== | ===The prehistory of alternate reality games=== | ||
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| From The Beast to Perplex City it turned out that playing ARGs is very difficult and demands a lot of commitment. There was much disillusionment for a while, but then ARGs began gaining popularity again. In the last years there was a rise in period ARGs, often set in the near future (far future or past requires a lot of world building). The ARG for the TV series Lost (The Lost Experience((http:// | From The Beast to Perplex City it turned out that playing ARGs is very difficult and demands a lot of commitment. There was much disillusionment for a while, but then ARGs began gaining popularity again. In the last years there was a rise in period ARGs, often set in the near future (far future or past requires a lot of world building). The ARG for the TV series Lost (The Lost Experience((http:// | ||
| - | < | + | < |
| Over the years designers understood that the TINAG approach was perhaps not the best way to engage players; not knowing what it takes to play the game proved to be frustrating and alienating for many people. Nowadays ARGs have become more about context-specific personal experiences. Smart phones make it easier to contact the players wherever they are and adapt the story to their context and location. There is a large collection of location-based ARGs, ranging from a focus on gameplay to story generation and storytelling: | Over the years designers understood that the TINAG approach was perhaps not the best way to engage players; not knowing what it takes to play the game proved to be frustrating and alienating for many people. Nowadays ARGs have become more about context-specific personal experiences. Smart phones make it easier to contact the players wherever they are and adapt the story to their context and location. There is a large collection of location-based ARGs, ranging from a focus on gameplay to story generation and storytelling: | ||
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| The majority of the ARG audience are casual participants. They don’t want to make long-term commitments. If the game is based on mandatory interactions, | The majority of the ARG audience are casual participants. They don’t want to make long-term commitments. If the game is based on mandatory interactions, | ||
| - | The important question to ask when making an ARG is: are you telling a story that is exciting to be told, or a story you want to construct together with the players? The first job (of both designers and players) in an ARG is to assemble the information and make sense out of it, to understand the scope of the problem. Too much ’and-and-and’ in an ARG can be dangerous. As Brenda Laurel writes in Computers as Theatre:((This abbreviation can be found on http:// | + | The important question to ask when making an ARG is: are you telling a story that is exciting to be told, or a story you want to construct together with the players? The first job (of both designers and players) in an ARG is to assemble the information and make sense out of it, to understand the scope of the problem. Too much ’and-and-and’ in an ARG can be dangerous. As Brenda Laurel writes in ‘Computers as Theatre’: |
| ‘The number of new possibilities introduced falls off radically as the play progresses. Every moment of the enactment affects those possibilities, | ‘The number of new possibilities introduced falls off radically as the play progresses. Every moment of the enactment affects those possibilities, | ||
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| Making stories about alternate realities is an idea that won’t die. With ARGs we can experiment with different ways of telling these stories across physical and online worlds. The stories in ARGs are told in familiar ways, akin to the way we learn about the world our daily life. Players can become engaged in an alternate reality of an ARG while remaining themselves. As ARGs encourage us to discover and explore the real world while being immersed in a fictional reality, they make us think about ourselves and how we engage with others. By doing this, ARGs have the potential to bring large communities together to experience, generate and tell stories. In their community-building capacity, ARGs are different from entertainment and literature. They are a new medium in its infancy, with its screen being the entire world. | Making stories about alternate realities is an idea that won’t die. With ARGs we can experiment with different ways of telling these stories across physical and online worlds. The stories in ARGs are told in familiar ways, akin to the way we learn about the world our daily life. Players can become engaged in an alternate reality of an ARG while remaining themselves. As ARGs encourage us to discover and explore the real world while being immersed in a fictional reality, they make us think about ourselves and how we engage with others. By doing this, ARGs have the potential to bring large communities together to experience, generate and tell stories. In their community-building capacity, ARGs are different from entertainment and literature. They are a new medium in its infancy, with its screen being the entire world. | ||
| - | < | + | < |
alkan