Full Papers IDC 2013, New York, NY, USA Playing for Real: Designing Alternate Reality Games for Teenagers in Learning Contexts Elizabeth Bonsignore2, Derek Hansen1, Kari Kraus2,3, Amanda Visconti3, June Ahn2, and Allison Druin2 1School of Technology 2Human-Computer Interaction Lab 3Dept of English Brigham Young University University of Maryland University of Maryland Provo, UT, USA College Park, MD, USA College Park, MD, USA
[email protected] {ebonsign, kkraus, juneahn}@umd.edu,
[email protected] [email protected] ABSTRACT using are filled with cryptic messages and hints that history is not An Alternate Reality Game (ARG) is a form of transmedia as black-and-white as textbooks imply, since it depends on the storytelling that engages players in scavenger hunt-like missions perspectives of the people who record it. Your help is needed to to collectively uncover, interpret, and reassemble the fragments of inspect a set of historical artifacts that were allegedly discovered a story that is distributed across multiple media, platforms, and by staff members from the Smithsonian Museum. You also learn locations. ARGs are participatory experiences, because players about an actual, but secret philanthropic society established by have a central role in reconstructing the storyline. Furthermore, one of America’s founding fathers (Benjamin Franklin), called the players interact with the game as themselves, not via avatars. Junto. You and your classmates accept the researchers’ invitation Although transmedia formats like ARGs have garnered increasing to be part of a modern version of the Junto, called JENIUS (Junto attention in entertainment and education, most have been targeted of Enlightened Naturalists and Inventors for a United Society).