The major group project for this course is to create a location-based game. We are going to use Aris to make a situated documentary game that teaches the player about the fossil record of human evolution. Everyone will choose a fossil/skeleton and research information on that. This info will be used to both create an interactive presentation using Sutori and then used as part of the game info.
Aris lets players interact with real world locations. Since we can’t walk around and visit these sites, we can use this to get a feel for where sites are located and what sorts of information we can learn. The software is a bit wonky but i think it would be more interesting/fun than writing a paper!
Here is a video that shows how students have used Aris to learn
Now, follow along below to learn to create an account and make a game:
Obviously we can’t go to these places, but the game itself lets you pretend to visit. So, what i want to do is make a marker for the location the fossil comes from and then use that as a way to let players learn more about the site, fossil, etc. We could have players interact with the person who found or studied the fossil and have them ask questions. They can also ‘get’ the fossil to carry around and maybe bring it to a lab to study. I haven’t used this before so it might not work 100% but should be interesting to play around with even if it ‘fails’
If you have a smart phone try to install the software (note: if you are like me and have an Android it is a bit harder. see if you can follow this but otherwise I’ll work on giving a more detailed instruction. https://fielddaylab.wisc.edu/forums/viewtopic.php?f=13&t=169)
at end of week I’ll do a quick checkin and see what y’all think
use this time to research background on the site and fossil. things to think about - location -age -species -ssssss
start planning out the interactions etc you want to happen at the site