DXP403 - Interaction Designs - HanaDinh

DESIGN PROPOSAL

Design Concept

Introduction

In my proposal for a design intervention, I would like to bring up the idea of applying Leap Motion and Virtual reality in Education, particularly in school and Museums. “The combination of intuitive and playful interaction with multi-faceted presentation options proved to be an effective mixture that attracts viewers to educational or cultural content.”(Novotný et al, 2013). Oceanography, Astronomy and Geography would be my strong focus.

Aims and Significance

My target users are students and people at any age that come to Nature and science Museums. By applying VR, education would be more interesting than ever. Contemporary museums nowadays are considered as a privileged means for communication and play a central role in making culture accessible to the mass audience. By using Immersive Virtual Reality to offer them an undeniable appeal is the key to approach the general public and keep them to revisit.

Case study

1.    Solar System Scope http://www.solarsystemscope.com

Online 3D simulation of the Solar system and night sky in real time-the Sun, planets, dwarf planets, comets, stars and constellations.

2.    Ocean rift http://ocean-rift.com

Ocean Rift is a Virtual Reality experience that immerses user in a vivid underwater world. Inside Ocean Rift user will find habitats full of wildlife, including dolphins, tropical fish, turtles, sea snakes, rays, sharks, whales, and even extinct prehistoric reptiles.

3.    Tokyo VR for Cardboard https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.candlify.tokyovr

Tokyo virtual reality experience with Google Cardboard.

Users can visit 26 different locations.

In the schools

Students will have chance to study Oceanography, Astronomy and Geography in a more visual and effective way with the combination of Leap motion and Virtual Reality, Oculus rift eyewear. Students can have a visualized lecture, which is the 3D simulation of Space, Ocean and Geography. This experience is expected to be more exciting therefore, more engaging for students to learn new things and also their imaginations and creativity might be enhanced. They can also interact with the virtual environment via leap motion where studied object in multi-angles and in deeper layers can be seen.

In the Museums

By applying Virtual Reality and Real time technology, the audience will be given 360º and real time experience. This will help to attract more people to museums because of they serves both as an interesting and educational places. Besides watching the exhibited real stuffs, museumgoers will be amazed to witness and admire the natural beauty. For example, in the Oceanography Museums, using the Oculus rift eyewear now people can watch real scenes in the ocean floors to various depths and diverse locations. Visitors who come to Astronomy museums can experience the feeling of being an astronaut in space. They can see the Earth from above and gaze at other planets like the Moon and Mars. People who love to learn more about geography and travelling can visit Geography museum to experience many places that they have never been to. With the real time technology, users will always see new things each time they come to the museums, as what they see is live. The video signals are transmitted from satellite or camera directly to the VR system of the Museums. Thus, the audience will love to come back there as every time they will see different scenes instead of a repeated video. It is all about experience the different moments right where they are without the need of travelling too far. And to apply this, the museums do not need a huge space and installations but they need an advanced system with reliable computers and high speed Internet connection.

Potential impact

My concept can be suitable with the work of Skunkworks lab, HUB studio and Oculus Rift. I hope that my concept will contribute as an idea and theme to their future work. Thinking of a future application for wide range of schools, universities and museums, it will become a vast potential market for them with a huge load of work.

Conclusion

 Virtual Reality Experience

Lab visit 02: Escape Hunt

Date of visit: 10/08/2015

Name of Lab/Studio: 

Actual Address: 77 Russell St, West End QLD 4101

Virtual Address: http://brisbane.escapehunt.com

Lab visit 05: HUB lab 

Date of visit: 12/10/2015

Name of Lab/Studio: HUB Studio

Actual Address: Z6 block Kelvin Grove campus

Virtual Address: https://www.oculus.com/en-us/rift/

Visiting HUB studio we got the chance to approach the knowledge about environment and sound design. We also experienced VR world with the Oculus rift eyewear.

Wesley Heard Hub Studios VR Artist and Honours student showed us all how he builds 3D assets in 3D Max and then presented us to the Unreal Engine and Unity interface.

Nathan Corporal the HUB Studio Sound Designer and Honours student  presented us to recording (Zoom h4n) and editing (Reaper) sound for 3D Audio integration in VR (FMOD).

Then we had chance to experience the Unreal Engine 4 demo, Showdown and other works such as Colosse, Dread Halls by Sergio Hidalgo and Nighttime Terror by Mark Schramm and others.

Key Roles and activities

HUB lab focuses on researching, exploring and applying the technology in Virtual Reality.

They are building demo ambient environment by 3D max, Unreal Engine and Unity Engine. They are also working the sound design, which is a very important aspect in building the VR world as human ear can recognize the location through the sound.

The HUB members want to demonstrate their skills through the projects they working on and also finding solutions to solve some sort of problems in design process.

Main Stakeholders of the work undertaken

Directly key stakeholders: Sound designer, Game designer, Digital artist, Photographer, Cameraman, Computer Programmer, Engineer.

Indirectly key stakeholders: Business and Commercial partner, Government, researcher, customer, student, director and so on.

Inspiration

I am interested in the Oculus rift eyewear it gives me a great VR experience. The Rift uses state of the art displays and optics designed specifically for VR. Its high refresh rate and low-persistence display work together with its custom optics system to offer unbelievable visual fidelity and an immersive, wide field of view. The Rift’s advanced display technology merged with its precise, low-latency constellation tracking system enables the sensation of presence – the feeling as though you’re actually there. The magic of presence changes everything. I have never experienced immersion like this.

Design Opportunities

Lab visit 03: Biofabrication 3D printing lab

Date of visit: 14/09/2015

Name of Lab/Studio: Biofabrication Lab

Actual Address: Institute of Health and Biomedical Innovation - 60 Musk Ave, Kelvin Grove QLD 4059

Virtual Address:

https://youtu.be/4PV6WZywE-4

https://twitter.com/hashtag/biofabrication

http://theconversation.com/from-science-fiction-to-reality-the-dawn-of-the-biofabricator-45309

·      http://www.nature.com/news/the-printed-organs-coming-to-a-body-near-you-1.17320

Associate Professor Mia Woodruff, Sean Powell, Naomi Paxton and other researchers began the visit with a presentation outlining the background research, collaborators and the processes and techniques involved in the 3D printing of body parts. Then we were broken in two parts to visit the Biofabrication lab respectively.

Key Roles and activities 

 Biofabrication is a process by which scientists can regrow most types of human tissue using 3D printers. QUT's biofabrication research is well advanced in printing 3D custom-made scaffolds using bio-ink infused with the patient's stem cells to enable the body to grow a new breast after mastectomy.

Biofabrication is an additive manufacturing or a 3d printing technique that enables us to create biologically relevant customized tissue and organs substitutes. The process is scanning to detect issue, and then the scan data is converted to 3d print code, which is sent to the 3D printers to print out a scaffold layer by layer. The scaffold is an ultra thin fiber network half size of human hair which is biocompatible dissolvable tailorable strong.

If the bio-printed object is going to replace something in the bone, they add stem cells from the bone, if it is going to simulate tissue, they add stem cells from the tissue and so on. The advantages of restorable polymer is it will disappear in time when the body has growth back it’s own body part again. The metallic implants can cause infections and put patient is inconvenient situations in daily life. The metallic implants are also permanent and to remove those implant need to do surgery.

Main Stakeholders of the work undertaken

Directly key stakeholders: Researcher, engineer, biologist, chemist, physicist, mathematic, computer programmer, software designer, and clinician.

Indirectly key stakeholders: Hospital, doctor, patient, student, investor and interaction designer and so on.

Inspiration

The most interesting aspect to me is the limitless applications of 3D printing technology in human life. It seems like every physical objects can be created by 3D printing technique in such a quick and precise process.

Design Opportunities

3D printing technique is applied widely in many areas such as: Manufacturing applications

·    Distributed manufacturing

·    Mass customization

·    Rapid manufacturing

·    Rapid prototyping

·    Research

·    Food

·    Medical Applications

Industrial applications

·    Apparel

·    Vehicle

·    Construction

·    Firearms

·    Medical

·    Medical devices

·    Bio-printing

·    Pills

·    Computers and robots

·    Space

Sociocultural applications

·    Art

·    Communication

·    Domestic use

·    Education and research

·    Environmental use

Year Released: 2011

Link: http://pinepoint.nfb.ca/#/pinepoint

Created by: Michael Simons and Paul Shoebridge, collectively known as The Goggles, formerly creative directors of Adbusters magazine.

 Synopsis

Welcome to Pine Point is an interactive web documentary. The website is about the memories of inhabitants from the former mining community of Pine Point, Northwest Territories, as well as how the past is remembered. The project was produced in Vancouver by the National Film Board of Canada.

When Simons and Shoebridge saw a website called Pine Point Revisited, created by ex-Pine Point resident Richard Cloutier, they had the idea to make a book about the deterioration of photo albums.

Simons had a personal link with Pine Point, having visited it when he was nine to attend an ice hockey event. They met with Cloutier who help them to contact with other "Pine Pointers." Cloutier had since developed various sclerosis and was devoting himself to saving the memory of the now-vanished community alive so that he had been known as something of a tormenter in the community.

Simmons and Shoebridge want the audience to take a widespread look at nostalgia and observe the question: “What if your hometown never grew old. Would it be so bad?” The project they decided to create was “a piece about memory, and how memory is utilized, filtered and activated. It’s way more a story about memory than a profile piece on a town.”

The story of this interactive documentary tells about a city that has been completely demolished in the last ten years. Imagine your hometown never changed and no one ever grew old or moved on. A place frozen in time unearthed in Welcome to Pine Point, and through it audience uncover what happens when a whole community is removed from the map.

User Participation

The creators presented the web documentary, using pre-recorded sound for the narration, at the International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam to wide range audience.

Although the documentary is basically linear (you can only press the next/previous tab and click on some photos)

Through the cases of four prior residents Kimberley Feodoroff, alias Kim Kastle, was the “beauty” who was always intended to leave the town, while brothers Lyle and Wayne Hryniuk were destined to work down in the mine, and Richard Cloutier who turned out to be the guardian of the town’s collective memory, conventional ways of dealing with your own past are examined.

Tools

The interactive web documentary is part book, part film, and part family photo album.

Welcome to Pine Point combines photographs, sound and video clips, illustrations, archival footage interviews, music, and narration by Simons.

Because the project began as an idea for a book so that the makers tell their story in text with a collection of material from and about Pine Point in the background: photos and home movies made by residents, newspaper clippings, quotes from diaries, and yearbooks from the high school.

Impact

Welcome to Pin Point is a real piece of craftwork. The quality of the narrative, and of the combination between graphics and video, is outstanding!

The website want people to look back in their past and their memories with their hometown. That’s what the creators were trying to give, more a portrait update of “here’s what happened to that person.” The purpose of the website is introduce to audience at a certain period of their life and then having a lot of time passing without having any detail or context.

The web documentary won two Webby Awards, for Documentary: Individual Episode in the Online Film & Video category and Netart in the Websites category in May 2011.Until June 2011, Welcome to Pine Point was viewed over 150,000 times.On December 7, 2011, at the Digi Awards in Toronto Welcome to Pine Point was named Best in Web series, previously known as the Canadian New Media Awards.

Influence on my Practice

I was very impressed when first time I viewed the website, it is an amazing artwork. The visual presentation with the combination with others aspects as soundtracks, interviews and narration of the website is outstanding, I keep continue watching it until the end and felt really enjoyable. The story is also very touching; it conveys the meaningful emotions to me. It inspires me to create a project in which every components will going well together to become a real piece of artwork.

Assessment

• Understand the User – 18 points

The website provide a pleasure experience for users when they interact with it with the nice visual presentation, music and soundtrack.

• Develop an interesting story – 13 points

The story of the website is not really interesting, the narrative is linear but it conveys meaningful message.

• Technologies application – 19 points

The technologies are applied and combined well with the artistic subjects that bring the audience to experience a modern technical artwork.

• Conveying positive emotions – 19 points

The emotions that the website bring to audience are nostalgic, sensational. It raises the awareness in us to preserve the value of the memories that never come back again.

• Interaction between users – 15 points

When the users experience the documentary it was individual activity, but the website still has the impact to bring people closer because it encourages people to think about the memories that we have with the people we love, the land we grow up and live in for each period of our life.

Reference

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Welcome_to_Pine_Point

http://www.interactivedocumentary.net/2011/03/01/welcome-to-pine-point-2/

Year Released: 2012

Link: https://zombiesrungame.com

Created by: Six to Start with Naomi Alderman and Rebecca Levene

 Synopsis

Zombies, Run! is an immersive running video game developed and published by for IOS and the Android platform. Players performance as the character "Runner 5" through a series of tasks, and listen to various audio narrations through their headphones to uncover the story during they run, walk, or jog anywhere in the world. If zombies chase them, they will have to speed up! Players automatically collect supplies to build up their base.

The idea to create the app came to Naomi when she joined a "beginning to run class" where they asked everyone why we wanted to learn how to run. One woman said: "to escape the zombie horde" which became a sort of class joke. So when Adrian said "running app," Naomi said "something where you run from the zombie horde!"

 User Participation

Any smart phone user can purchase the app on app store.

Players start with three level one buildings, such as Janine's farmhouse, an armory, and a defense tower, which are all surrounded by a fence. The player gathers materials such as ammunition, medicine and batteries, which can be used to build and enlarge their base, build new structures or improve structures while they are running. Through the use of the phone's GPS or accelerometer the app can record the distance, time, pace, and calories burned on each task. By using the GPS feature, the user can also select to join in a zombie race, which compels the player to run quicker for a short period of time or be caught by zombies and lose their supplies, or even fail the task. The app has 23 missions for season 1 and over 60 missions for Season 2.

Tools

Mobile app IOS and the Android platform, mobile phone with GPS, headphone

Impact

The creators launched a Kickstarter project in September 2011, and the project became the highest-funded video game on Kickstarter in 2011.

Zombies, Run! became the Number 1 Top Grossing Health & Fitness app on Apple's App Store (iOS) on February 27, 2012.

A version for Windows Phone with the help of Microsoft, but it didn't sell very well.

Zombies, Run! is rated 4.1 star on the google play with many positive comments from the players.

The game attracted 1 Million Players and became the biggest smartphone fitness game, ever.

Influence on my Practice

I really like this project because its idea is simple but get the big success, that it attracted a huge amount of players. The story behind production of the game offer a great deal for me to learn from it, how they transferred their idea to real product, got the fund and fixed the challenges that came up, and how they interact with their audience.

Assessment

• Understand the User – 19 points

The target audience of the project is not only people that like running but encourage many other people to enjoy the running activity through the combination with an alternate reality game and it did well.

• Develop an interesting story – 18 points

The story of the game not really new, but it is interesting and also funny, people run and play and experience various emotions while using the app.

• Technologies application - 15 points

The game only use the mobile platform with the GPS, but it also mix well with the real world activity to achieve its purpose.

• Conveying positive emotions – 18 points

The app creates positive emotions for users, as the running is more interesting than ever, the good feeling of achievement.

• Interaction between users – 8 points

The interactions between users not really being focus on in this project; it is more than an app for individual. If it could be improve to connect the users, then it will be great.

 Reference:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zombies,_Run!

Year Released: 2013

Link: StoryOrbit.com

Created by: Walt Disney Imagineering and Walt Disney Pictures

Synopsis

The Optimist story is about on a young college student named Amelia, as she wants to explore her grandfather Carlos Moreau life, who had worked with Walt Disney for a documentary film she’s planning on shooting. Amelia’s grandfather life comprises a mystery, she posted all legacy of his personal effects and her efforts to learn more about it on her blog StoryOrbit.com. The picture of Carlos Moreau’s life is painted by a series of documents: Carlos raised a close relationship with the company that saw him cooperating with Disney’s Special Projects team on the 1964 World’s Fair after selling a short story called Orbit’s Story to Disney. Amelia also offers a personable obverse for the exploration as she equilibriums research into the annals of Disney with her college studies while the center of the game lies squarely in revealing Carlos’ past so far.

User Participation

Any person LA based can participate in this game at real-world locations and examined artifacts that “Amelia” mailed out, and the game also approved non-LA based players to participate online, and receive items in the mail or Twitter account. The players discovered Plus Ultra a mysterious group and its relation to the 1964 World’s. The Optimist ended at 2013’s Disney D23 Expo, where players who finished the game found themselves welcomed into the ranks of the secret society.

The fictional components gave proximity and trustworthiness by using the real history of Walt Disney and the World’s Fair as a background. The Expo task was calculated to involve real-world teamwork to discern the outlines of the mysterious society. A mysterious artist named Wallace appeared online and himself hosted a booth during all three days of the Expo, gave out some different maps pointing participants to some of Walt Disney’s favorite locations, and players couldn’t crack the puzzles unless they worked with other players, if they got the right password, they’d receive a map that sent they off on the final adventure.

According to Disney Parks, over the six weeks players gathered together “an imagined story of Walt Disney, the Imaginers and other visionary thinkers and their potential involvement in a secret project that sought to build a better future.” Through this fictional view, players are given the opportunity to share their understanding with Disney’s often-unbelievable history.

 Tools

Mixed movie posters, websites such as StoryOrbit.com, Twitter, email, and real-world events.

 Impact

The Optimist is about a secret society, the game’s aim is to create a peaceful, technological dreamland - designing an overall experience that felt much more accessible than many other ARGs.

The relationship between Amelia and her mother, Tanya was the heart of the game. Amelia's perpetual digging causes tension in their relationship, and the players were implicated in the rocky relationship between mother and daughter since they were doing the investigating. This concept was a really interesting kind of emotional sense by being able to share with a character.

The game improves a community of storytellers, provides energy, impetus, and a frame of experience for storytellers in that space.

 Influence on my Practice

This project gives me the knowledge about how to create an ARG; it’s design process, story and impact on players, society. I am interested in the family connection theme of the game, that brings the meaningful motions and it also bring players to the Disney Parks as back to the childhood dreamland. The line between real world and fictional was blurred effectively as it based on real history. And how the puzzles were created, how they were linked together to attract the users is what I learned in researching this game.

 Assessment

• Understand the User – 15 points

The game has it target audience and did well on attracting them to participate in the game.

• Develop an interesting story – 18 points

The story of this game with me is really interesting as it is the combination between fiction and real, about mysterious, knowledge and also include family bond.

• Technologies application – 18 points

The game used variety of platforms, allowed not only local based players but also online players.

• Conveying positive emotions – 18 points

The game gave the good impact on players as mentioned above about family stuff, teamwork, discovering, and learning…

• Interaction between users – 19 points

As users have to collaborate to find the answer, the game designers had done good work to connect players.

  Reference:

http://www.argn.com/2013/07/disney_arg_the_optimist/

http://www.theverge.com/2013/8/20/4639110/the-optimist-disney-imagineerings-push-to-bring-alternate-reality

http://www.insidethemagic.net/inside-the-optimist-solving-disneys-alternate-reality-game-what-we-know/

1. Understand the User

In my opinion, the first thing an interaction designer should consider is understanding users to satisfy their needs and desires. In order to understand the user, the designer should to the research about users, build the persona a precise description of the user.

Then the designer can find the best way to interact with participants, create the feeling of multi-way communication that can help to engage the users to the project, to immerse the users in the story.

 2. Develop story

The second important figure is the story of the MPE; it should be a compelling narrative, which is interesting and meaningful. The story should deliver unique pieces of content each channel, link together in narrative synchronization. A good story can offer the motivation for users want to involve then exploring further until the end.

 3. Technologies application

Nowadays, the development of technologies is proliferative; there are so many amazing new inventions. To design a MPE, a designer should take in account how he will apply the technologies in his project in an efficient way. The use of technologies not only offers communication channels but also can bring great ideas for the designer in order to create the extraordinary experiences for users, which should be lively, colourful and give users great senses of visual or sound.  

 4. Conveying positive emotions

Another important figure that designer should consider is how his MPE project will effect on users’ emotions? The story can be realistic or fictional, the theme of the MPE can be thrill, romantic, horror or nostalgic…The designer have to think carefully about the core message that he wants to give to audience and keep it persistent although his project. After all said and done, the MPE should convey the positive emotions for the users such as motivational, learning, creative, social and persuasive influences. The impact that the MPE project will bring to society is very essential criteria in design process.

 5. Interaction between Users

1.    Wuxia the Fox - Transmedia Storytelling

 Link: http://www.wuxia.ca

Year released: April 2, 2014

Created by: Jonathan and Vincent

Description:

Wuaxia the Fox is an Ipad app combined with an illustrated book to inspire parents and children to link with nature, renew bedtime stories and pursuit their dreams. Wuxia is the story of Oremia a 8 year-old girl with Wuaxia, a young fox with telepathic powers together go on the journey to find Nioma a legendary whale. Whale songs keep the key of human dreams and other living beings. But the whales decided to move to Jupiter because Earth’s climate is changing. With the characters in the story, children have a learning experience through discovering the wonders of nature. They learn about listening, self-expression, lucidity, consciousness, persistence, attention, purposes, sympathy, kindness, and much more.

The app and the illustrated book interact with the storyteller and give them different senses:

·      Different soundtracks and sound effects that react to specific words or the tone, rhythm of the storyteller’s voice.

·      The nature sound and symbols associated with storyteller

·      When using the Ipad rear camera and physical objects, the app shows matching interactive audio-visual elements above the book as augmented reality.

·      When the storyteller wear a mask extras icons and audiovisual appear.

 Reference:

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/jonathanbelisle/wuxia-the-fox-augmented-book-and-ipad-app

 2.    Bear 71 - Website, Interactive documentary

 Link: http://bear71.nfb.ca/#/bear71

Year released: January 19, 2012

Created by: Leanne Allison and Jeremy Mendes

Description:

Bear 71 is an interactive National Film Board of Canada wed documentary about an petulant bear in Banff National Park, who was caught at the age of three and was inspected her whole life via track cameras in the park. Following Bear 71, the web documentary discovers the relations between the human and animal world, and the far-reaching effects that human settlements, roads and railways make on wildlife.

Users interact with the web doc through a virtual 3D map of Banff National Park to follow Bear 71’s movements by scrolling over the cameras, and look at other users by activating the computer’s webcam.

Reference:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bear_71

 3.    19 Reinos (Game of Thrones) – ARG/MMRPG

 Link:  http://19reinos.cm.cr

Year released: 2014

Created by: Canal+ Spain

Description:

19 Reinos an MMRPG (Massive Multiplayer Role Playing Game) was created by Canal+ Spain when season 4 Game of Thrones was launched to attract audience’s attention to the show.

Players registered to fight for a Great House and a kingdom of Spain at the 19 Reinos (19 Realms) website. Every week during the hour previous the show players fought in a huge Twitter combat to become King or Queen of a Great House and monarch of a realm! According to the result of the Twitter fight a different Game of Thrones family governed each of the 19 realms.

The show was off air in the Mid-week, when players built unions for the fight on Mondays by engaging in personal and community policies. Using Twitter, players could buy weapons, shields, swords, clothes and potions or attack, seduce, and betray one another as well as.

Conducttr allows causal fans with a single tweet can join the game and dedicated fans to make a full character profile building health, stamina, wealth and strength – either via their usual twitter client or from the custom-design 19Reinos webpage that joined via their API to get the multi-level engagement.

Fans also contributed user-generated content to the 19Reinos Facebook page in creative weekly side quests – gaining additional XP (experience points) via Conducttr’s automatic monitoring of the Facebook page.

Reference:

http://www.conducttr.com/success-stories/game-of-thrones/

 4.    Heroes Evolution – Trans-media Storytelling

 Link: http://www.nbc.com/heroes-reborn

Year released: January 19, 2007

Created by: National Broadcasting Company (NBC)

Description:

Heroes Evolution was created to maintain the Heroes series of the NBC that explores the Heroes universe, which takes place in our world. The Heroes hide their power so that many people unnoticed them but there is a secret organization “ The Company” that linked to the Heroes.

In this alternate reality game, players working closely with Hana Gitelman to unlock the secrets of the Company by exploring websites related to many of the show's characters and organizations, including primatechpaper.com, corinthianlasvegas.com, and activatingevolution.org. Players are directed by text messages and emails from Hana and posts on her website to solve puzzles and answer clues to reveal exclusive content related to the show.

Reference:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heroes_Evolutions

http://www.scribd.com/doc/7660373/WK10-10-23-Heroes-ARG-Presentation

http://heroeswiki.com/Heroes#Other_Heroes_projects

 5.    Bluebird

 Link: http://www.abc.net.au/innovation/bluebird/

Year released: 27 April 2010

Created by: Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC)

Description:

Bluebird AR was the ABC's alternate reality drama about an undercover geoengineering initiative made by eco-billionaire Harrison Wyld the leak of Bluebird.

Bluebird AR took some of the settlements of the well-established alternate reality game (ARG) type by offering a fictional scenario set against a scenery of real world possibilities and dragged them into the fairly new area of online drama, to make a cross entertainment form best defined as 'participating drama'.

Bluebird AR's interactive narrative focused on the geoengineering experimental science, the thoughtful operation of the Earth's atmosphere to counteract global warming, the Bluebird characters and events were completely fictional but merged with reality online. The story integrated real online articles, scientific journals, media and discussion around geoengineering through a combination of third party social media platforms and websites made by the ABC.

Audience members were invited to play together to help 'unlock the drama' and impulse forward the developing narrative, or passively watch the story reveal in real-time across the Internet during a 6-week live phase.

 Reference:

http://eprints.qut.edu.au/77374/

http://www.scienceinpublic.com.au/media-releases/abc-bluebird

 6.    Marble Hornets – Transmedia Storytelling

 Link: https://www.youtube.com/user/MarbleHornets

Year released: 2009

Created by:  Troy Wagner and Joseph DeLage

Description:

Marble Hornets is a Youtube webseries and ARG inspired by the Slender Man online myth. The series follows Jay (Troy Wagner), a young man trying to determine what happened while Marble Hornets his friend Alex's film school project was filmed. T project had been filming periodically for about two months before Alex suddenly stopped without any reason. Later, he departed from society and his friends; he never showed the tapes to anyone until Jay convinced Alex give them to him. Alex handed them over to Jay with the requirement that Jay was to never talk about the tapes to him again. Alex then moved schools and did not keep in touch with Jay. Three years later, Jay begins to watch the tapes to figure out why they were stopped filming. Shortly thereafter, Jay starts to experience weird and creepy phenomena surrounding the tapes and a enigmatic persona known as "The Operator".

The MPE plays out with the web videos showing the main narrative, while twitter and tumblr pages of the characters offer more understanding as an almost-real horror mystery. Users participate with the game by can tuning in to the videos weekly and reveal the story and also discover the twitter and tumblr pages.

 Preference:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marble_Hornets

 7.    The lost experience - ARG

 Link: http://archive.hi-res.net/thelostexperience/

Year released: May 2006

Created by: America's ABC, Australia's Channel Seven and the United Kingdom's Channel Four

Description:

The lost Experience was designed to engage fans and expand the storyline during the break between Season 2 and Season 3 of the Lost show. The game had five stages, with each stage having distinctive purposes. Working closely with the Lost writers, the Lost Experience discovered the ‘back-story’ of the Hanso Foundation, the mysterious organization behind the fictional Dharma Initiative which is the center of the TV series. A UK design agency called Hi-ReS developed a detailed combination of TV adverts, fake websites, call-centres, blogs, chocolate bars, video and flash mobs, which were coordinated to enable users to follow the story of Rachel Blake, an ex-employee of the Hanso Foundation trying to expose the truth behind the company’s creepy events. Only in the UK there are over 30,000 unique users frequently interacted with this alternate reality game.

Reference:

http://lostpedia.wikia.com/wiki/The_Lost_Experience

 8.    Year Zero (Nine Inch Nails) – ARG

 Link: http://yearzero.nin.com

Year released: February 12, 2007

Created by: 42 Entertainment

Description:

Year Zero is an alternate reality game that has same name and based on the Nine Inch Nails concept album. The game story happens in America in 2022, which has been termed “Year 0’ by the US government when America was reborn. The government settled itself emergency powers and seized total control on the country because The U.S had suffered some general terrorist attacks.

The story of the Year Zero alternate reality game is mainly expressed through the Year Zero album and some fictitious, in-game websites and phone numbers. The Solutions Backward Initiative, a group of students, professors, and IT specialists who have invented a technique to send information back through time through "quantum computing" designed the appearance of these websites and phone numbers from the year 2022 (Year 0 BA in-game).

In an interview with Gigwise.com, Reznor stated that his feelings toward the Bush administration inspired the concept behind Year Zero. He wanted to “emphasis on something that was at the forefront of his consciousness, which is, as an American, he is appalled by the behavior of the government, the direction that it has taken and the direction that it's taken everyone else in the world and its arrogance... He decided to write an essay about where the world might be if human continue down the path that we're on with a neo-con-esque government doing whatever it pleases...”

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