APD week4 - Play & Place

Theme
Play and Place

Context
https://truecrimegames.com/
It’s an AR game that players act as a detective to get clues from point to point and solve a true-crime mystery in Melbourne. Cindy and I are going to cooperate to work on an AR scavenger hunt game for playable city. One of the aims is to let the players re-imagine the place they are already familiar with. I found this idea to utilize AR technology to play with the place inspiring and would probably give me inspiration on the Playable City project.

Method
The AR trackers were drawn on paper, then cut out and stuck at relevant locations.  The characters were colored with Photoshop and put into Unity. The trackers were recognized with the Vuforia engine in Unity. Next, the game was built as an APK file for my brother's android phone. After that, my brother was invited to join the playtest. Finally, the video was edited with Adobe Premiere Pro.

Respond
Due to the quarantine situation, the only place that I could play with is my home. I planned to hide my brother’s wallet and then let him find it with the clues provided by the characters by scanning the AR trackers.

The first hint is provided by a piece of paper with the words “Finding wallet” on it. As my brother scans on the AR trackers, the characters will pop-up and give the next clue for him to find his wallet. When designing the clues, I made them a little bit vague and thus leaving some space for my brother to explore the place before he could actually find the next AR tracker. For example, the “karaoke room” means somewhere he sings and there are two sides (left & right) next to the stove. Also, he could see himself in both the bathroom and his wardrobe because there are mirrors in both places.

I wanted to build it as a WebGL build so that my brother doesn’t need to install an App. This is also related to the Playable City project because it will be more convenient if people don’t need to download and install an App to enjoy their experience. Unfortunately, I figured out that we cannot build in the form of WebGL with the use of Vuforia engine in Unity.

Reflection
My brother refused to join the playtest in the beginning. Luckily he joined it later. During the playtesting, he kept asking “who is Fitch?”, “who is Ricky?”. I think this may reflect that a background story to introduce the presence of the characters is needed or the clues may be presented in another way so that the players will find it more make sense.

Furthermore, my brother asked if all the trackers are illustrations by me because he was thinking if he could scan some physical objects. This reflected that explanation is needed so that the players know what to expect as the AR trackers in the process.

On the other hand, I think it was quite successful to give vague clues so that the players need to explore the place a bit, though he is already familiar with the place. I can keep this way to give clues in the Playable City project. I’ve also read through a passage to learn more when designing clues for the players to progress, for example treating the clues as small secrets that lead up to a big secret. Also, thinking about what we need that clue for and why those clues help. These tips could help when we create clues for a bigger story in the Playable City project.

References
How to create an Augmented Reality App
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MtiUx_szKbI

Is that impossible WebGL include Vuforia? - Unity Forum
https://forum.unity.com/threads/is-that-impossible-webgl-include-vuforia.671299/

RPT#59 – 8 Tips For Creating Good Clues In Your Stories
https://www.roleplayingtips.com/rptn/rpt59-8-tips-creating-good-clues-stories/

APK for android phone

https://drive.google.com/open?id=1I6ySqbmWbOHUO7ONz37yHKV7BLdnBfD0