Archive for the ‘Educational’ Category

26
Jun'10

Kring gives you a chance to be a Hero – Conspiracy For Good

   Posted by: thebruce

Check out this press release from Tim Kring and Nokia, revealing a new social and educational game for change. Conspiracy For Good has been running since mid-May, but anyone is able to join the Conspiracy, so go take a look.
Wikibruce is also hosting the community wiki if you need a place to get caught up!

“HEROES” creator Tim Kring and Nokia launch Conspiracy For Good
June 22, 2010

Audience participation drives social and educational change

Espoo, Finland – “Heroes” creator Tim Kring and Nokia today unveiled Conspiracy For Good (CFG, www.ConspiracyForGood.com), an inaugural movement that blends online and real-world tasks to effect social change through audience participation. CFG combines Kring’s original storytelling (www.ConspiracyForGood.com/about) and Nokia’s Ovi platform (www.ovi.com) to create a dramatic, fictional experience using interactive theatre, mobile and alternate reality gaming (ARG), music and physical participation to do good in the world. Participants will become part of the plot development and will find the necessary tools and clues to move the narrative forward and into the real-world, ultimately creating social and educational change for the Chataika Basic School, located in the village of Chataika in eastern Zambia.

“I believe that storytelling has the power to create positive change in the world. Audiences today want to be more involved in stories,” said Tim Kring, 2010 Digital Emmy Pioneer Award winner for transmedia storytelling. “Our goal with the Conspiracy For Good is to entice, engage, and inspire the audience to drive real-world change through their participation in a narrative.”

The Backstory (Fictional Plot)
Over the decades, members of Conspiracy For Good have been reputed to be quietly and effectively doing good in the world’s most troubled areas. But CFG is not without enemies, and it is now under fierce attack by Blackwell Briggs (www.blackwellbriggs.com), a London-based multinational company committed to advanced infrastructure development and security services. For help, CFG turned to Kring, a master storyteller, to share their story, recruit new members to read the signs, and bring down Blackwell Briggs.

Joining the Conspiracy For Good
Participants enter into the story, which fuses reality and fiction, through www.ConspiracyForGood.com, where they will join like-minded thinkers, artists, musicians and causes, creating a unified voice to fight for social and environmental justice. The audience can take action within their own comfort zone and level of engagement to meet new people with similar interests online and in person, and have some fun too. Participants who join CFG will be able to solve mysteries online, play casual mobile games or be a physical participant in the London events that will take place from mid-July through early August.

CFG brings to life many of the experiences that Ovi, Nokia’s Internet service platform, offers to people that use its devices. CFG participation on Ovi occurs through a series of existing and upcoming apps including casual games like “Exclusion” (http://tiny.cc/4ujaw) and “Mainframe Liberator” (http://tiny.cc/r9qfx) that unlock codes to confidential websites, Ovi Maps (www.ConspiracyForGood.com/map) to guide characters through the story, and Ovi Music where hidden information within songs can be deciphered to advance the story.

In the UK, participants will be able to download a special edition app called Conspiracy For Good: DeadDrop powered by Nokia’s Point & Find service. Available in the UK Ovi Store (http://store.ovi.com) in mid-July, the app will allow players to point at objects and images in the real-world to discover clues and participate in challenges during the series of upcoming events in London.

“Tim Kring has truly realized the potential for Nokia’s Ovi platform as an additional distribution channel to once more advance storytelling through interconnected services and active audience participation,” said Tero Ojanperä, executive vice president, Nokia. “Conspiracy For Good is Nokia’s most powerful example to date for how content owners can blur the lines between the online and real-world to connect people to change.”

How to Join ConspiracyForGood.com
Anyone is welcome to join the conspiracy from any country. For those who live in or plan to visit London later this summer, event participation is free, registration to www.ConspiracyForGood.com is required and no purchase is necessary.

About Tim Kring
Tim Kring is one of the Hollywood creative community’s original transmedia storytellers, who works seamlessly across mediums, including viewing screens and delivery devices such as film, TV, broadband, computers, mobile devices and the printed page to engage audiences around the world in narrative and immersive story arcs. For four television seasons, Kring served as the creator and executive producer of “Heroes,” NBC’s Emmy®-nominated epic saga that chronicles the lives of ordinary people who discover they possess extraordinary abilities. An estimated 76 million fans viewed “Heroes” every week around the world on TV and via interactive online programming.

About Nokia
At Nokia, we are committed to connecting people. We combine advanced technology with personalized services that enable people to stay close to what matters to them. Every day, more than 1.2 billion people connect to one another with a Nokia device – from mobile phones to advanced smartphones and high-performance mobile computers. Today, Nokia is integrating its devices with innovative services through Ovi (www.ovi.com), including music, maps, apps, email and more. Nokia’s NAVTEQ is a leader in comprehensive digital mapping and navigation services, while Nokia Siemens Networks provides equipment, services and solutions for communications networks globally.

About Ovi
Ovi is a family of internet services for use on Nokia mobile devices that keeps people connected to the people and things that matter. Ovi services include Ovi Maps with walk and drive navigation and premium travel content; Ovi Music with millions of music tracks; Ovi Mail for email and messaging; Ovi Share for sharing content; and the Ovi Store, filled with thousands of apps, games and media from the content industry’s biggest names along with independent developers. Content publishers are invited to distribute and monetize their content through Ovi by visiting www.publish.ovi.com. More information is available at www.ovi.com.

Media Enquiries:

For Tim Kring
Rogers & Cowan
Sallie Olmsted/Jessica Boyer
Tel. +1 310 854-8124/+1 310 854-8141
Email: solmsted@rogersandcowan.com / jboyer@rogersandcowan.com

Nokia
Communications
Tel. +358 7180 34900
Email: press.services@nokia.com

www.nokia.com

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Categories: ARGs General, Educational, Puppetmasters

2
Jun'09

Kim-Lee-Thomas-Dombrowski: Storytelling in New Media

   Posted by: thebruce

Elan Lee, co-founder of Fourth Wall Studios and long-time ARG Puppetmaster, recently tweeted that a new paper he co-authored about ARGs and storytelling had been published online.

Titled “Storytelling in new media: The case of alternate reality games, 2001-2009“, authors Jeffrey Kim, Elan Lee, Timothy Thomas, and Caroline Dombrowski cover and discuss a variety of Alternate Reality Games that took place over the past 8 years, and compare their strengths and shortcomings.

Abstract:

New media allows previously passive consumers to tell and shape stories together. Yet most information is still disseminated in a top–down fashion, without taking advantage of the features enabled by new media. This paper presents five Alternate Reality Game (ARG) case studies which reveal common features and mechanisms used to attract and retain diverse players, to create task–focused communities and to solve problems collectively. Voluntary, collective problem solving is an intriguing phenomenon wherein disparate individuals work together asynchronously to solve problems together. ARGs also take advantage of the unique features of new media to craft stories that could not be told using other media.

You can read the entire paper at UIC.edu.

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Categories: ARGs General, Educational, Puppetmasters

12
Jan'09

Explore your genetic routes

   Posted by: thebruce

Channel 4These days, it seems the frontier fields of bio-technology and genetic research are the popular subjects to explore in most every science-fiction medium. Not to be left behind, the UK’s Channel 4 has commissioned Oil Productions Inc. (working with Mind’s Eye Media) to produce an educational ARG directed towards teenagers (but has age focus ever deterred anyone from playing?).

This one, however, is boldly purported to be “underpinned by credible, cutting edge science”, to the point of receiving support from The Wellcome Trust.

Oil’s website says about “Routes”:

Routes is not a passive viewing experience; it is a story that participants can reach out and touch, where all telephone numbers work, where the fictional bio-tech company websites are indistinguishable from their real counterparts and where characters may turn up on your doorstep asking for help. The participant is not just a fan of the game and the accompanying narrative; instead they are a tangible part of its universe with their actions shaping the events that unfold in the story.

Routes differs from most ARGs produced to date in that the narrative is underpinned by credible, cutting edge science; so much so that the format has gained recognition and investment in the form of sponsorship from The Wellcome Trust.

Channel 4 Education says:

Embedded in the game, award-winning comedian Katherine Ryan explores her own genetic make-up, and tests her DNA to find out whether it is her genes or her environment that define who she is. Can genes make you fat? Do they hide critical information about disease? Can Katherine blame her genetic make-up for the fact that she gets drunk on two beers?

As players delve deeper they are forced to explore these questions by solving puzzles, playing mini games, trading tips and collaborating on challenges, and as the broader game unravels the players will uncover a compelling mystery that lies at the heart of Routes itself. Who owns your genes? What are the pros and cons of exploring your genetic make-up? Do your genes determine who you are, or does our environment play a greater role?

Read Channel 4 Education’s official press release, and watch for more details at the official site www.routesgame.com and the game launch itself in upcoming weeks.

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Categories: ARGs General, Educational