Practicum #5: More fooling around with ARIS

After messing around with the UW Campus Tour game on ARIS for a while, I've decided to look more into the others. I've fooled around with most of them, but I figured it'd be good to go in-depth with some.

I've started with Dow Day, which I introduced in my Networked Gaming presentation with Nick a few weeks ago. It's got a unique roleplaying aspect that might be intriguing to a journalism wonk like myself...



...if it wasn't totally contrived. The game even starts at the same place, Memorial Union. I get that the Union is huge here in Madison...but there's nowhere else these games can start? Starting at the same place just makes me feel like I'm about to do the same thing all over again, but this time under the guise of some sort of late '60s political activism. The more I fool around with ARIS, the more realize it's just the same thing over and over again.