Practicum #7: ARIS review

Now that this practicum project is winding down, I figured I'd give a final rundown of ARIS. I've spent a lot of time complaining about it, but I guess there is at least some room for it to grow in the future.

Positives:
-Takes advantage of iPhone's technology: The Maps feature is the focus of the game, and it typically works well in detecting where you are and keeping the games going.
-Links gamespace with real-life community: This is perhaps the only thing ARIS has going for it that other games don't. All of these games are based on Madison life, and you need to be in Madison to play them (though you can download cheat codes to trick your phone into thinking you're in Madison when you're really not, which is kind of interesting).
-Play at your own pace: With its simple step-by-step style of gameplay, you really can play ARIS at your own pace. You can choose to spend a few hours going from place to place (quest to quest), or spread it over a few weeks.

Negatives:
-Doesn't feel like a "game": It's not fun. It's not entertaining. It's educational, but just in a "Oh, that's interesting" sort of way. It'll show you a little picture of the place you're at, tell you a fact if you're doing the UW Campus Tour or force some element of storytelling on you.
-No different gameplay modes: Walk, watch, walk. That's all you do in ARIS, as it doesn't even really get you thinking. I understand location-based games are different in that you're immersed in the real world as well, but some form of traditional video game gameplay needs to be adopted to make ARIS more fun.
-It doesn't always work: When it crashes so frequently when doing certain things in the app that you know it's about to crash before it actually does, that's bad. Something like that prevents people from trying to get used to ARIS becuase they know doing one specific thing will make it crash. For me, it was accessing the map from the bottom menu bar. That's probably the most important thing in the game, and if the whole thing crashes on me when I try to use it, what does that say about the app?

Practicum #6: Multiplayer?

I've criticized (complained?) about ARIS in pretty much all these posts for not offering anything new, for not having any features that are strong selling points. But one common (to most mobile games) feature ARIS doesn't have is multiplayer.

I guess you could complete quests with a friend walking with you, but that doesn't seem very interactive. Unless that friend has an iPhone with him/her (and she's up to the same parts in her quests/games), it'll be difficult to share in the game experience. S/he won't see the screen or get absorbed in the game.

So how could ARIS implement multiplayer? I think using some sort of check-in gameplay (like Foursquare, etc.), would enhance the roleplaying aspect of ARIS. For the Dow Day game, this kind of multiplayer could have different players (on their own phones, of course) be reporters and have to move around the game space to get scoops and progress in the game. Also, ARIS could take better advantage of the free downloadable updates all iOS apps have. Imagine if the game kind of kept going instead of just ending at one spot the designers decided upon when they designed the game?

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.

Practicum #4: Still a gimmick

So I'm about to embark on a trip to Lathrop Hall right now. Why? Because ARIS told me to:



I know when I get there, it'll take a minute or so for it to recognize that I'm there, and then I'll be rewarded with one small picture of the building and some goofy voiceover. I get the exploration part of ARIS, or at least the idea of it, but the execution is very poor. The game's no fun. You walk to where you're told, watch the content the phone provides, then move on. That's it, just those three aspects of gameplay.

For the amount of time it takes, ARIS isn't really worth anything more than a tryout. Initially, it was cool seeing the location-based games craze coming to Madison on a local scale, but now it just feels like a very rough attempt.

Practium #3: Aris thoughts

So as I've kept playing, ARIS hasn't gotten any better. There's such a barrier that prevents it from being game, or really any "fun" at all. That barrier is the inherent design of the app, which forces you to literally get up and go play. You can't play in your living room, on your couch or on the bus. You have to walk to the first destination to trigger the game, let alone see what you're getting yourself into.

We've talked about casual games and their ability to jibe with the user's space. The point of ARIS is to get up and explore, while simultaneously added a roleplaying aspect. I get that, but it doesn't fit how users want to play things on their iPhones. You can't preview what you're getting into, revisit past levels or anything. You always have to drop what you're doing and go play. You have to make time for it, rather than it being there for you whenever you want it.

Practicum: Networked Gaming (Group B) Questions

Nick and I will be presenting tomorrow, and our games were ARIS and Kongregate.com. ARIS is an acronym for Augmented Reality and Interactive Storytelling, and it's a location-based roleplaying game developed by UW faculty. As a result, it has been designed to be played in Madison. Kongregate, meanwhile, is a website of Flash games that also strives to foster interaction and a sense of community.

Here are some questions on ARIS:

1. Do you think location-based games like ARIS have any potential for reaching a broad range of consumers?

2. Do you think location-based games like ARIS have legitimate uses as educational tools?

3. Have you played any games like ARIS? If not, why do you think that is?

4. Other location-based apps are very popular — Foursquare, Groupon, etc. Is there anything besides its extremely local focus that is hindering ARIS' popularity?

Practicum Post #1: ARIS

For my practicum project, I'm playing around with ARIS. ARIS is an acronym for Augmented Reality and Interactive Storytelling. It's an app for the iPhone and iPod, and I'm using it on my iPhone. Its description on the App Store says ARIS "is a tool for making location based educational games, stories, tours and mobile data collection activities for place based learning curriculum and mobile citizen science designs."

Well, that sounds boring.

In actuality, ARIS is actually pretty cool. It's a location-based game, kind of like what I imagine Foursquare being like (I've never played). There are games that you can select from, and each one sets you out on a "quest." The quests have you travel to different places on campus (it's extremely local since it was developed by UW faculty) and it uses the iPhone Maps functionality to determine where you are. If you're not at the next stop on your quest, the app is pretty much useless — it won't do anything until it detects you're there.

These are the games you can play on ARIS.

As you can see, I'm currently playing "UW Campus Tour." The game began by telling me to begin my tour at Memorial Union. With the app open, I walked to the Union and as a I reached the front entrance, ARIS actually showed some signs of life. An image of the Union showed up on the screen, and this British-sounding guy began telling me a little bit about the building and its history. I was surprised by this touch, as the app went from modern-but-really-boring to almost medieval as the narrator tried to give the "quest" a more traditional feel.

The steps of my first quest.

After the audio clip was done giving me a brief history lesson on the Union, it dropped some not-so-subtle hints about where to go next, hinting at a "big, red building" nearby. Using my finest navigational skills, I found the Red Gym, or Armory just down the street. Once again, the app came to life.

After the armory, I was directed to the Library Mall Fountain and then the bottom of Bascom Hill. I was instructed to go Lathrop Hall next, but by this time it was dark and pretty freaking cold. I'll have to check it out soon.

My first impression of ARIS is that it's better than what I thought it'd be, but it still could be more useful and entertaining. The facts are basically the same ones they tell on tours here, and if I paid attention to those back during the days of my college search, I wouldn't really learn anything new now. As a result, the app provides very little incentive for people to actually use it. Maybe my experience was soured a bit because I went at night when it was cold, but I was basically just walking around a part of campus I already know pretty well. Perhaps, it would be more interesting for people who aren't student, faculty or otherwise heavily involved with the campus.

Next, I'll continue my quest and see if it gets any better.