Back in my Fall 2012 semester at the Entertainment technology Center at Carnegie Mellon University, I took part in a project that we called SEECQUEL, because it was the second part of the SEEC project, SEEC being the Schrader Environmental Education Center at Oglebay, in West Virginia.
The Goal
Our task was to use an electronic device to encourage children to depend less on their electronic devices. It was an essentially paradoxical task. We used a heavily ruggedised Android tablet. It was a military grade tablet that children could drop on any surface without it breaking. It was expensive and we did not actually test that. The software platform we used was the Unity game engine with Scaleform for the interface. Scaleform allows a Flash layer on top of Unity for the interface.
Augmented Reality before its time
Devices like the Hololens did not exist at the time. But, in the context of the period, what we had built really was augmented reality. We added content to a natural space. We did not just add messages and items with content, we actually had a device that filmed the park itself and added visual context superimposed onto it.
The experience
The object
The offered the guests to become “junior naturalists”, an imaginary title that came with a real, physical insignia carved out of local wood. Since the title corresponds to no real-life rank, we tried to give it emotional importance.
Sharing
The children going through our experience were supposed to share the tablet. But “hand the tablet to player one” was not an acceptable way of formulating that instruction. We decided that each participant was going to touch a “spirit stone”, an actual local Native American traditional artifact, to discover their spirit animal. Then, each participant’s spirit animal would, in turn, be called to take part in the experience.
When we tested the experience and I asked the guests how the spirit stone knew which spirit animals was theirs, they said they didn’t know. When I asked them if they would believe me if I said it was random, they were very surprised. For that, I actually credit my script, on which I put a lot of effort.
The script
I wrote the whole script for the experience. While it’s not long, it was very precise. For example, the first version of the spirit animal selection was made while I was away for a couple of days. It was, “You are the hawk”, “You are the stag”, and so forth. That did not seem compelling enough to me. People are not hawks or stags. And why would they be one more than the other? I thought about it and came to the conclusion that the stone should be able to feel a connection between the guests and their spirit animal. That connection should come from a guest’s innate quality. That quality should be general and positive enough that anyone could identify with it. They ended up being (as per the script linked above):
- Your inner strength channels the spirit of the stag.
- The wisdom in your heart channels the spirit of the owl.
- Your clever cunning channels the spirit of the fox.
- Your persistent nature channels the spirit of the turtle.
- The glee in your heart channels the spirit of the frog.
- Your sense of adventure channels the spirit of the hawk.
Everybody hated the frog, but no one could think of another animal that was native to the area.
Similarly, passing the tablet had to be formulated in a different way each time, in order for the action to feel natural and not to feel repetitive:
- For this activity, pass the tablet to the stag.
- The owl should hold the tablet for this activity.
- It’s now the fox’s turn to hold the tablet.
- The tablet should be held by turtle for this activity.
- Pass the tablet to the frog for this activity.
- The tablet should be passed to the hawk for this activity.
Yes, the stag and the frog carry the same instruction in a different order. I hoped that phrasing would still carry enough variety. This replaced a placeholder “It’s the [animal name]’s turn.” That kind of flavor text cannot just inform, it must keep the guest engaged. Ideally, we should have had a different way of phrasing a call to each spirit animal. That being said, the experience as a whole was short enough that one was actually enough. This level of variety gives the impression that the narrator is this mysterious person with an unknown agenda.
We were lucky enough to find a fellow student with an amazing crystalline voice for the narrator. Everything the narrator said sounded ethereal and otherworldly. It added a lot to the abstract quality of that non-diegetic character.
The activities
To launch an activity, the tablet would scan one of five podiums in the park and our avatar, AB Brooks, based on a real-life naturalist, would come up and suggest the activities to the guests. The first ones required active use of the tablet.
The second podium offered guests to measure the angle of the branches of a tree in relation to its trunk. From this, one can deduce how much exposure to the sun the tree has had overall. It was probably the podium that had the most changes in its design during the project’s lifetime.
Unfortunately, I no longer have access to the accompanying interactive interface overlay. It allowed users to interactively position lines on the trunk and the branch and get a reading of the angle.
This activity did not required the use of the tablet at all. It was less high-tech. Still, it is important to remember that enjoying nature without technology was the main goal of this whole experience.
Our trailer
A lot more went on that semester, but those are the highlights of SEECQUEL, along with our video trailer.
Emmanuel Eytan :: Game Programmer 