The first Mission,
Welcome to Ingolstadt, introduces Questers to the characters in the town. They see that different people in town have different opinions regarding the doctor, providing Questers with foreshadowing, and Questers also get a sense of the realities of a plague.
More than simply reading someone else's story, Questers are positioned as first-person protagonists who struggle with ethical dilemmas as they advance the narrative storyline. An important part of the unit is that the Quester receives an initial
letter from mom, explaining the grave situation and imploring the Quester to go to Ingolstadt.
Games are forms of simulations, but they differ from the sorts of simulations scientists use because the gamer is in the simulation and must solve problems within the simulation from a particular perspective. The gamer forms a “projective identity”. One part of this identity is the project that the game designers give the player—here the mother’s letter begins to set that project. This is something the gamer inherits. But another part of a projective identity is the way in which the gamer can project his or her own goals, desires, styles, and projects onto his or her avatar and the game world. The goal—and a good deal of the deep pleasure—of the gamer is to meld these two, the designer’s project and the gamer’s projections, in such a way that the gamer feels ownership of the designer’s goals and his or her own projects both. This letter sets up the player in a tension-filled perspective in dealing with ethics. The mother—a figure to be trusted and respected—gives the player evidence that Victor may not be “good” (and the game will give more such evidence) but suggests ultimately the player should trust him and, indeed, “repay him” for saving the player’s life. This means that evidence in this game in regard to Victor—and ethical dilemmas involving Victor—will never be seen from a “neutral perspective” (in the distanced way a scientist can look at his or her simulations of an atom, say), but caught in the situated, context specific tension between “mother” and the doctor’s own behavior.
Soon thereafter, Questers receive another letter; this time from the
Doctor whose writing further establishes the Quester as the protagonist with an important role. Again, all of this was designed to establish for the player a sense of conceptual play.
The examples below show some of the situations and information Questers gain within the space.
Developing the different characters was quite challenging, especially trying to recreate a feel for a previous time in history. Of special importance, was developing the letter from mom and the letter from the doctor to one’s mom. The goal here was that these would be shared in the context of the classroom before the child even entered the 3D world—these letters are below if you scroll through the images. These letters are significant in that they are designed to position the player in their role during the game. This idea of learning involving positioning the student as a character within a role in which they are important is in sharp contrast to how most school-based learning occurs. Watching students respond to their role was quite satisfying, even if these letters went through five iterations ;-) It is our experience that this initial positioning is crucial to the unfolding game play and learning, so proceeding through multiple iterations in which one observes potential users is essential.
