For this assignment I decided to promote education over advertising. I chose to play a game called Agents of Discovery which has missions in both the U.S. and Canada parks. This game is presented to players on their mobile smart phones via an app that can be downloaded from the app store app. The mission that I played has 9 challenges at Carrie Blake Park in Sequim Washington. I successfully completed 8 of them.
Overall, this game was interesting. I was prompted to move around the park to find each challenge. Each challenge presented simple and easy to read information about reclaimed water and its usage along with an extra recycling information challenge. These challenges were completed using augmented reality that made it more engaging to play as you had to move your phone around to find objects and engage with the content. 99% of these worked flawlessly. The recycling challenge failed to work for me 4 times and I finally gave up. I just could not get it to work, and so I forfeited the prize for completing the mission successfully.
I find that this game is engaging and well thought out. I enjoyed playing because it promotes education and, even though it is made for 3rd grade level education, I learned more about the park I often drive by. I do feel the game creators could debug the recycling challenge at the minimum. I also feel that there needs to be better tutorial. Most of the navigation and how to play the games were not available. I had to self-learn how to play the challenges and how to zoom in to navigate better. I also see that liability was a main concern for the game creators as they kept the challenge points well away from the water that they were teaching about. This caused many missed opportunities to explore amazing places in the park and further learning.
Link to Infographics and more information Agents of Discovery | Sequim, WA – Official Website
