Epic Brings the Vision to Reality
I wanted to share a post because I was feeling so grateful this week. The initial vision six years ago to create a game that would help kids care and learn about academic content while at the same time aiding them to grow into responsible and engaged citizens is becoming a reality. In particular, the new Epic missions and broader backstory really bring to fruition lots of work and game play that has involved dozens of designers, hundreds of teachers and thousands of children. This week we released the new introduction and epic missions, which are unlocked as one completes various missions and luminates on the project’s Social Commitments. We very much look forward to hearing the reactions of our community and sincerely hope that you find playing it as powerful and engaging as we did designing it.
Sharing some history. About six years ago, when I first learned that QA was to be funded the second time by the National Science Foundation, I was simultaneously excited and concerned. I was excited because I believed in what we were trying to do. As a former drug counselor and subsequent special education teacher, there was a strong commitment in me to find ways to motivate children to care about themselves, their community, and the world. I had experienced the power of education in motivating children and had also experienced how much of the curriculum in school was failing to do so and even turning them off. Therefore, I wanted to produce a suite of curricular opportunities that would allow teachers to engage their students in powerful life narratives that required understanding academic content all in the context of their classrooms. When I learned that NSF was going to support our efforts I knew that science would also have to take a front-row seat, and met with the team to determine what designs had to be put in place to ensure that the broader QA Social Commitment agenda would not be lost (see manuscript on critical design). For, while I was excited about the support, I feared that we might lose the heart of the project as we optimized experiences to support science content learning. As it so turned out, the Shardflower was born and this science unit engaged children in a form of socio-scientific inquiry that was as much about the role of science in solving socially significant problems as it was about understanding, for example, what is an appropriate level of phosphates in a body of water (see manuscript on socio-scientific inquiry).
Moving Forward. Well, as many of our veteran teachers are aware, this desire to ensure that the game fostered a disposition for social action led to the birth of the Shardflower and the idea that players, through the manifestation of wise acts, could earn lumins. Wise acts contain knowledge, attitude, and behavior: an important combination that is central to the newly released Epic trajectory. As players complete various missions and earn lumins, they eventually are able to luminate on each of the seven petals and outer leaves of their Shardflower. The Shardflower itself provides a metaphorical key to unlock important backstory elements that drive the game forward. Well, it has been a real challenge to provide an experience that is educational but not didactic, that is entertaining but not a casual game, and that is socially illuminative but not evangelical (see original Games W/Out Guns published five years ago). Importantly, and for those not familiar with modern videogames, they often contain rich stories in addition to fun gameplay, and every story needs a protagonist. More than a book to be read, in a game, the player has a form of dramatic agency. And, in a pedagogical game, or what we refer to as a curricular drama, the player is often protagonist at one point and audience member or simply participant at another point (see manuscript on the notion of curricular drama and one on transformational play). While we originally had a novel and had the player unlock chunks of dialogue communicating the backstory in game, it wasn’t very gamey (fun) and was narratively quite thin. Due to the countless hours and commitment of our team members and the ongoing feedback from the community, that has all changed this week.
The Present. We always had the core character of OTAK, but in the recently revised set of epic missions, Otak, a new character Maq, along with the Quester, take on significant protagonist roles designed to communicate the power of Social Commitments and the importance of the Quester in realizing them through their wise acts. At no other time in the history of QA has this story been so well crafted to be unlocked by the player. Due to the tireless work and dedication of our team, we now have an epic trajectory designed to embed the player within a rich backstory where he or she experiences the power of Social Commitments and the value of his or her work in QA. [Spoilers here]. It all begins with a distraught Maq who fled from a morally broken Atlantis with only his sorrow and a crystal salvaged from the tattered shards of the old Arch—all revealed in a beautifully illustrated set of comic pages (see legend PDF and video of backstory).
Following this description of the history, the player takes on a more active role in New Atlantis where they are recruited by the displaced caretaker, Maq, and the reluctant new caretaker OTAK. Together, the three go on an adventure as the player experiences another area (Aegea) of New Atlantis that has fallen to into moral apathy and that becomes overzealous at the belief that lumins might provide the key to mending their world—a belief that the Quester unintentionally seeded. Through this adventure, Maq, OTAK, and the player all come to understand what the lumin truly represents, and what a world without Social Commitments can end up becoming. Because this is not a book or movie, each of which has merit towards certain ends, this story is played out as the player solves puzzles and takes actions, experiencing the consequences of the particular choices they engaged. We encourage teachers to participate in this adventure along with their students by asking questions, supporting class discussions, and even playing along through the five Epic Missions unlocked through lumination moments. We hope that you all find the new experience as powerful as we hope it to be, putting a significant meta-wrapper around the more academic missions and units that you and your students complete. And, as always, I thank all the team members who worked so hard to make this happen.
It’s been exciting seeing this project grow and the backstory, evolve, to truly engage our students, helping them to understand that experiential knowledge truly is transformative power in the hands of a socially committed student.
And that growth is in large part to our entire community, not only the QA team members who continue to work diligently and passionately to try to create those experiences, but also the teachers and students who took time to give us feedback, sharing their valuable insights with us.
During our design phase, we presented some ideas and sketches to a few of our teachers. The feedback provided was thoughtful, powerful and illustrated how committed these teachers were to QA, to the ideas it represents, and to their students. The idea for the Teen Council, for example, was born after hearing that a few teachers were wondering what had become of the old Atlantian Council in a previous narrative. What we heard these teachers say was that they wanted their students to see a role model for doing good in the world, and we couldn’t have agreed more. Those comments helped give birth to a new Teen Council, a group of committed students that have a very tangible role in the current narrative.
Questers will be able to join Teen Council Guilds which will provide them with an opportunity to celebrate putting the social commitments into action. We’re excited about these changes, and the possibilities for real social engagement that these new characters represent, and we are so thankful that we were able to glean these insights from members of our larger QA family who use the program with their students.
All this to say that these successes are not just our successes…they are yours…they belong to the students, teachers, administrators and buoys who share the passion and the dream. Thanks for being part of the team, and for helping us realize our goals.
As one member of the story-writing team for the new Epic trajectory, I have to say it was both a challenge and a joy to build this new narrative.
It was a challenge because we had so many goals we wanted to accomplish with this finite set of missions… developing students’ understanding of “lumins” as manifestations of good works in the world rather than simply rewards for working in QA, showing how lives based on a commitment to these social agendas can impact a world in a way that would feel “real” to kids, and showing them how what they do can indeed make a difference… all of these and more had to underlie the story. At the same time, because Epic is a “serialized” story that is unlocked for Questers as they luminate and is entirely voluntary, the story had to be compelling and fun, so Questers will WANT to earn the right to experience the next installment. The balance of content with motivation is always the kicker.
But the creation of Epic was also a real joy for me personally… because I got the chance to work with a wonderful team of dedicated people, from artists to writers to game designers to project coordinators and support staff, as we created this brand-new island of Aegea, with its citizens who are unique in QA. The QA staff comprise an amazing group of individual talents, people whose sense of purpose and dedication is surpassed only by their generosity to each other and their team spirit. It was also so much fun for me to get the chance to develop characters and add humor and a sense of play in a storyline that is ultimately designed to give students a serious message…. But that’s what QA and transformational play is all about. Who says you can’t solve puzzles and explore mazes while you save the world?
I am very grateful to Sasha, Donna, and the whole team of QA, not least of whom are the dedicated teachers who so generously give their own and their students’ time. Their feedback is invaluable to helping us make changes to the design that always, always make the end product better than it was before.