Emails

Campus Watch

Good afternoon,

Early next year Locals will be running and Alternate Reality Game (ARG) following the disappearance of Waddles, the Locals mascot. First year students will follow clues to uncover who stole Waddles and why, and to bring him back. The game is being designed to get first years mingling with each and the Leaders to solve clues, and to teach first years about the services available to them. We are teaching first years about some of the most important resources and services available to them by weaving them into the narrative.

Campus Watch is an excellent resource for students, particularly for students living at home or flatting. We would like to include Campus Watch into the story line. We would push the message that Campus Watch are walking information centers, and are there to help students - by doing things like walking students through the gardens at night. In return we would like to make Campus Watch a source of clues in the narrative e.g. door swipe card logs that are fabricated (that we would create).

The best idea floating around, I feel, is if someone from Campus Watch offered to play our villain - they would be responsible for making the minion steal Waddles and then frame and implicate other students, all while offering helpful clues (that could be tampered with or misleading). If that doesn’t sound like something to get on board with them we would still love to have Campus Watch as a source of information, to corroborate alibis for instance. Ideally we would love a member of Campus Watch to drop in about once a week to check in on the investigation.

Draft for services

Good afternoon,

Early next year Locals will be running an Alternate Reality Game (ARG) following the disappearance of Waddles, the Locals mascot. Students will follow clues to work out the location of Waddles, who stole him, and why. This is an interactive game, where the villain, the architect behind the scheme, and the outcome of the game depends on how first years play the game. The game will get first years mingling with each other as well as with the Locals Leaders, and will also serve to teach first years about services on offer to them.

To make this happen I want to integrate services such as yours into the narrative of the game to deliver a core message about the service. There are a number of ways to do this, be it playing a minor character and promoting the service, being a source of clues, providing spot prizes, etc. For example Campus Watch may be able to supply door access logs (in fiction), and provide alibis (walked someone home). By delivering these core messages through a game I believe it will stick better, especially given how much information first year students get in their first weeks. If this is something that you want to be a part of, let me know, I would love to meet to discuss options.

Regards,