Presentation Layout

Introduction of each Project

·      Reasons why I have selected this image

·      Explain how this image is effective to the nature of the project

·      How did your design flow through each project. 

·      What influence me!

·      Refer the images to the source of nature of the project.

·      What has inspired you to design this?

·      Development.

·      What was the concept? Main concept design

·      Why did we make this concept.

·      What effects does it have.

·      Critically explain the reasons why we have created this concept and in what form has this made our group design this specific concept.

·      Design and development stages of the project.

·      Talk through of the stages of development through each project.

Project 1

During the process of developing this assignment, we focused our idea of composing and vocalising the different personalities of different sounds and noises of the building. Using the speakers placed in such positions to echo off the walls pushed the sounds to be more interesting and effective. The sounds that we played were meant to relate to the buildings spirit. We wanted to express the nature of the buildings background by incorporating and shaping the different personalities of sounds from the history of previous companies that work in the audio foundation. We used the stairway to operate as the spine of the building. We wanted to build a tensional feeling of notion and distorted feelings of the audience as if this stairwell had its own real life personality. Through each level, we incorporated speakers to the levels of 1, 2, 3. First level having sounds that relate to a romantic, tranquil noises that imposes the idea of sunlight light that beams through the first floor. As we work through the brains of the stairwell, we then entre through to the bolls (the Stomach) with inherits a more disorientating feeling in your stomach. As we enter through to the last floor At the bottom level we will play noises composed of sketchy, broken and abrupt sounds to convey distortion and restlessness. This is to relate to how the depths of the buildings consciousness fights itself and the other levels. Within this level we want to create an atmosphere that implies at the buildings core it feels as though its world and its life are broken and twisted between the realities it has. The stairway is like the spine of the building and thus supports and leads to the rest of the interior. We want to personify this notion of a spine in the way that at the top of the spine there is the brain, which we are representing with logic and clarity. As we descend down the spine we reach the heart, which we are representing with emotion and desire. Upon further descent we reach the bowels, which we are representing with instinct and gut feeling.
So at the top level we will play peaceful, organized and melodic noises to convey the thought and logical deductions of the 'brain' of the building. We want to create an atmosphere here that implies that the building is contempt with the way its 'life' is, and that everything in its world is okay.
In the middle level we will play noises with jumps and breaks which interrupt organization to convey the yearnings and desires of the buildings 'heart'. This is to relate to how the heart will jump from desire to desire, unsure of what it wants. Within this level we want to create an atmosphere that implies that building is yearning for something more in its 'life', as if there should be more to its own existence.
At the bottom level we will play noise composed of sketchy, broken and abrupt sounds to convey distortion and restlessness. This is to relate to how the depths of the buildings consciousness fights itself and the other levels. Within this level we want to create an atmosphere that implies at the buildings core it feels as though its world and its life are broken and twisted between the realities it has.

Auckland Street Directory

1939 – Bedding Manufactures

Incorporating the sounds of the bedding manufactures creates a distinctive construction sound that is difficult to imply into the stages. We struggled to find some bedding machinery sounds that we could use to put into our design. To take over this idea, we are going to imply sounds from the ties factory because the sounds that relate to the bedding manufactures have very similar sounds.

1941 – 42 Anchor printers, Gum tape manufactures, Midland ltd.

Incorporating the ideas of having printing sounds as a medallic effect that we can add into the mid stage of the stair way.

1950 - 51 Anchor printers, Lingerie manufactures, Anderus and sons

To apply these sounds into our project, we couldn’t find any textual sounds that we can input in with our other sounds. This is some research that we found from the Auckland street directory. Proves that from the 1940’s to the early 50’s that some of the factories still applied.

1958 – Well styled clothes. Photo engraves.

Found no relevant music!

1964 – 65 Photo engraves. Midland

Found no interesting relevant sounds for this time of the year.

1971 – Printers enterprise.

We found some good sounds from a printer that can be used to create the notion of the week gut feeling.

1972 – Graphics holdings

1977 – Photo engraving malex trading

Project 2

This is the process of mocking in my CD packaging product. Materials that I have used to manufacture this design is basic corrugated cardboard, Compact disk tray, and durable vinyl stickers. During the progression of my design I began with gathering the appropriate materials that i can use at the most cheapest rate. Rather then sending the cardboard in for laser printing, I  briefly marked the foundations of the card board and then made a split down the two sides of the card board to act as the glide rails to support the compact disk base. The disadvantage of development of the design is that I have struggled on inputting the sliding pins that slot into the CD tray. Having to research information is easy but having to fabricate the product is very difficult. I way around this situation is to cut out very small pieces of opaque perspex to a reasonable size that can then be applied into the sliding rail on the CD tray. The stickering process has been inspired by the construction of our previous assignment, which was the audio terrain. Reason for having the basic structure of the stairs is because it contrasts the aesthetics of the stair well that we used for the audio terrain. Its pulls the idea behind the reasons of having the stair well reflected onto the design idea of my packaging design. I have still yet to manufacture the major products of this assignment, but obviously i have made a staring process. Development has been fully completed but as of yet I am still under the progression of manufacturing my design product.

Out at forge, Phil Rose gave me some disc trays for my design. I needed these to apply onto my CD package . This will help keep the CD stuck on to the tray without it falling out. The design aesthetics of these are very basic and modern with is perfect for my design. Its contrasts my design of being opaque and light that this will help bring my product to life and look attractive. I have vinyl that can possibly be used to wrap around the foundation of the package to give it that glossy look. The vinyl pulls out this very eye catching effect. For my design, the materials that i will be using is Plastic, Card board and flexible vinyl. For the base I will print out a proper fully designed template and cut and fold the base of the product. My design contains a gliding rail for the CD tray to fall and grind onto. Using the laser printer will give my directions of where to fold and cut.

In regards to researching information about the varieties of mechanical CD packaging design I attended a forge media interview to illustrate my design to a Forge Media designer Phil Rose. During the interview i presented my work to him, He commented on my final concept and said that this design is something that could be sold to forge CD package market. They found my design to show contrasting terminology and that having the CD package being able to be uplifted and glide on the packages base was very constructive in terms of a designers view. They said that this design will be time consuming in terms of fabricating the product. I was considering on sending my final product to forge to manufacture my product to visualise what my end design will look like. I was observant over the system of manufacturing 5 of the same products. Rather than conducting 5 equal designs, I will first start a mock up for the package, Mock up refinement, Mock up of package with design stickering, Mock up of the final piece (published and complete) and finally a 3D print out of the final CD package product. Reason for this process is because it costs to much to manufacture 5 individual 3D print of each package. Forge has been very helpful of giving me personal and encouraging information (facts) for my design. They couldn't supply the materials because they only operated with fabricating the entire piece. Phil Rose gave me some from CD trays for when I complete the product, I could then paste my CD trays onto the package. After the interview from forge I then went out to Bloomfield Singes to check out their printing. They gave me some vinyl along side with some card board. The materials that they gave weren't the proper fabrication stuff that i needed. Iv still yet to find some proper materials for me to complete my design.

Project 3

Critical Decisions:
What went well and what didn’t – We came up with different ideas on building an application through a GPS, A live gamers approach and a exploration camera that would narrate the character from behind. We couldn’t come up with an idea that would reflect and represent to our main theme which was conspiracy. During the critical stages of conducting this assignment we came up with a various ideas of incorporating the combined form of American and New Zealand conspiracy theories. Throughout the duration of this assignment, we found that through the process of developing our clues, we were puzzled of how to construct them to relate back the focal point of project, which in this case was the bomb. We bridged all of the clues around the BTC area. The things that went as to plan for this project was the groups building dynamics and the foundations of physically building the clues. We wanted to incorporate more effective clues to this experience, but after talking with Maggie, it gave us an incentive that we didn’t need to involve extra clues. Elements that went well through this experience was the walk through. We were amused for the starting of our game because we didn’t have an opening to start off the experience. We made a final decision as a group to incorporate a horrific gunshot sound to terrify the player. Reason being that this was amusing was that one of our characters, in this case was T.J who operated as the dead agent pulled the gunshot too early. This confused the players because they didn’t know whether or not the gun noise was meant for them. As a group, we could have created a more professional approach to this section of the experience. This could have been more effective to building this assignment. Using the bomb to operate as our focal point made the construction of the experience easier to the group to progress with. Manipulating the clues back to the bomb created the experience to be more interesting and engaging to the user. We composed some posters to apply around the BCT building at an early stage because we wanted to pull the attention of a real life conspiracy theory. In conducting these posters, people started to realize the real life effects of American and New Zealand war interpretations. In the progression of this game experience, we created a flow chart that would help keep the Unrealevent group on track. We all had our individual tasks set to each member from our group. Nick was assigned as developer. He operated well with conducting all the theoretical information providing the group with all the knowledge and info that we needed. Supa was assigned to do all the processing and photo shop operations. Joshua completed all the video editing. T.J was assigned as the journal artist and I finally was the printer and photo shop designer for the posters. Everything under this process went to plan.

The advantages and disadvantages of our experience  - The disadvantages of this assignment was conducting our clues to get them to relate back to the base of our experience. We managed to relate all the clues back to the center, which was the base. The communication through the group during the presentation of our experience was absolutely poor; We had no communication what so ever between each character. An advantage that we had for this situation was, we used camera recordings to record video imagery of the characters communicating to the players. If we were to resubmit this experience we needed to conduct some sort of rehearsal to enhance our group’s performance in directing them to be more really have more agent type characteristics.  In making our physical and mental decisions as a group, we needed to find a concept that would relate to a conspiracy theory.

Why our group chose our reality:
We were very enthused to follow and create this reality because the story we wanted to tell was extremely plausible. Terrorist attacks are sprouting up all over the planet. It is not just America that has fallen victim to these crimes against humanity; Al Qaeda has been linked to many other attacked such as the bombing of the Madrid commuter train station. All these attacks are in some way linked to the war on terror. It seems that almost every week we are bombarded with news reports and articles about not only international involvement but also New Zealand’s involvement in the war

The Full Experience:
We initiate the experience with a gunshot, pulling the audience straight into a murder scene.
The murder scene looks very dark and only lit with the light of the computer’s monitors. All around the office there are strewn papers of surveillance photos and articles about New Zealand’s involvement in the war on terror with America. Instantly this footage shows players that the person who was killed was definitely on to something big and that he was most likely killed for it. Players then recognize that he is holding a flash drive in his hand containing many images, a program scanning program, and also a video documenting a video of the dead man giving a message to players in the event of his death. At this point players discover that the dead man is in fact an agent. Not only that, but there is also a calendar on the wall with a time and a date for a meeting that was set up between the agent and an unknown contact. After players scanned the images, they reveal a hidden message within them which gives the locations of intelligence for them to collect and interpret.
The different pieces of intel included a picture frame with a hidden email address behind the photo, a CD hanging in a drain, classified documents under the bark in a garden, and a flash drive that was in a runoff grill on the side of a building. The email address contained many emails that had been intercepted between high ranking government officials discussing the situation of the bomb. The CD hanging in the drain contained a distorted audio conversation between two people talking about how the terrorist should be left alone to plant the bomb despite the government knowing about it so that they could justify sending more troops to the war. The documents under the bark showered mug shots of another well-known terrorist; another picture also shows the two men shaking hands. And lastly the flash drive contained a terrorist threat video to New Zealand that had been re dubbed with different sub titles. All these clues were carefully used for a specific reason. They all added to the effect of conveying the idea of a conspiracy going on within our country. If you take the time to read and interpret all the story given to you it paints a vivid picture of a cold and deceptive government who will stop at nothing to fight the war on terror even it means bringing terror to our own doorstep. Separate from all these clues was the meeting that the calendar showed players. It said to meet the unknown contact outside the Brooklyn bar and Lounge. The unknown contact quickly hands players the flash drive and hastily walks off. This was done to show a sense of danger in the situation. The unknown contact thinks that his life is at risk in giving you this information and we really wanted players to feel this. On the flash drive is surveillance footage of the terrorist in the WT building acting as a maintenance plumber. You see him walking into the bathroom. Players can them investigate where they will find a bomb planted in the storage room inside. 
The bomb itself is complicated to defuse if you did not discover the instructions on how it operates. You enter in 4 numbers to begin with. There are 4 boxes that change colors. If the boxes are black it means that you got none of the numbers correct or in the right place. if the boxes are orange then you got the right numbers but in the wrong location. If the numbers are green however it means you got the correct numbers in the right location. You have 15 attempts to get the correct arrangement of numbers. Each time you make an attempt a beeping sound will becoming more and more frequent. This really generated a sense of urgency.
Timeline:
-At the beginning we brainstormed ideas and themes. We explored many ideas around criminal activity. It gave us the idea to show players a hidden underworld that could be right under their noses. However, almost all of these ideas were discarded due to the numerous constraints that we faced. 
-After we had filtered out all the ideas that we knew were out of our reach, we singled out the idea to start off the reality with a crime scene. In this crime scene players will find numerous clues that would lead them on the trail. At this point we still had the idea that players would follow a web-like structure of movement where one clue would lead to another. We knew that this idea was cliché, but we felt as though there was no other option.
-Nick remembered from a matlab programming project 2 years ago that he made a program that could hide messages within images. From here the idea of a government conspiracy idea was born. We did not know it at the time but this would be a vital asset to our project.
-At this point we were not entirely sure of what the story actually was. All we knew was that it was a government conspiracy. We decided to focus on how we would go about making the clues themselves. At this point in our project they were vital to how we would go about telling the story. We explored ideas such as hidden messages in articles by writing messages using the first letter of every line of text. Other ideas included such things as invisible ink, QR codes, picture frames, messages under tables, hollowed out books and many others. After discussing all these ideas we found ourselves very confused as we had no idea how to string all the clues together. We kept dwelling on this problem and how we could fix it instead of thinking about other strategies to avoid it.
-After another discussion with Maggie we were given a push in the right direction. We knew that we had an extremely strong and in depth story and this was our strong point. We realized that our current course of action was diverting attention away from the story and turning the reality into a gimmicky cliché set of events. We decided to completely cut most of our other clues and simplify our game down dramatically. We chose only to use the calendar and the hidden messages within images as clues. We also abolished the idea to have system where one clue would lead to another. Instead, we decided that the clues we had already would lead to different locations of intelligence for the players to gradually uncover the story. This harnessed our strongest aspect and completely changed the course of our game. All we had to do was split up different parts of the story and associate those segments to a particular clue. 
-We all set out to create different aspects of the game from this point. We really wanted the opening scene to have a lasting impact on players so we spent a lot of time thinking of ways to “drop” the player into the environment. We used small details like surveillance photos and strewn documents over the table to create this kind of atmosphere. 
-To fill in gaps in the story line we designated each member in the group to write specific email conversations near the end of the project. Although these were time consuming to read they did reveal the bulk of our story line. Surprisingly enough, players didn’t bother to read the emails and yet they still had a firm understanding of what was actually going on in our augmented reality. This was intentional because from the very start we wanted to have a reward system in place. If you read all the information and connected the dots it would greatly affect how the bomb would be defused. And incidentally, when players reached the bomb they had no idea how to defuse it because of this.
-On the day it was due we pieced together all the different aspects of the game, and filmed our surveillance footage. Everything had fallen into place. However we never had to time to rehearse which was our greatest downfall.

Intentions

One thing we discussed early on as a group, was how it was so easy to slip into creating a game, rather than an experience, and although we acknowledged that, we still found ourselves falling into that notion at times. One of our main concerns was creating a treasure hunt - where the player simply goes from point A to point B and then to C etc. In order to combat that, and keep our alternate reality as more of an experience rather than a game, we focused on the minor details. Our intentions were to have the player immersed within the environment we set up, and almost be over-whelmed with the depth of this reality they were facing. A lot of our initial ideas, were great, but they lacked the substance that we desired in our experience. We decided to think of our artifacts as tools in which to tell the story behind our experience, and offer insight into the reality we had created. We designed our artifacts, so that not one sole artifact could lead you through the journey, but the combination of certain components, would send you on different paths. We specifically made it so that our clues were insignificant on their own, but pieced together with other artifacts, they would reveal much more of our reality, and begin to blur the boundaries. We created a system that offered rewards to those who dug deep, and explored our artifacts in-depth, while still entertaining to those who did not wish to put as much effort in.

It was our complete focus, to provide the player with complete immersion within the environment, rather than offering a linear, game-like experience, and we believe we achieved that well.

Artifacts:

Digital:

Decrypted Images:

We used processing to create and program a visualization that represented the player scanning an image to find a clue. The program would simulate searching a directory of images, for specific images of locations that were related to our reality in some way. For example one of the pictures was the location of the drain in which another clue was located. The program then began scanning the pixel data for certain RGB values which it then translated to a code/hint for another clue. This artifact was designed to give a really authentic feel to the secret agent theme we were aiming for. The player, if truly immersed within the reality would be unlikely to tell it was simply a visualization, rather than actually scanning the images. We wanted this artifact to really make the player feel as if they were actually living in our created reality, by giving them a sense of using this unreal, spy-like piece of software.

Surveillance footage:

Another component to our elaborate back story was the planting of the bomb. Although the player can never interact with that part of the experience, we thought it would further the understanding of the fiction behind our experience. Since we realize our player is very unlikely to discover each artifact during the experience, we found it valuable to include a vast number of ‘snippets’ into our reality. This particular one was another video, shot from the perspective of a security camera, in the hallway parallel to the studio. The camera filmed our terrorist (Joseph) dressed as a plumber, entering the bathroom suspiciously. The terrorist is holding what seems to be some sort of map in his hands, suggesting he is actively searching for the bathroom. Our desired effect was for the player to view this (ideally further on in the experience) and feels the need to investigate the bathroom.

Conclusion

·      identify a conceptual framework for each of the main project.

·      use documentation to effectively illustrate key concerns.

·      provide a context for work undertaken.

·      identify concerns that can be carried forward into creative practice in 2012.

·      What had influenced me over the semester

Unrealevant

Backstory:
In mid-2012, the new war on terror begins. After the USA left Iraq in 2011 and after NATO forces withdrew from the Middle East after the view victory in Libya, al Qaeda, although already allied with the Haqqani network, start’s launching joint attacks with the Haqqani against the US. These attacks are more frequent and are better coordinated than previous years. At the same time the Pakistani government appears to be more corrupt than it’s ever been and becomes more suspicious to the west. With that and the operations of the Haqqani and al Qaeda networks based in Pakistan, the USA Government wants to enter Pakistan. However due to the economic crisis and public dislike for the wars, the USA asks for help from both the Australia and the New Zealand to enter the country, in the hopes it will be less costly than if they were to go in by them self’s. 
In New Zealand however, after it is announced but before troops are actually deployed, a Haqqani operative by the name of Rashid Suahail, enters the country through a refugee program put in by the Government. He then finds employment at a chemical company named ChemCo. ChemCo had recently been promised Tax credits by the New Zealand government if they employed refugees from the Middle East. Rashid, with the resources from ChemCo, starts planning the bombing of the New Zealand. At the same time, Aaron Johnson starts looking into the background of the Rashid. What he finds stuns him as he discovers a secret government plot to exploit terrorist movements in order to gain public support of sending more troops to fight alongside America. Aaron Johnson is killed due to his knowledge of the matter. This is where the story begins.
Critical Decisions:
What went well and what didn’t – We came up with different ideas on building an application through a GPS, A live gamers approach and a exploration camera that would narrate the character from behind. We couldn’t come up with an idea that would reflect and represent to our main theme which was conspiracy. During the critical stages of conducting this assignment we came up with a various ideas of incorporating the combined form of American and New Zealand conspiracy theories. Throughout the duration of this assignment, we found that through the process of developing our clues, we were puzzled of how to construct them to relate back the focal point of project, which in this case was the bomb. We bridged all of the clues around the BTC area. The things that went as to plan for this project was the groups building dynamics and the foundations of physically building the clues. We wanted to incorporate more effective clues to this experience, but after talking with Maggie, it gave us an incentive that we didn’t need to involve extra clues. Elements that went well through this experience was the walk through. We were amused for the starting of our game because we didn’t have an opening to start off the experience. We made a final decision as a group to incorporate a horrific gunshot sound to terrify the player. Reason being that this was amusing was that one of our characters, in this case was T.J who operated as the dead agent pulled the gunshot too early. This confused the players because they didn’t know whether or not the gun noise was meant for them. As a group, we could have created a more professional approach to this section of the experience. This could have been more effective to building this assignment. Using the bomb to operate as our focal point made the construction of the experience easier to the group to progress with. Manipulating the clues back to the bomb created the experience to be more interesting and engaging to the user. We composed some posters to apply around the BCT building at an early stage because we wanted to pull the attention of a real life conspiracy theory. In conducting these posters, people started to realize the real life effects of American and New Zealand war interpretations. In the progression of this game experience, we created a flow chart that would help keep the Unrealevent group on track. We all had our individual tasks set to each member from our group. Nick was assigned as developer. He operated well with conducting all the theoretical information providing the group with all the knowledge and info that we needed. Supa was assigned to do all the processing and photo shop operations. Joshua completed all the video editing. T.J was assigned as the journal artist and I finally was the printer and photo shop designer for the posters. Everything under this process went to plan.    

The advantages and disadvantages of our experience  - The disadvantages of this assignment was conducting our clues to get them to relate back to the base of our experience. We managed to relate all the clues back to the center, which was the base. The communication through the group during the presentation of our experience was absolutely poor; We had no communication what so ever between each character. An advantage that we had for this situation was, we used camera recordings to record video imagery of the characters communicating to the players. If we were to resubmit this experience we needed to conduct some sort of rehearsal to enhance our group’s performance in directing them to be more really have more agent type characteristics.  In making our physical and mental decisions as a group, we needed to find a concept that would relate to a conspiracy theory. 

Why our group chose our reality:
We were very enthused to follow and create this reality because the story we wanted to tell was extremely plausible. Terrorist attacks are sprouting up all over the planet. It is not just America that has fallen victim to these crimes against humanity; Al Qaeda has been linked to many other attacked such as the bombing of the Madrid commuter train station. All these attacks are in some way linked to the war on terror. It seems that almost every week we are bombarded with news reports and articles about not only international involvement but also New Zealand’s involvement in the war. It seems that our presence is becoming more and more recognizable. We think of our country as a safe haven hidden away from the dangers of terrorism but people need to realize that we are just as vulnerable to terrorist attacks as every other continent. It is unlikely but it is definitely a possibility. We also liked the topic of terrorism because the subject is clouded with a fog of deception. Most people believe that Al Qaeda was to blame for the 9/11 attack however many still believe that the government was responsible for the attack, stating that it was fabricated for the sole purpose of giving the US an excuse to invade the country for its oil. These conspiracy theories interested us because it made us think about how we as a society are controlled by what the government decides for us. If the US government did in fact instigate 9/11 then it raises the question of how much goes on under our noses without us even having knowledge of it. Once again, we think of our country is a quiet and peaceful nation. We would never think that our government would ever conspire against us. This gave us a huge range of potential stories to go with. We wanted to take players on a journey through this hidden world.
Future Developments:
Create it as a mass multi player online experience using a forum. People are able to communicate with each other and help to retrieve and solve clues. This will allow people to invite others to come and experience this game. It will also get people all over the world to feel as if they were on one big team, working together to defeat a common threat. The clues will be hidden in different countries and people from different countries will work together to solve it. 
Develop a better reward system, more challenging clues will give a more in-depth Intel about the bomb/story. This reward system works on the basis where if the player goes out of their way to read all the intel and find the difficult clues, a lot more of the story will be made available to them. We tried to incorporate this into our demonstration on Wednesday where there were many other clues lying around the area that would reveal more information to players. However due to time constraints players were unable to find them. However, it just shows that the more attention to detail will grow and develop the story more. Not only that but they will be given vital hints in how the bomb can be defused. The bomb itself does not have to be a physical object. It could be entirely virtual on the internet for people to input their data and contribute to it’s defuse. 
Have a global time limit. They have to defuse the bomb before a certain date. This puts the audience under pressure, forcing them to race against the clock.
The Full Experience:
We initiate the experience with a gunshot, pulling the audience straight into a murder scene.
The murder scene looks very dark and only lit with the light of the computer’s monitors. All around the office there are strewn papers of surveillance photos and articles about New Zealand’s involvement in the war on terror with America. Instantly this footage shows players that the person who was killed was definitely on to something big and that he was most likely killed for it. Players then recognize that he is holding a flash drive in his hand containing many images, a program scanning program, and also a video documenting a video of the dead man giving a message to players in the event of his death. At this point players discover that the dead man is in fact an agent. Not only that, but there is also a calendar on the wall with a time and a date for a meeting that was set up between the agent and an unknown contact. After players scanned the images, they reveal a hidden message within them which gives the locations of intelligence for them to collect and interpret.
The different pieces of intel included a picture frame with a hidden email address behind the photo, a CD hanging in a drain, classified documents under the bark in a garden, and a flash drive that was in a runoff grill on the side of a building. The email address contained many emails that had been intercepted between high ranking government officials discussing the situation of the bomb. The CD hanging in the drain contained a distorted audio conversation between two people talking about how the terrorist should be left alone to plant the bomb despite the government knowing about it so that they could justify sending more troops to the war. The documents under the bark showered mug shots of another well-known terrorist; another picture also shows the two men shaking hands. And lastly the flash drive contained a terrorist threat video to New Zealand that had been re dubbed with different sub titles. All these clues were carefully used for a specific reason. They all added to the effect of conveying the idea of a conspiracy going on within our country. If you take the time to read and interpret all the story given to you it paints a vivid picture of a cold and deceptive government who will stop at nothing to fight the war on terror even it means bringing terror to our own doorstep. Separate from all these clues was the meeting that the calendar showed players. It said to meet the unknown contact outside the Brooklyn bar and Lounge. The unknown contact quickly hands players the flash drive and hastily walks off. This was done to show a sense of danger in the situation. The unknown contact thinks that his life is at risk in giving you this information and we really wanted players to feel this. On the flash drive is surveillance footage of the terrorist in the WT building acting as a maintenance plumber. You see him walking into the bathroom. Players can them investigate where they will find a bomb planted in the storage room inside. 
The bomb itself is complicated to defuse if you did not discover the instructions on how it operates. You enter in 4 numbers to begin with. There are 4 boxes that change colors. If the boxes are black it means that you got none of the numbers correct or in the right place. if the boxes are orange then you got the right numbers but in the wrong location. If the numbers are green however it means you got the correct numbers in the right location. You have 15 attempts to get the correct arrangement of numbers. Each time you make an attempt a beeping sound will becoming more and more frequent. This really generated a sense of urgency.
Timeline:
-At the beginning we brainstormed ideas and themes. We explored many ideas around criminal activity. It gave us the idea to show players a hidden underworld that could be right under their noses. However, almost all of these ideas were discarded due to the numerous constraints that we faced. 
-After we had filtered out all the ideas that we knew were out of our reach, we singled out the idea to start off the reality with a crime scene. In this crime scene players will find numerous clues that would lead them on the trail. At this point we still had the idea that players would follow a web-like structure of movement where one clue would lead to another. We knew that this idea was cliché, but we felt as though there was no other option.
-Nick remembered from a matlab programming project 2 years ago that he made a program that could hide messages within images. From here the idea of a government conspiracy idea was born. We did not know it at the time but this would be a vital asset to our project.
-At this point we were not entirely sure of what the story actually was. All we knew was that it was a government conspiracy. We decided to focus on how we would go about making the clues themselves. At this point in our project they were vital to how we would go about telling the story. We explored ideas such as hidden messages in articles by writing messages using the first letter of every line of text. Other ideas included such things as invisible ink, QR codes, picture frames, messages under tables, hollowed out books and many others. After discussing all these ideas we found ourselves very confused as we had no idea how to string all the clues together. We kept dwelling on this problem and how we could fix it instead of thinking about other strategies to avoid it.
-After another discussion with Maggie we were given a push in the right direction. We knew that we had an extremely strong and in depth story and this was our strong point. We realized that our current course of action was diverting attention away from the story and turning the reality into a gimmicky cliché set of events. We decided to completely cut most of our other clues and simplify our game down dramatically. We chose only to use the calendar and the hidden messages within images as clues. We also abolished the idea to have system where one clue would lead to another. Instead, we decided that the clues we had already would lead to different locations of intelligence for the players to gradually uncover the story. This harnessed our strongest aspect and completely changed the course of our game. All we had to do was split up different parts of the story and associate those segments to a particular clue. 
-We all set out to create different aspects of the game from this point. We really wanted the opening scene to have a lasting impact on players so we spent a lot of time thinking of ways to “drop” the player into the environment. We used small details like surveillance photos and strewn documents over the table to create this kind of atmosphere. 
-To fill in gaps in the story line we designated each member in the group to write specific email conversations near the end of the project. Although these were time consuming to read they did reveal the bulk of our story line. Surprisingly enough, players didn’t bother to read the emails and yet they still had a firm understanding of what was actually going on in our augmented reality. This was intentional because from the very start we wanted to have a reward system in place. If you read all the information and connected the dots it would greatly affect how the bomb would be defused. And incidentally, when players reached the bomb they had no idea how to defuse it because of this.
-On the day it was due we pieced together all the different aspects of the game, and filmed our surveillance footage. Everything had fallen into place. However we never had to time to rehearse which was our greatest downfall.

Intentions

One thing we discussed early on as a group, was how it was so easy to slip into creating a game, rather than an experience, and although we acknowledged that, we still found ourselves falling into that notion at times. One of our main concerns was creating a treasure hunt - where the player simply goes from point A to point B and then to C etc. In order to combat that, and keep our alternate reality as more of an experience rather than a game, we focused on the minor details. Our intentions were to have the player immersed within the environment we set up, and almost be over-whelmed with the depth of this reality they were facing. A lot of our initial ideas, were great, but they lacked the substance that we desired in our experience. We decided to think of our artifacts as tools in which to tell the story behind our experience, and offer insight into the reality we had created. We designed our artifacts, so that not one sole artifact could lead you through the journey, but the combination of certain components, would send you on different paths. We specifically made it so that our clues were insignificant on their own, but pieced together with other artifacts, they would reveal much more of our reality, and begin to blur the boundaries. We created a system that offered rewards to those who dug deep, and explored our artifacts in-depth, while still entertaining to those who did not wish to put as much effort in.

It was our complete focus, to provide the player with complete immersion within the environment, rather than offering a linear, game-like experience, and we believe we achieved that well.

Artifacts:

Digital:

Decrypted Images:

We used processing to create and program a visualization that represented the player scanning an image to find a clue. The program would simulate searching a directory of images, for specific images of locations that were related to our reality in some way. For example one of the pictures was the location of the drain in which another clue was located. The program then began scanning the pixel data for certain RGB values which it then translated to a code/hint for another clue. This artifact was designed to give a really authentic feel to the secret agent theme we were aiming for. The player, if truly immersed within the reality would be unlikely to tell it was simply a visualization, rather than actually scanning the images. We wanted this artifact to really make the player feel as if they were actually living in our created reality, by giving them a sense of using this unreal, spy-like piece of software. 

News Montage:

This was to be the first artifact that the player would interact with, as it would ideally be looping on screen at the beginning of the experience. It was placed on Agent Johnson’s computer, and was left looping in direct view of the players starting position. The video was a compilation of news clips that were cleverly edited to provide foundation for our immense storyline. They contained real life news clips from New Zealand and the U.S that directly related to our theme of conspiracy. The first clip mentioned U.S and Pakistan relations were diminishing due to the assassination of Bin Laden on Pakistani soil. The next clip brought attention to a visit from the highest ranking U.S Soldier ever to come to New Zealand, having a meeting with Prime Minister John Key, which was then followed by comments made by Key regarding the visit. By now we wanted it to be clear to the player, that there was some sort of relation between New Zealand, the U.S, and Pakistan which we hope became clearer with the introduction of the next clip, which mentioned a ‘Secret Mission’ by the NZ defense force. We finished with a clip of an announcement of an attack on NZ troops. After watching the video completely, we intended the player to want to pry deeper into the story, and investigate the conspiracy hidden within our experience.

Osama Subbed Clip:

Similar to the news montage, this short video was edited to enhance the realism of our experience. We took a clip of Osama Bin Laden, speaking in his native tongue, and added our own version of subtitles to the clip. The subtitles made it seem as though Bin Laden was making a direct threat to New Zealand. We used this artifact as yet another component to enhance our experience by breaking down the walls between our reality and real life incidents. 

Sound Clip:

We recorded a brief sound clip, between John Key and a government official, discussing the terrorist and the actions the government would take against him. We used audio editing software to mask the voices, much like you would see in spy movies or TV shows. It was yet another technique we used to follow in our experiences’ spy/secret agent theme. The clip provided a small but significant addition to the story - which would help the player reach the final goal.

Surveillance footage:

Another component to our elaborate back story was the planting of the bomb. Although the player can never interact with that part of the experience, we thought it would further the understanding of the fiction behind our experience. Since we realize our player is very unlikely to discover each artifact during the experience, we found it valuable to include a vast number of ‘snippets’ into our reality. This particular one was another video, shot from the perspective of a security camera, in the hallway parallel to the studio. The camera filmed our terrorist (Joseph) dressed as a plumber, entering the bathroom suspiciously. The terrorist is holding what seems to be some sort of map in his hands, suggesting he is actively searching for the bathroom. Our desired effect was for the player to view this (ideally further on in the experience) and feels the need to investigate the bathroom.

The Bomb:

Arguably, this was the focus of the whole experience. The bomb was intended to be the center of the story, of which everything revolved around. Once the bomb was defused, the experience was complete, and without the bomb, the experience would be pointless. Due to the importance of the bomb, we wanted to ensure its quality. A deep thought process went into designing the bomb, and it required some very complex coding. The idea was that during the experience, the player would run around, gathering clues and Intel, ultimately leading them to the bomb, and to defuse it. Since our experience has the potential to be played through so many ways, we had to consider that in the design of the bomb. We decided that the bomb has to be able to be defused each experience, regardless of the path the player took, so we decided to play with difficulty. We designed the experience, so that the harder the player dug into our information, and the more time they spent sifting through our vast amount of information, they would be rewarded to parts of the code for the bomb. If the player rushed through, without gathering any information, they would find defusing the bomb much more difficult than if they spent the time researching into every little detail. The bomb worked similar to the concept of the game ‘Mastermind’. The user enters a code, and it will display how many numbers of the code were right, and how many numbers of the code were right, in the correct position. It is possible to defuse the bomb with no prior help, as long as the player understand the concept, and can think rather logically.

The Office:

One thing we considered when designing the experience was movement. Something we wanted to avoid from the start was a linear path from start to end, in which the players knew exactly where to go after each stage. To avoid this, we designed a small office space, to act as a ‘hub’ where the players could continually venture to and from, as they discovered different clues. Our intentions were to focus solely on one environment, of excellent quality that the player would find themselves returning to again and again. We used Agent Smith’s office as this environment, and made it as realistic as we could, by scattering different posters and clues around the office. We had calendars and important files and images around, that were there for the purpose of creating this realistic environment in which the player could feel totally involved in our reality. This was extra important as the office acted as our starting point of the experience, in which Smith would be found murdered. The player could then explore the office, finding clues and hints to go to other locations; however we designed it so that the player would have to visit the office more than once, to create the feel that the experience was not linear, and simply a scavenger hunt.