Thursday, November 1, 2012

Case Study No. 0625: Staff of the New York Public Library (Find the Future)

Find the Future at the New York Public Library Game Trailer
1:42
Do you have what it takes to find the future?

Some people go through life letting history happen to them. Others make history.

If you can find the future, you can make history.

To be considered for the Write All Night event at the New York Public Library on May 20, complete your first quest by April 21, at nypl.org/?game.

Music:

"Shedneryan 1/4" from the album "Shedneryan" by Roger Subirana Mata

"Shedneryan 3/4" from the album "Shedneryan" by Roger Subirana Mata

"Sui Generis" from the album "COMING SOON" by Arnaud Conté.

All music powered by JAMENDO
Tags: nypl library game centennial
Added: 1 year ago
From: findthefuturegame
Views: 27,462

It's never been attempted before.
It might not be possible.

But on May 20, 2011
At the New York Public Library
We're going to try

Inside the New York Public Library
Are 100 objects that have inspired humanity
And 100 stories that have never been told
We have one night to write them all.

On May 20th
500 people will spend the night
Write a book together
And change the world
Will you be one of them?

Find the Future: The Game
At the New York Public Library

Complete your first quest now
www.nypl.org/game

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From nypl.org:

Find the Future: The Game is a pioneering, interactive experience created especially for NYPL's Centennial by famed game designer Jane McGonigal, with Natron Baxter and Playmatics.

Through a once-in-a-lifetime, overnight adventure played inside the Stephen A. Schwarzman Building, and an ongoing online game, Find the Future: The Game combines real-world missions with virtual clues and online collaboration — all inspired by 100 works from the amazing collections of The New York Public Library.

"The game is designed to empower young people to find their own futures by bringing them face-to-face with the writings and objects of people who made an extraordinary difference," says McGonigal.

Find the Future: The Game kicked off on May 20, 2011 as part of NYPL's Centennial Festival weekend, with a "Write All Night" event inside the landmark building at Fifth Avenue and 42nd Street.

Players (18 and older) explored the building's 70 miles of stacks, and, using laptops and smartphones, following clues to such treasures as the Library's copy of the Declaration of Independence in Thomas Jefferson's hand. After finding each object, each of the 500 players wrote short personal essays inspired by their quest — for example, how would they write the Declaration? Winning the game meant writing a collaborative book based on these personal stories about the future, and this volume will be added to the Library's collections.

Find the Future: The Game can be played by anyone across the city and the world using your smartphones or computers, or on free computers at any of NYPL's 90 locations.

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From cnn.com:

When Jane McGonigal was 21 and a bit listless, she went to the New York Public Library to reinvent herself. She read up on computer science and physics and used that knowledge to apply to a graduate program in game design in California.

"It's just the kind of space where you come inside and you feel something," she said of the library. "You almost feel like you could think bigger thoughts or dream bigger dreams."

Now one of the world's hottest game designers, McGonigal is trying to recreate that experience with a smartphone-based game called "Find the Future," which combines a real-life scavenger hunt at the library with digital challenges.

The game's website goes up Friday at 9 a.m. ET and the actual game begins on May 20. Starting Friday, though, people can enter a contest to become one of the game's first 500 players. Those people will get to stay in a New York library overnight on May 20 to kick off the game, which continues through 2011.

Players download an app on their Android or iOS phones and then go to New York's Stephen A. Schwarzman Building to play. As they wander the halls of that landmark structure, which celebrates its centennial this year, they take pictures of QR codes that are attached to 100 of the library's notable objects.

At each object, players meet a challenge.

When they find writer Charles Dickens' letter opener, which, bizarrely, is made out of his dead cat's taxidermied paw, they get a prompt that asks them to write an open letter to someone they love.

When they find a draft copy of the Declaration of Independence, which has scribbling in the margins that suggest Thomas Jefferson was trying get the Founding Fathers to ban slavery, they're asked to write a declaration of their own.

"You see that and you think this wasn't just some moment in abstract history. This was a man who was trying to stand up for what he believed in," she said.

Players can submit responses through their phones or online, and other people can view these posts on the project's website. For those who can't go to the library, certain challenges will be "unlocked" online as the year goes on.

If players complete enough challenges, they can compile their writings and the writings of others into a book, which they can have printed for a fee. The book that the first 500 players compile together will be bound and stored in the library.

McGonigal hopes the challenges will bring history to life and inspire people to create some history of their own.

"The library's collection has all of these rare and just precious, awe-inspiring objects that you really have to come face to face with," she said. "It's one thing to look at it online and it can really have some impact, but when you're there it really becomes clear that for every moment in history there was a person who set that moment in action -- and you could be that person."

McGonigal, author of "Reality Is Broken: Why Games Make Us Better and How They Can Change the World," and a speaker at brainy conferences like TED and SXSW, is known for creating digital games that compel people to take real-world action.

In 2007, she created a game with the Corporation for Public Broadcasting that encouraged people to imagine a world without oil. Last year she developed a game with the World Bank Institute that aimed to empower people in Africa to start businesses.

These ideas fit within a category of technology that some people are calling "gamification." At a keynote address at South by Southwest in March, SCVNGR founder Seth Priebatsch declared this the "decade of games." His app, like others, gives people points and rewards for completing everyday challenges.

McGonigal is fond of saying games inspire the best in people Video. Gamers are passionate by nature, she says -- they just need to have those passions unlocked in the real world as well as the digital one.

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