The Source was a 5-week Alternate Reality Game hosted by Game Changer Chicago in summer 2013. The game was played by 140 high school students, and combined play in both online and offline spaces. The story, which followed a 17-year-old protagonist named Adia, was conveyed through transmedia means, including webisodes, tweets, Facebook posts, text messages, and voicemails. The narrative led players to a series of board games, cryptographic puzzles, scavenger hunts, and creative digital media tasks. The Source was played in teams of ten players that were overseen by undergraduate and graduate student mentors. The game explored issues such as sustainability, health policy, bullying, immigration, and homophobia while helping youth develop skills in Science, Technology, Engineering, Art, and Math (STEAM).
Meet Adia, a 17-year-old girl who is solving a mystery left to her from her father. This video was posted several days before the high school youth arrived to play the game.
Through this webisode, players meet Adia's best friend Ros, and discover more about the mysterious game created by Adia's long-lost father.
140 high school students arrive at The Source home base, located on The University of Chicago campus. They are assigned to teams to play the five-week game. The themes for Week 1 include Engineering, Urban Planning and Sustainability.
Youth get to know their new team mates, and their new mentors, through outdoor "icebreaker" activities.
The players explore The University of Chicago campus on a scavenger hunt to find clues left to Adia from her father. The players will use these clues in future activities and to help Adia piece together the complex backstory of her father.
Played on the soon-to-be-famous map of "Hexacago," the main goal of this game is to use as few resources as possible to connect houses using roads and intersections.
Players explore exhibits on a scavenger hunt at the Museum of Science and Industry.
Players meet Adia's tech-savvy friend, Micah, who will prove to be a great help in solving puzzles of the computer and engineering variety.
Played on the map of "Hexacago," Power Play is a board game about building power plants, powering the city, and minimizing pollution. The game culminates in a winner-take-all tournament, with the representatives from each team.
Players compete to build the tallest and sturdiest card towers, in this engineering-focused challenge.
In this video, Adia finds another chest of clues. She also explains her troubled relationship with her brother, Ibe.
Week 2 of The Source focuses on Science, Reproductive Health and Community.
Adia, Ros and Micah contemplate crowdsourcing the game. With the audience's help they can get through the puzzles and challenges much quicker than they ever could working in isolation.
Adia quizzes players on their knowledge of STI's. http://thesource.uchicago.edu/page/5/
The premise: players are on a very long bus ride together, but people keep getting sick. Players must figure out the origin of the disease and how it spreads before the "disease bus" becomes the "dead bus".
In this adrenaline-filled outdoor game, players shrink down to take part in the body’s autoimmune defense. Players work to stop the infectious agents spreading throughout the open wound by collecting as many flags as possible while simultaneously determining each Disease Vector’s weakness.
Public health professionals from the community give interactive presentations to the players about their work.
Youth must assemble a team of healthcare professionals, then pitch solutions for Hexacago’s biggest health problems. This is a fantasy game with very real solutions.
In this contemplative video post, Adia shares her reflections on makeup.
Players must wipe out the epidemic of super infectious STI's spreading across Chicago.
Players visit Logan Media Center at UChicago to build their skills and earn digital badges in blogging, photography, social media, web design and podcasting. How else will they help Adia solve this vast mystery?
Adia discovers her father's ideas for a very progressive community center. He's turning out to be very civic-minded.
Week 3 emphasizes Math, Cryptography and the Prevention of Youth Violence.
Adia, Ros and Micah write instructions for PB&J sandwiches.
Each player receives a mysterious card calling them to a meeting of their secret society. Players must find another member without letting on which group they're in.
Through coded communications, players must find out who in the room is on the same team, and how to secretly draw team members in from other rooms.
Players learn about the short-term and long-term effects of youth violence, from a police officer.
Adia, Micah and Ros try again to create some not-so-simple PB&J sandwiches.
Players assemble clues to better understand a violent incident in Adia's father's past.
Players use clues from the morning board game to find mini safes that have been buried all over the UChicago campus. What could be inside?
In Tales From De-Crypt, each player is a suspect wrongly accused of a violent crime. They must get into a vault located downtown on the map of Hexacago in order to clear their names. It's a race against time.
Adia uses the information she has gathered to review her father's history and timeline.
Players visit Logan Media Center at UChicago to build their skills and earn digital badges in blogging, photography, social media, web design, and podcasting.
Adia and Ros trade barbs in a game called "And then what happened?"
This week of The Source focuses on Technology and Immigration.
The ADIA Center website is hacked. Players must investigate the curious occurrences to learn where the glitchy disturbances are coming from. Find out more at http://adiacenter.org.
Players watch film clips from "War of the Worlds" and "A.I.: Artificial Intelligence".
Players create a "War of the Worlds"-style phenomena using social media.
Robot Party is a game about following the rules and fitting in. Each group in Robot Party has a different goal. The Robots want the humans out of their party, the humans want to party, and Alan Turing wants to find out all the humans.
Adia reflects on privilege.
Each group visits several different workshops led by experts in robotics, circuit building, 3D printing, and more.
Players use their computers to stop rogue AIs as they try to disrupt the city of Hexacago.
Players take turns telling a story about a world that is struggling with a major problem. Taking on the knowledge and skills of our most advanced technologists, the players' job is to build a brighter future for humankind.
Adia and Micah talk about a coup in Haiti and how it might have affected her father.
Players visit Logan Media Center at UChicago to build their skills and earn digital badges in blogging, photography, social media, web design, and podcasting.
Week 5 emphasizes Art and Storytelling.
After making up, Adia and Ros "trade places" and do their best impressions of one another throughout the episode.
In this game, players collaborate and re-order the sequence of existing film clips to tell a variety of stories.
Players explore the Art Institute of Chicago to help Adia look for themes in the artwork.
Players meet Adia. The mood turns bittersweet as they give her their best advice about her relationship with her distant father.
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