Writing Quests for AR Mobile Games
The Station Official Art
What is a better way to learn something than through a game? I had the privilege of being part of a group of science educators, researchers, and game developers who created The Station. Our goal was to get kids ages 10 to 14 learning about the science that exists in their everyday environments. This took form in the development of an augmented reality mobile game that allowed players to move about their real life spaces and collect a scientist’s lost field notes.
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“These quests are a great opportunity to slow down and really engage.” - Noah Gleason-Hart, Partner
“The app helps me get to know the town a little bit better!” - Player
Links to Quest Scripts mentioned in the article below:
Quest View for The Station
I designed the quest templates for the game, identifying essential elements to the learning experience and how they all pieced together.
Quests are organized into easily discoverable locations in the game by searching nearby partner locations, who host science learning. These partner locations are called Science Stations. They are represented by a building with satellites on its roof in game. Narrative quest elements were broken down into the following:
Tour Stops: These are the physical places that players would need to go to advance the quest. They can be visited in any order to support player agency. They are represented by sign posts in game.
Description: This is the text that appears on the player’s phone screen when the Tour Stop pop up is triggered. It contains information of a specific, real world example that showcases the quest’s theme(s).
Media: Images that either confirm the Tour Stop’s physical location or support the player’s understanding of the tour stop’s description.
Latitude/Longitude: Provides the exact location that would trigger the Tour Stop’s pop up. This syncs the narrative pieces with the real world.
Field Notes: These field notes provide supplemental information that isn’t necessarily tied to a specific, real world location. They help connect the Tour Stop to concepts that build on the quest’s overall theme(s). They are represented by chests in game.
Category: This groups the Field Notes into two or three sections. After collecting all the Field Notes, players will be prompted to categorize them in their field journal (represented by the notebook in the bottom right corner of the game screen). This encourages players to make connections between the information they've gathered and the main theme(s) of the questline.
Description: This is the text that appears on the player’s phone screen when the Field Note pop up is triggered. It contains information about a specific topic that may or may not be readily visible to the player but still reinforces the quest’s theme(s).
Media: Images that support the player's understanding of the Field Note’s description. Not all Field Notes have pictures.
Latitude/Longitude: Provides the exact location that would trigger the Field Note’s pop up. This syncs the narrative pieces with the real world.
Observation Tasks: This is the final quest pop up that is triggered after players visit all Tour Stops and collect and categorize all Field Notes. The text prompts players to use the information they learned throughout the quest to make a real world observation. This reinforces player learning by requiring player action; players learn how to apply the quest concepts in practice.
Each essential element was influenced by two things: 1.) Ease of replicability, and 2.) impact on player learning. The greatest challenge was taking expert knowledge and breaking it into bite-sized pieces for each quest. We quickly realized that quests should lean towards simplicity, and if there were too many learning goals associated with a quest, it was better split into multiple quests.
The game's target demographic both played and built quests using the template with great success. The template created clarity and deepened topic understanding through reinforcement and real world applications. Players enjoyed the process of learning because the game allowed them to take their learning outside of a classroom and granted them agency in choosing how to proceed with visiting all the Tour Stops and collecting all the Field Notes.