Event Title

MA03 - Welcome to Nikki's Place Mobile Narrative Demonstration

Presenter Information

Sara Raffel
Amanda Hill, University of Central Florida
Bartley Argo
Nicholas Dearmas

Location

VAB-SVAD Faculty Hallway

Streaming Media

Start Date

3-11-2017 3:30 PM

Description

Welcome to Nikki's Place is a situated mobile story that uses the ARIS platform. It has two components: the game, "Getting a Job at Nikki's Place" and a digital story, "Welcome to Nikki's Place." The narrative is built using the information, stories, and photos the team collected from local restaurateur Nick Aiken and his family, the Parramore community members, archives and research, and the feedback from user experience testing. In the story, the player moves through Parramore to experience what life in the neighborhood was like for Nick Aiken as a child 110 working at Roser's Restaurant, the community business he would go on to own as an adult. By sending participants back in time using Aiken's story as a framework, players experience the neighborhood before urban development projects, like the construction of the East-West and Interstate highways, led to the razing of the majority of Parramore's original structures. The game consists of three acts: a to-do-list quest that takes place in the past, a test of culinary skill with present-day Aiken, and the final reward of employment at Nikki's Place. The story thus shows the passage of time to indicate how Parramore changed from a progressive and vibrant community to today's Parramore, a region dotted with physical desolation and a fragmented cultural identity. Additionally, the story was created to provide a way for grammar school students to learn about the history of their community from one of its prominent members and advocates, without merely reporting facts. Because Welcome to Nikki's Place combines histories—both personal and public—interactions, physical space, and imagined space, the creators aimed to avoid misrepresentation in the story's construction. As all are outsiders to the community, they wanted to make sure they acknowledged the rich, complicated history of Parramore without glossing over controversial moments in history with euphemisms or privilege. The mobile story is significant because it captures a rapidly changing history in the Parramore area as a means of preserving the culture and identity found in that area. The story celebrates the cultural heritage of Parramore and soul food, while encouraging a strong work ethic and the value of education and tradition, without turning the story into an elegy for a bygone era. Giving a demo of this mobile story for the broad audience at HASTAC would allow story developers to gain more critical feedback about game play and assess the best ways to move forward with the project. While the prototype was originally designed to be viewed while walking a mile-long route around the Parramore area, with story segments activated by GPS technology, testing on location can be difficult. The team previously tested this project with elementary school students using QR codes as a substitute for the location-based technology, and found the story was still effectively communicated. For the purposes of this demonstration we will once again use QR codes and visual placards to simulate the on-location game play experience.