Arcade our Way 2: Girls with Ideas
AMY Northwest Middle School
Fall 2019
This iteration of the project took place at AMY NW middle school with four brilliant and funny girls with ideas (aptly named by the participants!). We spent time together in this after school games club talking about, playing and making games about issues that matter. This project and the AoW research is supported by the Loretta C. Duckworth Scholars Studio (LCDSS) at The Charles Library, Temple University, and a Presidential Humanities and Arts Research Program grant from Temple University.
Girls with Ideas
hard at work
Working on Twine cli-fi story
Working on sculpture
Discussing Twine cli-fi story
Working on Twine cli-fi
Playing with website
Working on Twine cli-fi story
The Twine Games
Our biggest accomplishment during this club was planning out and discussing story based Twine games (twine is an app that enables you to create a choose your own adventure type story). Twine is an open source tool that you can use for free here
Beach Story
By Saraye
Saraye's story is about a powerful climate change activist who is taking a break at the beach one day when she hears a song she likes. She approaches the person playing the song, only to come face to face with HERSELF! After overcoming the initial shock of this situation, over time, she befriends this sister-clone. After a few years of friendship, and some recent suspicious behavior on the part of the sister-clone, the protagonist is kidnapped and replaced by the clone who works for a major oil company. Many such clones across the country replaced their powerful activist counterparts in order to bring down their activist organizations.
My Reality
By Rayna and Nashay
The plan for this cli-fi story is highly complex. The Twine version below is incomplete, but the main idea is that this story takes place in the not-too-distant future. In the past, the protagonists' (a brother and sister) ancestors created a healthy land for their family, that hovers above the burning chaotic underworld that is earth. The brother and sister don't know of this burning place, but one day they fall from their land, into the chaos. They learn that their ancestors saved them, but now they want to help save the old earth by finding the reset button their great grandfather made, but didn't use.
Bunny Pile
By Renee Jackson
I am a big believer in working alongside students when possible. My cli-fi twine story is about the devastation of planet earth by humans. Some of the guiltiest and most selfish humans paid a lot of money and fled to the very high mountains where they live in isolation and secrecy. Drones deliver the supplies they need. In this world, the animals have developed strange and incredible powers through mutations brought on by climate change as they adapted in all kinds of ways. The Racoon King and her fellow animals have been kidnapping the humans from the high mountains, and bringing them to the animal compound to be educated in the ways of sustainability and respect for mother earth. The Bunny-piles are literally piles of bunnies that form one entity and work collectively to re-educate the humans.
The most significant learning about the topic at hand, in the case of both AoW2 and AoW3, climate change, happened through the rich discussions that took place through the collaborative planning process. Further writing about this is in progress.
“So you know in movies where everything goes all swell and there’s that moment where they have the music and they’re showing over time everything is really good?
THEN something happens and everything turns bad and they have to figure out a way to get themselves out of this hole...”
Saraye
Research Reflections
My Experience with AoW2: Highs, lows and humor.
Below is a series of drawings/documentation and personal reflections about the project.
