info for final

Emma Gallant

The Mystery of Percival

A game involving the process and struggles of finding information in order to solve the greatest mystery: Who is Percival? It goes like this: You are traveling with your class to the Essex Shipbuilding Museum. You are currently touring the Old Cemetery behind the archives building. This is where the story begins... (description is a work in progress...)

Locations are
1) behind the archives building(old burial grounds)
2) at the shipbuilding museum's front desk
3) in the archives building

Progress Update

I have added a cover image, and have gotten somebody to agree to attempt to play test my game over the weekend, so I'm not quite sure on what to do until then.

I feel like assembling a demo reel for this class will be rather difficult.... Well, I could just create a demo reel of images/gifs that I used in this class, but that wouldn't have any of the texts I used in the Aris program, nor would it show any of my games in action. I'm not quite sure what to do about that though.

Today I decided to play test my app.....

Today I decided to play test my app. GD, was that an experience.

My process:
Aris is running slow today.
It started running smoothly, but I ended up changing a character icon and discovered that you can't change the player icon.
Only one of my factory events wouldn't run.
Adding events to it, having multiple things try to trigger it, moving it, and trying to wouldn't work.
In trying to fix it, I ended up getting myself caught in a conversation loop(don't use an even that already has an action attached to it).
I ended up turning it into an event to get it to play.
After fixing that, I couldn't get my second to last conversation to run.
I tried to add an event before the conversation, but it still didn't work.
I had to move the event to a new scene, otherwise the previous event would erase the one I needed and wouldn't trigger the conversation.
After that, the last conversation bubble worked.
Then, I tried to play it again, and the second to last conversation refused to pop up.
I ended up needing to have the event and the item in two of the scenes in order to get it to progress at all, which makes no sense, but whatever.
I tried to play the game again, and that ONE STUPID CONVERSATION STILL WON'T POP UP. I don't know what I'm doing wrong, I've tried just about everything, and I just can't get it to trigger?I'm going to try playing it again Aris might just be lagging.
It was just because Aris was lagging.
Jeez, pain in my...... *trails off into discontented grumbles*

I ended up using both an iPhone and an iPad to test it.

My discoveries:
Aris is a finicky app, and I highly dislike having to restart and go through my app again and again from the beginning in order to see if I was able to fix my problem.
You don't know what events you're running, and you have no way of knowing or checking what event's you've reached.


My thoughts:
I'm tempted to add something at the very end, just to clarify that the game is over, but I don't know what.
I feel like I should set it to loop to the beginning once it's over, just to see how any people keep going through it(just because I'm a jerk).

I'm debating adding quests into my game, at major points, such as finding the information, but aI don't know if I want to fool around with that.

What I still need to do:
Give it a cover.
Test.
Check in with group.
Test.
Cry because something that was working isn't.
Test.
Did I mention test?

Hallo, it me

This week I worked on animating the characters. I think I'm going to play-test next class and go from there.

Status Update

Last week I took the pictures I needed for my project. I have also written most of the dialogue. I want to attempt animating the dialogue, so the pictures are for reference, and will only be in the project if I don't finish animating.
((Not relevant, but I spent all weekend on the train and the T going back and forth from Anime Boston))

I think that it would be best if I was in a group that was using Aris or a group that was focused around the cemetery.

I should do a little more research on Percival.

My research on the mysterious "Percival" gravestone

The old Essex Cemetery, located on 82 Main street,  behind the Essex Shipbuilding Museum, is full of mystery and intrigue. From crypts to empty coffins, from body snatchers to broken stones, this cemetery that dates back to 1680 is full of secrets.  But,  located in the cemetery, hidden, lies one of the old cemetery’s biggest mysteries. In the cemetery lies a set of essay appears to be three gravestones,  two large ones cradling a small one. Other than a weeping willow motif, the only things adorning the stones are the words “Mother, Percival, Father”.

Just who is Percival? How did he end up here? Who are his parents? Why are their names the only writing on the stones? Being the only stone of its kind, what does this stone mean?

The stone is two separate marble stones connected with a shared granite base and a mini stone suspended between the two inscribed with the name Percival. The stone is decorated with a willow motif.

Because the stones are marble, they are approximately from the late 1800’s to the early 1900’s era. Because of this, the willow motif is much more recent, during the time of modern ideas about life and death, it is a generic mortuary willow, and not an individual pne with religious meaning. We can tell that the stone is recent due to the shape, and the fact that the stone isn't completely eroded from the acid rain. Modern stones are known to have the family name as the main focus on the stone, as cemeteries are meant for the living, whilst graveyards are meant for the dead.

After much research, the only lead that I could find was an Ira Percival,  who married Martha Burnham April 2, 1806. Due to the fact that not only is this marker next to many others belonging to the Burnham family, as well as the fact that it is common to see the surname of a family as a focal point on each marker. Sadly, I could not find much else on Percival, other than his wife's parents, his children (a daughter and an unnamed son), and his wife's assumed birth year.

This is completely different from my original idea in which Percival was the child. But still, the question remains: why is Mother and Father on the stone if there are no children buried there? Is the unnamed son buried there with them? Though one question is answered, many more remain.

Place I found information on Percival: http://www.computersrwilde.com/WildeFamily/WOW/fam/fam22980.htm

http://www.genealogy.com/ftm/r/o/j/Heather-W-Rojo/GENE25-0013.html

http://www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~macessex/cemetery/eobg.html

Essex Visit, March 1

So, sadly, I didn't think to take any pictures when I was there, but I was really inspired by the triple gravestone set that simply reads "Mother, Percival, Father".  I'd like to do research on that grave, maybe find out who they are, and depending on what kind of information I get, turn it into a mystery hunt for the "player" to figure out who these stones belong to, kind of as a way to give remembrance to an unnamed stone, as well as provide an air of mystery to the "game".

On the next field trip, I'm definitely going to take pictures of the cemetery and the gravestones. I might also take pictures of the hearse,  because it was a very aesthetically pleasing hearse, and I'd like to see if I can't incorporate it into my "game".

Most of the research I will be doing will mostly be on the gravestone.

Things I want to look at:

a) birth records
b) death records
c) some basic background info for the time period that they died in

Snow Day Update

So, over the snow day break, I made a little flower icon for our game, and I chose which image of the grave marker I wanted to use (if we end up using one). I was also thinking about how our game would end up incorporating all of the ghost's information, and I started to think up a design for turning the poem I chose into a .pdf. (Note: Jax's flower looks way nicer than mine).
findagrave.com

The flower:

The image of the headstone:

The preliminary poem .pdf:

Things to do:

-figure out how the player is going to go about finding the flowers/items

-figure out how the player is going to learn about the ghosts

-create dialogue to find objects

-create/decide on the order of ghosts/objects found

-create game on the group account

-assemble the game

-meet up with cemetery worker

-put everything on the map

ARIS project (WILL UPDATE AS NEEDED)

Title: "Ghost Writers"

Basis: A scavenger-hunt styled game in which the players learn about certain writers/composers found in the Beverly, MA Central Cemetery. The player will have to hunt for a flower/series of flowers with information about said writer/composer and be able to find, pick up/drop at the graves.

Below I have included some information from www.poetryfoundation.org's website about one of the poets that will be in our game.

GHOST:

Lucy Larcom

Poet Details

1824–1893

Poet, abolitionist, and teacher Lucy Larcom was born in 1824 in Beverly, Massachusetts. Larcom’s father, a sea captain, died when she was young, and her mother moved the family to Lowell, where she ran a boarding house. Larcom began working in the Lowell textile mills with her sisters when she was just eleven years old. During this time, her poems and stories began appearing in periodicals such as the Lowell Offering, and she first met the poet John Greenleaf Whittier, who became an early supporter of her work. When she was 22, Larcom moved west with her sisters and became a teacher, first in Illinois and later at Wheaton Seminary in Norton, Massachusetts.

Larcom’s poetry was first included in the anthology Female Poets of America (1849), and her collections of poetry include Similitudes, from the Ocean and Prairie (1853), Poems (1868), and Wild Roses of Cape Ann, and Other Poems (1881), among others. Her poems appeared in prestigious journals and magazines such as Harpers,  the Atlantic Monthly, and the New England Magazine; her poem encouraging fellow abolitionists to settle in Kansas, “Call to Kansas,” won the New England Emigrant Aid Company prize and was printed in newspapers across the nation. As Whittier’s long-time friend and correspondent, she also anonymously edited three volumes of his work.

Larcom’s most enduring work, however, is generally considered to be her autobiography, A New England Girlhood, Outlined from Memory (1889). Recollecting her years in Beverly and Lowell, Larcom’s narrative is a richly detailed account of gender, labor, and class in mid-nineteenth century New England.

Larcom died in 1893 in Boston, and was buried in Beverly. Larcom Hall on the Wheaton College Campus is named for her.

Specific Poem on flower (that I'd like to use):

The Nineteenth of April

Related Poem Content Details

BY LUCY LARCOM

This year, till late in April, the snow fell thick and light:

Thy truce-flag, friendly Nature, in clinging drifts of white,

Hung over field and city: now everywhere is seen,

In place of that white quietness, a sudden glow of green.

The verdure climbs the Common, beneath the leafless trees,

To where the glorious Stars and Stripes are floating on the breeze.

There, suddenly as Spring awoke from Winter’s snow-draped gloom,

The Passion-Flower of Seventy-six is bursting into bloom.

Dear is the time of roses, when earth to joy is wed,

And garden-plot and meadow wear one generous flush of red;

But now in dearer beauty, to her ancient colors true,

Blooms the old town of Boston in red and white and blue.

Along the whole awakening North are those bright emblems spread;

A summer noon of patriotism is burning overhead:

No party badges flaunting now, no word of clique or clan;

But “Up for God and Union!” is the shout of every man.

Oh, peace is dear to Northern hearts; our hard-earned homes more dear;

But freedom is beyond the price of any earthly cheer;

And freedom’s flag is sacred; he who would work it harm,

Let him, although a brother, beware our strong right arm!

A brother! ah, the sorrow, the anguish of that word!

The fratricidal strife begun, when will its end be heard?

Not this the boon that patriot hearts have prayed and waited for;—

We loved them, and we longed for peace: but they would have it war.

Yes; war! on this memorial day, the day of Lexington,

A lightning-thrill along the wires from heart to heart has run.

Brave men we gazed on yesterday, to-day for us have bled:

Again is Massachusetts blood the first for Freedom shed.

To war,—and with our brethren, then,—if only this can be!

Life hangs as nothing in the scale against dear Liberty!

Though hearts be torn asunder, for Freedom we will fight:

Our blood may seal the victory, but God will shield the Right!

Source: “Words for the Hour”: A New Anthology of American Civil War Poetry, edited by Faith Barrett and Cristanne Miller (University of Massachusetts Press, 2005)

Larcom's Work:

https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems-and-poets/poets/detail/lucy-larcom

Larcom's headstone is located in Plot Larch Avenue, Subdivision 8, lot 229, and is towards the front (the part that the player will be walking on) of the lot.

Some more info from https://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GSln=larcom&GSfn=lucy&GSiman=1&GScid=90861&GRid=94842456&

"It is strange that the spot of earth where we were born should make such a difference to us… If I had opened my eyes upon this planet elsewhere than in this northeast corner of Massachusetts, elsewhere than on this green rocky strip of shore between Beverly Bridge and the Misery Islands, it seems to me as if I must have been somebody else, and not myself."
In this quote from the autobiography of her childhood, A NEW ENGLAND GIRLHOOD, Lucy Larcom remembers the town of Beverly, Massachusetts, where she was born, May 15, 1824. Her father, Benjamin, was a sea captain who died when Lucy was 11 years old. Lucy's mother Lois, moved the family to the mill city of Lowell, Massachusetts, where Lucy got a job in the Lowell textile mills. Lucy and her sisters wrote for and co-edited the Lowell Offering, a literary magazine by and for the mill workers. At age 22, she moved to St. Louis with her sister Emeline Larcom Spaulding and her husband Rev. George Spaulding. Lucy took a teaching job in Illinois, and after graduating in 1852 from the Monticello Female Seminary in Godfrey, Illinois, she returned to Massachusetts and took a position teaching English literature at Wheaton College, in Norton, Massachusetts. She began publishing her poems, and was a protégé of John Greenleaf Whittier. She died in Boston, Massachusetts, April 17, 1893 and was buried in her home town of Beverly.

Emma Gallant Auarasma 2 location

Okay, so my second Aurasma is actually a set of three that are located in the Central Cemetery. The triggers are the Butman St entrance, Lucy Larcom's stone, and Rachel Thorndike's stone. These are the many trigger images in which you can use:

This is a tentative map of our route through the cemetery:

(Please note: It may take a while to find, nothing in the actual cemetery is labeled, other than the stones, so it takes a bit of guesswork to find everything)

These are all the links that can be reached though the Auras:

http://www.beverlyma.gov/departments/cemetery-department/

http://www.beverlyma.gov/wp-content/uploads/2013/11/CC-11.16-Map15-116.pdf

http://www.beverlyma.gov/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/FAMOUS-BEVERLY-BURIALS.pdf

https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems-and-poets/poets/detail/lucy-larcom

https://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GRid=107567978

Emma Gallant Aurasma Project 01/18/2017

Okay, so my Aurasma is EmmaGallant and this is my trigger image:

In doing this I had troubles getting the image to upload correctly (it kept rotating by 90 degrees), then my overlay wouldn't upload. After I got that working, my overlay looked blurry, so I panicked, but it looked clear on my phone when I tested it. Then, it took me half an hour to figure out how to upload my name and image onto this blog thing because nothing seemed to work for me. But it's up now.