Alternate Reality Game for University-Level Computer Science Education

Alternate reality games are a relatively new genre of games that use many different types of media to deliver an interactive narrative to the players. They consist of puzzles that can be very challenging and therefore they often call for collaboration among the players. In this work-in-progress paper, we describe our plan of using an alternate reality game in university-level computer science education. The primary target group of the game is university students from the field of computer science, but anyone is welcome to participate. The tasks and puzzles in the game involve computer science concepts, and therefore programming skills and basic knowledge of computer science are needed. Finding the initial clue, the trailhead, of an ARG is typically an achievement in itself. Similarly, our game is not part of any official curriculum, and we will use many trailheads in several media to promote the game. Also, the game organizer is not revealed to the players during the game. Since the game is not part of any official curriculum, participating is completely voluntary. Even though some of the skills needed in the game are very similar to the skills needed in completing similar course assignments, players will not receive study credits for solving the puzzles. They are just enticed to join the game to solve engaging challenges with other players. The game will have a wide range of puzzles from different fields of computer science, so that it would be difficult to solve all of them individually. Hence, the game calls for collaboration among the players. Getting students to join the game will be a challenge. Therefore, one of the research aims of this study is to investigate what motivates students to participate in ARGs when there is no reward in terms of study credits. We will also study the suitability of an ARG as a tool for computer science education and community building.