ActionQuest: ATL was an activist pervasive game (aka Big Game) that took place in conjunction with the U.S. Social Forum in Atlanta June 27-July 1. The game consisted of a diverse array of social action quests, ranging from planting a “seed bomb” in an empty lot, to riding a wheelchair around the city to find and document accessibility obstacles, to forming a human chain through Renaissance Park. Quest evidence was then sent back to the game with location coordinates and uploaded onto a map of Atlanta. ActionQuest was developed by my research lab, the Emergent Game Group {egg} in collaboration with ds4si. The graphics were done by Matter. (Rob Peagler, who was our liaison at ds4si, has since joined the Matter team in Atlanta.) The {egg} is currently working on version 2.0, now called The Intervention Engine, with my Georgia Tech colleague Carl DiSalvo. We are combining ActionQuest with some of his prior work to create an engine designed to deploy geolocative interventions in pervasive games and other applications.

Listen to the WABE/Georgia Public Broadcasting Interview

ActionQuest players forming a human chain between two trees.