Week #1 - Week #2: During weeks one and two, Professor Hendrickson began to develop a baseline understanding with the class of this semester's project, including the relevant history, and the shared values and goals of this project. Professor then introduced Minor Assignment One, which provided a theoretical basis for pursuing community-engaged, intercultural, justice-oriented, activist research. The class had to read and annotate reading/article sections that pertained more specifically to Indigenous peoples in Providence and Rhode Island. We then went on to read and annotate articles pertaining to community engagement and alternate reality games, which would help us begin to pitch ideas for the semester's project.
Week #3 - Week #4: Week three began with students submitting a smaller assignment discussing our personal strengths and weaknesses. and where we felt our skills could be most utilized throughout this semester's project. After Professor Hendrickson took our suggestions into consideration, he divided the class into three groups: the narrative team, the technological team, and the marketing team. Once divided into groups, we then discussed our project with PCEI's Chief Creative Officer, Donald King, and went over potential directions in which we would be taking this project. The narrative team then began writing up our personal project proposal for the class.
Week #5 - Week #6: Weeks five and six were dedicated to writing and finalizing the narrative team's proposal which outlined our personal project goals and vision; this included a prospective storyboard overview, a timeline of how we would remain on track and dedicate our time to certain aspects of the project, roles and responsibilities, project collaboration and ethical/cultural/personal accountabilities, further questions and an appendix. As this proposal was being drafted, everyone had their own responsibilities and these were further documented by doing self and peer evaluations as the semester progressed. Once every group submitted their individual proposals, we provided feedback from one group to another and proceeded to do the research and contextual work needed for our project to move forward.
Week #7 - Week #12: The narrative team then went on to compile a Wikipedia-like page, outlining and elaborating on every aspect of the Meshanticut world; this included flushed-out explanations of the world's economy, government, history, culture, environment, religion, demographics, education, game characters (hand drawn by narrative team members Ben and Eliza), story structure outline, and ideas for mini-games for the alternate reality game. This page was compiled from our team's extensive research on the history of Rhode Island and specifically on the tribes such as the Pokanoket, Wampanoag, and Narragansett tribes. Furthermore, during these weeks, there were several other working documents being worked on within our group that compiled more important historical context and ideas as to what stories can be brought to life via a virtual reality game.
Week #12 - Week #15: In addition to the documents we compiled pertaining to the historical context and potential storylines of the alternate reality game, each group member was also given a story from the Narragansett Dawn (a monthly newspaper that discussed the history, culture, and language of the Narragansett tribe) that we then each transcribed so they could be used for mini-games throughout the game. Each of these articles from the Narragansett Dawn possessed a message and we linked each story with a location in Providence, RI, where the story would connect with the interactive virtual reality game. Simultaneously, our group provided dialogue for the technical team to use within the game. Our team made it a top priority to maintain strong communication with both of the other teams and made sure to provide them with whatever it is they needed on our behalf. Each student was again required to do a self and peer evaluation in order to keep track and ensure our teammates were holding one another accountable.
Week #16 - #17: As the semester comes to an end, all of the teams have come together and did our best to create a basis for a virtual reality game based on the Indigenous culture and tribes in Providence, Rhode Island. This project can most definitely be continued and more intensely developed, but we were able to collaboratively create a very strong foundation. We will present to the Providence Cultural Equity Initiative on May 8th and complete our last self and peer evaluations for the end of the semester.