BUILDING IMAGINATION: Play is an alternate reality game aimed at changing the world for the public good.

 

The game is free to play, open to anyone, and for all ages; recommended age 13 and up. Players can join the game at any time. It invites everyone to help re-imagine a better future.

 

The goal of this social network game is to help empower people all over the world come up with creative solutions to our most urgent social problems.  Join us and participate by contributing original  stories, images, animations, videos, and more… creating new visions with every posting. The game masters reward participants (“heroes”) with tokens according to their contributions to the  re-building of imagination.

 

This game places value on player-created communities, collaborative stories, and collective efforts. Each contribution helps create a different future. No team of experts knows better than YOU what an influx of imagination can have upon your life, or what action you can best take to spur it forward. Personal reactions to our simulated influx of imagination, placed in context with many other points of view, will help us all realize what’s at stake in our community.

 

Round 2 focuses upon Silicon Valley, CA. Why Silicon Valley? Because it comes in first.

 

According to this year’s Gallup-Healthways Well-Being Index for the United States, Silicon Valley boasts the best quality of life in the entire country.

 

The Index was derived by aggregating measures of reported happiness, education, health insurance, job satisfaction, community safety and other factors that together make somewhere a good place to live.

 

This round focuses upon how Silicon Valley’s success can be replicated and built upon by the rest of the nation.

 


Round 1 focused upon Modesto, CA. Why Modesto? Because it comes in last.
  • 2010, the Gallup-Healthways Well-Being Index, ranked Modesto 161 out of 162.
  • 2009, Yahoo.com rated it the least livable metro area of more than 500,000 people.
  • 2008, Forbes Magazine rated it one of the 10 most miserable cities in the country.
  • 2006, Most Livable Cities ranking placed Modesto, California last of 373 cities.

 

Modesto’s ranking was in stark contrast to its reputation in the middle years of the 20th century as a progressive and desirable community known for its cutting edge architecture and urban design, and one of the fastest growing cities in the country.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

CREDITS

Created by JGomula.

The ARG is based upon the aesthetic theories of Henry Jenkins, as he discusses in Games the New Lively Art

The ARG  structure of gameplay is based upon:

The ARG comics are based upon pubic domain images from the Digital Comic Museum