Urgent Evoke...the mission to one step closer to saving the world.
A few weeks ago, I became an agent in a global network of social innovators. Urgent EVOKE: A Crash Course in Saving the World opened on March 3, 2010. It’s a social network site, a game, a real life mission, and a communication network where people from around the world come together to share ideas for problems we might face in the future, all in one. It was designed and is directed by Jane McGonigal for the World Bank Institute.
WELCOME TO URGENT EVOKE AGENTS!
EVOKE has been open 4 weeks and already has more than 13,802 members. The game will last for 3 months, concluding on May 12, 2010, with a new quest and a new mission unlocked each week. In the first mission agents were asked to learn how to become social innovators. In this mission I had to read about points that I was mostly interested in social innovating. Its like a quiz but in a form where you write your experiences and you are selected to be a social innovator in a special field. I was more interested in creativity and different ways to try to solve this hard mission.
The first thing I looked at was this 90-second trailer: EVOKE trailer from Alchemy on Vimeo. I thought the trailer was interesting and kind of a catchy trailer where it makes you feel like you are needed there and it makes you think and want to see what this whole fuss is about, and what the point of the game is about, maybe at first impressions I may have thought it was very hard or kind of not really hard...but mostly not interesting when you first see it. After a while when you get into it it makes it more interesting.
I like the way the story is presented, because they make it seem like its a super hero cartoon type of story and mission.
The first comic story was about these people that all over the world and are communicating to Alchemy the leader of the Urgent evoke team. I remember that this was like a sort of introduction to the story of what they are going to do and what they are in charge of. I know that the first episode should have had been a little more interesting and had and was supposed to catch my attention in a different sort of way but it didn't, so it was like kind of boring to me. But the episode was about trying to recruit new members and then that is how they asked me to join the team and make myself into a social innovator.
The second story was about this introduction to the Urgent evoke missions and the crises that the world is having with food especially the nation of Japan, and there is some people that are trying to figure out how this can be solved before the food shortages reach the main cities in Japan and people are going to have to leave the country and it may cause controversy and panic and chaos. So the president of Japan calls in to Alchemy who is the great leader of this organization that is going to help them produce food again and is going to help with the food shortages that may soon create panic once it starts reaching the cities.
The other story or the other mission was about the shortage of eklectricity and how the cities are running out of power and the need to find new ways to come up with power or we are going to live in a country that is going to be in complete darkness. So in the story board there was a story where one of the social innovators are in Brazil and they are helping to come up with ways to create power, so they found out how to create power by making windmills with simple tools and supplies that way there is no problem with power in the future. I know that when she lef tot talk to alchemy she told the people that were going to help them to make the windmills and work together to make them. So while chatting with Alchemy she comes bacjk to check and she sees them watching television and it gets her upset and angry that they did not obey orders and she did not make them feel inspired enough to create more. She gives on last call to alchemy and tells him that she failed.
START YOUR ENGINES....
Each week, the players are supposed to read and find out of these different stories of what is going on around the world having to do with the mission, like food shortages and the story I read about a girl in Africa and her struggle with agriculture. My favorite quest so far was the second one. This quest was about the shortage of electricity and how people are supposed to work together to find the new way of getting energy. Its about being creative and find new ways of energy for your survival, because.... On the surface, this quest was to find new ways of energy, follow people to see what they are coming up with to find new ways of energy.
Each week's mission has three parts: act, learn, and create, and so far I'm enjoying the learn ones the most because I get to learn of what is going on the problems that I was not aware of becuase of lack of information or lack of interest. My best mission so far has been the third week, the one about the finding new ways of energy and to power houses while doing the things you do in your everyday life. I did have a lot to do and had a lot to say about what is going on with the energy crises, and well I really enjoyed reading of the new ways that I found out other people are doing to make electricity, like playing football and the ball generating power, or something to do with the agriculture and the agriculture making electricity that is a huge success a huge step forward to finding new ways of making electricity.
The "learn" part of this mission was to read of what is going on and what you have to do in a blog post in order to better understand the problem that we are facing in the game and trying to put ourselves in a positions where its up to us to make or find a solution. As you can see in my blog post for this part of the mission, I learned that not just because you are living in a great city that there is not going to be problems that other poor nations or cities have. Not just because you live in a home full of food and a city and a neighborhood full of people with full stomachs that does not mean that around the corner or even your next door neighbor there is not someone that is having food problems and maybe there could be a risk to the whole city being in a food shortage for the needy.
The “act” part was to My task for the energy crises was to help come up with ideas or what would I do to help out the energy crises and end the energy crises. Like coming up with alternatives to electricity and stuff. Again, please take a look at my blog post. For this challenge I Had to come up with an idea that would help not only my party be a sucess but also help the energy crises and not waste that much energy as a party normally does with all its lights and disco ball for the dancefloor. Only I did not reduce any of the features of a regular fullblown party but instead replaced how I gathered energy instead you can ready all about it on my blog post.
For “imagine” we were asked to imagine, with our minds and come up with these cool and radical iseas of what we would be doing from now in the future. Now take a look at my story for this task. What I like most about what I put up was the idea of comig up with playing games and sports that wpudl actually generate some enegery to mantain a house for an entire day or an eveninig when the light is mostly needed. I believe this is somethign radical that can actually make a huge difference in what people are doing now to what people can doing in the future to save and consume energy. This made me think about how we can get energy in the future and fi in the future when we are so used to this or other ways of gathering energy if we actually will need a power plant in the future. These are some ideas that the team has come up with and it is very interesting and revolutionary.
THE MISSIONS AND OBJECTIVES YOU MUST COMPLETE TO CONTINUE...
When I first started playing Evoke, I thought that it was not going to be a sf un as my teacher was making it sound with all thses blog posts and reading comics, althoug I am little fan of reading comics more then books, but the game itself in the beginning was not that engaging. Now, I'm wondering when am actually goign to stop playing this game is keeping me up to date will the new stuff that is going on inthe world the new resources and how to get those resources and how to mantian those resources but ideas and ways that are not anythign like the ideas and ways we have been using for centuries now. The most interesting part of the game is when you get to share your ideas and actually read ideas of other people from around the world.
Some have even wondered if Evoke is a game. I think that evoke in a wa is a gme there are missions objectives only uou dont have a remot control and you dont have to learn skills by pressing buttons and stuff and trying to defeat the main evil character of the game, no but actually acting up as in the world our mission is never over there is still alot to do but by accomplishing some of the objectives there are huge feelings of sucess in our minds that just makes us keep going and going and going like i video game but its much better because a video game does not help out the world like evoke does. We watched a TED video in which Jane McGonigal explains these types of games, and I'm thinking now that this is very interesting how she makes it sound that the viedo gmaes are somethig to look forward to in life and to actually help us in the future. Because all my life I remember my mom telling me that this was waste of time and that people should not do this and that thissi going to interfere with our studies and that kids should not be spending to much time on the computer or on the t.v or anything int hat matter and should start going out into the world and imaginig acting and creating wasy to become a better person and to live as a better for the environment. I believe that this lady has revolutionized what it is to play games now, its not something that is justf ro fun but in this case now its something that can actually help you in the future with gaining some knowledge of what is going on out there and what you can do to make it better and make everything much easier for your generation and for the generation to come. I also think that games before were never used as they were during our period as for help she explained about these people that passed through decades of famine playing games and with playing games that is how they managed to survive in thier life and continue thier culture and heritage. Its very interesting maybe all this time we have been underestimating that capabilities of gaming and have used it as a way of entertainment instead of a way to do something better for ourselves and now for our planet.
I am looking forward to the next episodes of Evoke, because the next few weeksa re going to talk about woman and water crises and stuff in thatnature and its now becoming something to do with nature now and how you can help with nature and with society which I am much interested to do with because of my relation with society and how society has pulled alot of people back from where they are and has held other people back from where they should be in life and in the world. So i am very much ready to see what evoke has instore for me.
