A Local Ghost Story
“Do you know who I am?” A portrait of John Wayne is speaking to you. “Can you help me?” he continues. A chill runs down your spine—but you agree to help him anyway. Who knew the Frontier was haunted?
When we spend a lot of time in one place—day after day dragging ourselves between libraries and classes—it’s easy to become bored with our surroundings. This project uses ghost stories surrounding UNM’s campus to encourage investigation and enable people to learn more about their local areas.
But why ghost stories?
Easy—everyone loves a good ghost story.
Players solve riddles and tasks designed to carefully examine their environment—there might be something there that wasn’t there before. We aim to use mobile gaming to excite people to explore their city through historical awareness and physical exploration.
Ghost in the Machine
This game is played inside ARIS, location-based design software used to create augmented reality games. To play: create an account within the ARIS app, available for free in the iOS app store, then search for Haunt inside the ARIS search tab. Follow the prompts to set your very own ghost story into motion. It starts at the Frontier restaurant by UNM—grab your walking shoes!
On This Side of Things
Our team designed this game to be played on and around the University of New Mexico campus in Albuquerque. We chose this location because it is one of the most visited portions of Albuquerque, and often becomes the least interesting to students. We chose areas with heavy traffic—the Frontier restaurant and Zimmerman library—and looked at some aspects of their history to adapt them into our own original ghost story. The mysteries are simple to solve—count objects, search for a name—but require a thorough examination of the surroundings. Sometimes the easiest things to miss are in plain sight. Much of our efforts have been focused in developing a narrative to tie these places together. We thought a story was the best way to help players reimagine their environment, and we thought a ghost story provided enough intrigue for players to pick up the game and start a new adventure. A link to the document that contains the original story adapted for the game’s plot is located at the end of this document.
Passing Over to the Other Side
Our efforts started on the UNM campus because we are all students and spend a lot of time here. Our interest in pursuing this game came from personal desires to refresh our own perspectives about campus. Our next steps are to expand the mystery to different parts of Albuquerque. We’ve done some preliminary research on areas such as Roosevelt Park, on the corner of Spruce and Coal on the south end of the Lead-Coal Corridor. The park was built in 1934 with funds from the WPA, and is cited as “one of Albuquerque’s early efforts to beautify the city through the establishment of an oasis-like public space.” Zimmerman Library, which is already in the game, was also built with funds from the WPA. It would be interesting to connect the park and the library thematically. (A link to a folder containing photographic research of Roosevelt Park will be included at the end of this document.) At the end of the day, we are looking for environments in Albuquerque that inspire an element of mystery. As of right now, we want our project to remain focused in Albuquerque.
Support Haunt
- Gain historical knowledge
One is able to gain historical knowledge and increase appreciation of frequented locations on campus. For example, in Zimmerman Library it is known or believed the ghost of the very first librarian of the facility often walks up and down the bookstacks. - Can help reduce addictive cravings
Use of critical thinking and concentration taps into players’ cognitive abilities
Ideal for most games, but this game is also able to help the mind focus and rewards may be given to help keep the human brain stimulated. - Ability to enhance cognitive control in adults, and children
Cognitive control in participants is likely to improve through custom gameplay. For example, this game provides choices of where the player wants to begin and end.
Challenges to Overcome
One of the most pressing issues with Haunt concerns the difficulty level of some of the tasks and riddles. Although they might seem simple on the surface, they require a thorough inspection of a player’s surroundings, and some clues might be easily missed. The riddles present the same problem on a larger scale, because they lead to specific locations that are necessary to reach for the game to continue. We tried to combat this issue by allowing players to ask for help with the riddles, but our instinct is to trust the player’s capabilities and allow them to enjoy the full experience of the game, without holding their hand too much.
Your ghostly guides
Anthony Ramirez
Was born and raised here in Albuquerque, NM. He is about to achieve a Bachelor’s Degree in the Department of Sociology. He was able to complete a four year degree in seven semesters, which he sees as a huge achievement. As far as games are concerned, he loves first-person shooter games, sports games, and he found a great interest in creating this game named “HAUNT”. He also takes great pride in his role of completion of this game.
Erin Stegman
Erin is a Senior at the University of New Mexico. She is in the Signed Language Interpreting Program and is pursuing a minor in Interdisciplinary Studies as well as Special Education. She was born and raised in Albuquerque in New Mexico, and is the youngest in a family of four. Her older brother interested her in video games from a very young age. To this day, her favorite game is still Zelda: Ocarina of Time for the N64.
Quinci LeGardye
Quinci is a senior at the University of New Mexico. She is double-majoring in Creative Writing and Psychology with a minor in Interdisciplinary Honors. She was born and raised in Los Angeles, CA, and came to Albuquerque for school four years ago. Her favorite games are Civilization V, Injustice: Gods Among Us and Rocksmith 2015.
Shea Polansky
Shea Polansky is a Sophomore at the University of New Mexico pursuing a degree in Computer Science with a mathematics minor. He has years of experience programming both professionally and as a hobbyist. He was born and raised in San Diego, CA and spends his time playing video games and tinkering with his computer.
His favorite games are Dota 2 and Team Fortress 2.
Andrew Melendez
Andrew is graduating in a week and a half! He will have earned a BA in Theatre from the University of New Mexico. Coming from a theatrical background, Andrew is most interested in discovering and translating narrative into video game contexts using the ARIS platform. As a campus tour guide, Andrew spends a lot of time on campus; his goal is to engage people with this game by encouraging them to rediscover what it is about their locality that makes it special.
Other info
Design documents
HAUNT Comprehensive Project Proposal
Record of all text used in Haunt
Group Scrum board—inactive as of two weeks ago
