Empire of the Word – an interactive Alternate Reality Game
Serie
De Canadese educatieve omroep TVO heeft een serie gemaakt, Empire of the Word, over de geschiedenis van het lezen. Zie de trailer hieronder.
Op YouTube staat ook een langere versie van 5:19.
Eight years in the making, Empire of the Word is a compelling look inside the act of reading and traces its impact on more than five thousand years of human history. Introduced and narrated by one of the world’s great readers, Canadian writer Alberto Manguel, the series traces reading’s origins; examines how we learn to read; exposes censors’ attempts to prevent our reading; and finally, proposes what the future might hold for this most human of creative acts.
De vier afleveringen worden in Canada op tv uitgezonden van 25 oktober tot 19 dec. 2009 en zijn ook online te bekijken. Maar helaas, als wij dat proberen verschijnt de irritante mededeling:
Game
Maar op de website van TVO staat ook nog een soort game, als ondersteuning van het educatieve project, en dit is wel te spelen/bekijken.
Empire of the Word Online is an interactive Alternate Reality Game. It is fantasy, but the story it tells derives from histories of real, courageous people who have risked all to preserve and defend the freedom to think, write, and read freely.
Trailer van het spel.
For 2000 years, the contents of the Bhava Sutra Manuscript have remained a mystery. Legend calls it a cursed document …
… its pages have been scattered across the known world, hidden, buried and suppressed. The document, at least what we know of it, is a text of tremendous power and beauty that has never been fully translated into any modern tongue.
You, the player, are a friend of I.P. Burroughs, a writer on the run for 20 years whose life’s work is to assemble, decipher and publish the Bhava Sutra Manuscript. Your task is to unlock the secret code of the Sutra by following a trail of clues through destinations around the globe, and in I.P. Burroughs’ secret blog. Play along and be the first to unravel the ancient text and conclude the mystery, December 16, 2009.
Chapter 1: Toronto, Canada • Chapter 2: Alexandria, Egypt • Chapter 3: Herculaneum, Italy • Chapter 4: Istanbul, Turkey • Chapter 5: Berlin, Germany • Chapter 6: London, England • Chapter 7: Location locked • Chapter 8: Location locked
