Anyone who is familiar with Pokemon Go will understand ARIS. Field Day, the creators of the platform, define ARIS as “a free platform that allows you to create mobile-based tours, games and interactive stories.” An easy way to think about it is that it ties together digital based content with the physical world.
Two Major Components:
Editor- this allows you to create your own maps, interactive stories, etc.
App- only compatible with IOS devices, the app is where you can play games that others have created.
How do you get started?
If you scroll to the bottom of the page you will see these three triangles.
ARIS has its own online manual and course that explain how to use the platform. The middle triangles will lead you to the online courses. This is connected to videos that range from basic introduction to the platform all the way to augmented reality and how to create an AR trigger. The white triangle is the manual which provides an in depth exploration and explanation of all the different components that go in to creating a new game.
If you click on “open manual” you will be led to a page that looks like the above image. The tabs at the top left hold all the different pages and the manual is separated into introduction, the authoring tool, links, and tutorials. Based off of the fact that the site felt the need to write “OPEN this navigation!” next to the tabs, it is clear that the manual can be a little confusing for first time users.
What does a game look like?
I wish I could answer this question, but unfortunately the app is extremely glitchy and constantly crashes. From an editors view, it works perfectly on a computer. When the app is opened on an iPad or phone it crashes and does not allow the user to actually start a game. Based on reviews of this app, this is not a new problem. If this could be fixed, this platform could be a powerful tool for educators and the public to connect with historical sites and documents.
Good presentation of the ARIS games format. Apart from the glitchy aspect of this platform it seems like a pretty cool way to set up a game. Has this ever been used by museums or national parks to create interactive guide systems? Maybe if a large enough institution decided to use it they could sort out the problems with the system or just create their own.
Good job on this practicum! ARIS seems like it would be an awesome, innovative resource for museums/historical sites looking to expand their virtual impact (if it still worked, of course). Overall, though, ARIS seems like a project that had ambitions too big for its own good, which is too bad considering it seems the developers had lots of ideas when looking through the manual. Do you think ARIS could ever be rebooted successfully, perhaps if the project was picked up by larger institutions, or do you think ARIS’s time has passed? I ask because it seems to me that mobile games, especially ones requiring going out into the physical world (such as Pokemon Go, which still exists but is obviously less popular than it was when released) don’t seem to have the same impact as they did in the 2010s.