The Big Woolwich TXT Game

25th July 2009: Greenwich Heritage Centre, Woolwich Arsenal

http://bigwoolwichtxtgame.blogspot.co.uk/
Murder or misadventure? Be a time-travelling detective and contact the spirit world using your mobile phone. You have 1 day to solve the mysteries of 3 unexplained deaths at Woolwich Arsenal...
 
Commissioned by Stream as part of London 2012 Open Weekend in July 2009. This was a participatory art project that used story-telling and sms messaging to investigate the local area. Using mobile gaming technology, players took part in a game that invited them to solve a series of clues and discover an unfolding story along the way.

Facebook event: www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=117376467712

StreamArts Project: www.streamarts.org.uk/projects/big-woolwich-txt-game

HOW
Technically, setting up the sms system was fairly straightforward. I set up a txtlocal (http://www.txtlocal.co.uk/) account and used the developer API to send and receive sms messages using PHP CURL. The messages were then passed to an SQL database + site hosted for free on 000WebHost (http://www.000webhost.com/).
 
PHP scripts took care of all the logic - depending on which message was received, the ghosts in the machine would send back an appropriate response to the player.

The main difficulty with this sort of application is in designing the game itself. Messages sent by players need to be short and preferably one-word, aas the system uses simple string matching to discover what message has been received. Variations in spelling and lexicon are not recognised. Answers from the ghosts are limited in length by typical sms maximum - 160 characters. The system was deliberately designed to be used by anyone with the most basic mobile phone.

NARRATIVE
A huge amount of time and energy went into the story research.   Here are the initial instructions for players:

Detective, you are challenged to unravel the mysteries of three deaths connected with the Royal Arsenal over the last three centuries. You should have a map, a sheet of questions and a fully-charged mobile phone at your disposal.  There are some clues in the area, which we think may have been left by poltergeists, anxious to pass information to the side of the living.  If the spirits feel that you are a friendly presence, they may send you a message.

You can usually communicate with spirits directly, by texting a name, then waiting. (eg. BENJAMIN, GEORGE, ROSE)

They may ask you a question, in which case you should text back your answer in order to score extra points and receive more clues. They may direct you to another spirit, who you can choose to contact. They may direct you to a place where you might find a clue or provide you with useful information.


1777 Benjamin Blight died on board one of the hulks, huge prison ships moored on the Thames alongside Woolwich Arsenal. Prisoners doing forced labour were responsible for constructing fortifications at the Ordnance Storage Depot.
 
1833 George Bodle died in suspicious circumstances on his farm, but his son was acquitted of murder because of lack of evidence. James Marsh, ordnance chemist at Woolwich Arsenal, subsequently discovered a new method for reliably establishing whether arsenic was present in victim's bodies.
 
1916 Rose Clark was one of the "canary girls" who worked in munitions during World War 1 - so-called because the TNT they handled changed the colour of their skin to yellow and gradually poisoned them.