Conference+Murder+Mystery


 * Case Study of a Murder Mystery Conference Alternate Reality Game**

A website was setup to support a fictitious murder storyline, providing links to three online games-based learning sites and three pieces of information to be found by delegates at a conference. The 'found' clues were a poster in the poster session, speaking to a specific staff member and reading information on a conference leaflet. Delegates entered their responses into the site to retrieve numbers which they were required to bring to a final 'reveal' on the last day on the conference. At this final session they were given information to decode the numbers, and were required to recognise this was a phone number, call it and hence reveal the murderer.

Of the 200 delegates only 11 completed all six clues, and only 6 attended the final reveal, but interest in the site and the game itself was much higher.

The game required little in resource during the running of the game and provided an activity alongside the conference to keep delegates engaged. Once set up the website can be repurposed for future occasions easily by adapting the three 'found' clues as applicable to the event.



[|Link to blog post for more details] [|Link to Conference Game site] (ECEL 2011)