Capstone Update

After Hours has officially launched! To learn more about how we got here, check out our Implementation Plan.

Here's the rundown of what we've been up to since:

Website

The backbone of this capstone project lies in the website. During winter break, we spent the time brainstorming and creating the various components of the website.

Our website domain afterhoursgame.com was purchased through godaddy.com, and is hosted on Dreamhost.com. Here is a list of what pages we chose to add, and what they include:

Posts: All of the submitted content goes here, as well as announcements and blog updates.

Challenges: Each week, there is a new round of challenges posted. These are placed onto digital cards, along with submission details and point values. There are Community Cards, Collab Cards, and Craft Cards.

Leaderboard: Players and their scores can be viewed on the game’s leaderboard. We update this daily to reflect new players and their points.

Submit: Players submit their challenge documentation through a submission form. Once we review each pending post, we publish it to the Posts page.

About: The about page is the website’s landing page and includes background information as well as game rules. This is meant to introduce players to the game on first interaction with the website.

Login/Account: Players can register and create an account here, or they can login to an existing account. Through the Account dropdown, they can edit their information or submit posts as well.

Contact: Players can reach us with comments, questions or concerns through the contact page.

Discord & Instagram: Users can reach our social media account and chat platform directly from the website.

Marketing

When we started the game we knew that we wanted to create an experience that was pervasive. Although facilitated through a website and run by an online community, anything that happens in the game lead to real-world opportunities. Our marketing efforts were unique in that they work backwards–first approach users in real life and then bring them online.

Guerilla Marketing

Are you playing the game? Is the call to action for After Hours. We are hoping the ambiguity  and elusiveness would add to the identity of the game, and be a topic of discussion around the TAM community. In the weeks preceding the launch of the game, we created small cards to be placed around the ATLAS building to spark interest and lead people to question “What IS this game?” The cards were placed throughout ATLAS in both discrete and indiscrete places hoping that as more people encountered the cards, the more will want to pick one up and look up the website.

Are you playing the game? Cards were strategically placed where possible in the ATLAS building.

ATLAS Lobby Projection

In addition to email blasts, we were able to use the TAM projector in the lobby of the Atlas building to get the word out. Following along the brand identity, we used the Play the Game tagline in hopes the graphic will lead potential players to the site.

Content for TAM Lobby Projector

Social Media

Social Media was our next marketing tactic. Since some of our challenge submissions are facilitated by posting online, we wanted to launch a part of the game on familiar platforms that players may already have. The @afterhoursgame instagram account is also used to update players on news, challenges, submitted content, and other information.

After Hours Game instagram account is meant for updating players on the game and offer a way for submission.

Discord

When developing the site, we struggled on how our players could chat about the game and give us real time feedback. At first, we decided to setup a forum on the site. However, we felt that defeated the purpose of the website by making it more discussion based rather than a tool to facilitate gameplay.

We landed on the idea of outsourcing chatting to Discord. This gives our players more agency to discuss the happenings of the game through an easy-to-use interface. Unexpected outcomes of the Discord chat thus far is helpful players are to each other; Answering every question promptly is impossible for us to maintain alone, so this allows players to fill those gaps amongst themselves. We hope to see more action in the coming weeks and begin to incorporate player feedback as we continue.

User Testing

Last weeks user testing was helpful by giving us a birds eye view on how others utilize the website. We observed users signing up and navigating the website by both watching and using screen capture.

These were initial comments we gathered from user testing in Week 3:

“I feel there should be some sort of intro section to the Login page. The Play the Game graphic gets your attention but still doesn’t give me enough to understand what I am signing up for.”

“Maybe switch the account drop down to login and make the account a sub menu in the login tab.”

“Make sure you are consistent when challenges will be posted each week to avoid confusion with players.”

“Break up the About page copy with media to encourage scrolling.”

In addition to comments, we were able to learn from the screen captures to gather more information on user click paths for the website. Common click paths we observed were:

From the Are you playing the game? promotional card, the user sees that there is a QR code and/or a website URL on the back. On arrival from the promotional card, link in emails, and social media content, the about page loads to introduce the player to the game. On the Login page, we gathered that people did not have enough information to initially sign up for the game. Because of this discrepancy, users were lead to go explore the site first leading them away from our goal: register players. In response, we added a quick overview of what the game entails on the login/register page.

Launch Week & Round: 1 February 29, 12:00 am - February 11, 11:59 pm

With the launch of our game, we wanted to have the ATLAS community to behind the game as much as possible. Thus far, we have had overwhelming support from faculty and staff. Stephanie Wanek has spread the word by email blasts to ATLAS community. From her email, we have already had 5 more signups and counting to the games site.

Since launch, our current usage has amounted to:

Total Sign Ups: 22

Total Submission: 0

It is only week one of the game and are very pleased with the amount of sign ups that we already have. We hope to get more traction as the game gets talked about around the community. As we continue, we plan to increase user engagement through continuous marketing tactics and encourage challenge submissions.