TaleBlazer by MIT
Michael Kasumovic
I just recently found out about a new AR tool called TaleBlazer put together by the MIT group. Currently it's in closed beta, but it's going to work on both Android and iOS. I was wondering if anyone in the Aris community has given it a try to see how it compares.
Cheers,
Mike
Christopher Holden
- Role based. While you can make different player roles in ARIS games, Taleblazer assumes you want to have them, making it rather easy.
- Simulation. Taleblazer allows authors to script events using a blocks language (similar to Scrtch), so it may perhaps be easier to make simulation-type structures within those games than in ARIS which starts from a storytelling metaphor.
- Confined map. You can set the boundary of a GPS map in Taleblazer, making it easier to confine a game to a specific area and have your player realize it.
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Denise Bressler
Someone started this thread recently and I figured I would contribute since I do have hands-on experience with TaleBlazer. A little over a year ago, I actually built a small game with it. I was lucky enough to attend Josh Sheldon's session on TaleBlazer at GLS 8.0, kept in touch with him afterwards, and got to go to an invitation-only demo day at MIT in Oct 2012.
TaleBlazer wants to be a tool that enables students to learn game design. The TaleBlazer interface offers designers a lot of options for game mechanics (see image). Using the “Player” tab allows the designer to create roles for the players; there is no parallel in ARIS for the Player tab since ARIS does not enable designers to allocate roles to players. The “Agents” tab is where the characters and content of the game are created. Agents are kind of like the choice of plaque, character, inventory item, etc. in ARIS. The drop-down menu that says “Control” houses a suite of scripts for operations, gameplay, movement, and looks. In ARIS you gain some of this functionality by working with the HTML tags within the character conversations and you also can gamify some interactions by working with the options on the map. But TaleBlazer gives more game mechanics… cause that's their niche.
ARIS and TaleBlazer seem to be fulfilling different niches. ARIS is about creating place-based interactive stories. The experiences you create can certainly feel like games but the emphasis has been on the map. The PLACE. You create things and drag them to the map. Then...Poof...you've got something you can interact with immediately. It's extremely great for prototyping ideas. TaleBlazer offers more actual game mechanics and since the emphasis is so much on the programming you feel inclined to use the suite of tools. You also have got to do some programming to really create something worth using. ARIS allows the non-programmers to create wonderful things without getting too much into "coding."
Getting started with the platforms... When I first started with ARIS, I was up and running and building my game quickly. You can literally have something made in a few minutes and start interacting with it on your device a few minutes later. It took more time to get going with TaleBlazer. I had only a very general understanding of block-based programming and had never programmed in Scratch so I struggled to get going with TaleBlazer. That being said - you can take other people's code and repurpose it for yourself so most of my game with just modifying what someone else did, rather than building something entirely from nothing. All my ARIS work has been my own; I've always started from nothing and built everything so I am intimately familiar with all the functionality of my games.
Advantage ARIS: Indoor functionality
Being the person who mostly makes QR code games with ARIS - the big difference for me was that TaleBlazer did not have this functionality. There really was no convenient and intuitive way to use TaleBlazer indoors - or far that matter - FreshAiR (R.I.P.)
Advantage TaleBlazer: Roles
I'll second Chris's statement about roles - ROLES are a big part of TaleBlazer. If you want your players to have interdependent roles, TaleBlazer builds in that functionality quite nicely. [Sorry ARIS, you know I love you! And I still use my workarounds so that my players can have roles. :)]
Another interesting advantage of TaleBlazer - perhaps for classroom implementation - is it's similarity with Scratch. If kids are proficient with Scratch they will have a big leg up. There is direct learning transfer from Scratch to TaleBlazer.
Overall, I think there are strengths to both platforms - you just need to have some idea in your head about what type of experience you are looking to create and use the platform that offers the most affordances. It's kind of like Prezi and Powerpoint. They are both great presentation tools but how I want to build my presentation and what type of impact I am going for dictate which tool I use to build my presentations.
Hope this was helpful - feel free to send along questions.
-Denise
Christopher Holden
GMAIL fred
Michael Kasumovic
It's nice to see an honest description of the differences. I especially agree about the difference in the interface. Opening up and getting started with ARIS is relatively simple, this is defnitely not how I felt when opening up TaleBlazer. I did get a beta link, however, so I will give it a try when I have a little more time (not sure when that will be though), especially because I like the aspect of Roles. Like you Denise, I also create a workaround to have roles in ARIS..
But I really do like the fact that it will have Android capability. I understand the reason why that hasn't happened with ARIS yet, but it would benice to use something that works on multiple platforms.
I'll drop backin here once I've given TaleBlazer a real try to put in my two cents.
Cheers.
Christopher Holden
Chris Holden
On Wednesday, March 5, 2014 4:26:45 AM UTC-7, Chris Holden wrote:
An overdue thanks to Fred.Sad to hear about GPS mission.I've used an app called Trip Journal is that the same as trip-journal.com?It also reminds me that there are tons of apps a little like Trip Journal and Traveler. Not really as general purpose AR, but closer to personal data tracking, including geo tracking. A couple on my phone now:Moves - almost an exercise app but one step more interesting.Rego - a platform that might be good for creating and "turning in" place based assignments. It's sharing model is a bit different than most.I also have one more question about Taleblazer: How does deployment work? Is there a cross platform app that you play specific titles in? Or is it something else?I don't know if I'd call putting roles in ARIS a workaround, maybe more that they are not hard coded. It doesn't really matter of course, just that I like to think of the capabilities of ARIS as what we can imagine doing with it, not decided in advance.
On Wed, Mar 5, 2014 at 3:00 AM, Michael Kasumovic <michael....@gmail.com> wrote:
This is great, thanks for all your input!
It's nice to see an honest description of the differences. I especially agree about the difference in the interface. Opening up and getting started with ARIS is relatively simple, this is defnitely not how I felt when opening up TaleBlazer. I did get a beta link, however, so I will give it a try when I have a little more time (not sure when that will be though), especially because I like the aspect of Roles. Like you Denise, I also create a workaround to have roles in ARIS..
But I really do like the fact that it will have Android capability. I understand the reason why that hasn't happened with ARIS yet, but it would benice to use something that works on multiple platforms.
I'll drop backin here once I've given TaleBlazer a real try to put in my two cents.
Cheers.
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