By building a scavenger hunt that also pushed users to solve puzzles by actually shipping code, we would showcase product launches progressively over a three-month, three-part release. In addition, our experience in December with the success of our 25DaysOfServerless event, also a large group effort centered on exploring aspects of Microsoft Azure, provided a supplemental road map for the game. Working with an illustrator who is an expert in creating architectural drawings and reproducing glyphs would ensure its cultural appropriateness, so we contracted with illustrator Dana Moot II to create accurate depictions of a fictional Maya pyramid.
We would partner with experts to create a game that taught about Maya glyphs while exploring a mysterious pyramid, encountering surprises along the way. Foremost in my mind was to not spin up an ‘Indiana Jones’ type mish-mash of exploitative cultural tropes, but to create something genuinely respectful of ancient Maya culture that was both educational and fun.Īnd so, our path became plain. We gathered a team of regional PMs and marketing experts to make this idea a reality. Inspired by his work, it struck me that a game centered around ancient Maya culture would resonate with our pan-Americas group with cloud advocates and project managers who cover Canada, US, and LATAM who were particularly interested in continuing the project. In addition, we wanted to somehow localize the experience to make it more pertinent to a regional audience.Įnter my work with my brother, an Art Historian at Cal State Chico, Matthew Looper. Do we continue with a tour of outbuildings and old antiques stuck in a shed? Somehow the “Mystery Outhouse” doesn’t have quite the same panache. But the Mansion storyline ends so nicely, with the user gaining the keys to get the house deeds in the attic, that I couldn’t seem to find a good way to continue the trope. We were soon making plans for a V2 of the Mystery Mansion, which I envisioned as a continuation of the old-house motif. So big that it caught the imagination of many folks at Microsoft. She also perfected its integration with PlayFab, the game’s backend.
I learned a great deal on the making of this type of game from Em Lazer-Walker, who led the development of the original Mystery Mansion and enhanced Twine to work better for multiple developers. In the process, rooms are unlocked by discovering solutions to small puzzles and gathering clues from Microsoft Learn. Users explore the various rooms of an old house, picking up keys that allow final access to the attic where they claim the deeds to the house.
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