This is an incredible piece of work. Really bursting at the seams with precious local lore, brilliant edu-gameplay, gorgeous photography, and local charm. There’s just so much to dig into here. Not to mention some genuinely ridiculous moments that made me burst out laughing. As a big fan of a few “local history” bloggers in my part of the world, I really enjoy digging into this stuff, but have never quite seen it done this way before. There’s something really fun and almost Borgesian about the “fake” guidebook that is basically substantively all actually there embedded within the game.
Maybe the closest was way back when I reviewed the PC-88 game Mirrors for ChoiceBeat, I remember the very strange “European tour” edutainment that made up a bulk of the middle segment of the game, where you toured different cities and learned about local castles in heavy detail.
I know walking around my city I have a few local favourite blogs and guidebooks I keep handy. But there is always the inevitable transition from breezy blog post to published book that happens with some of these initiatives. The books get “tighter”, more serious, authoritative, sterner. Anecdotes are cropped and only verified details make the cut. As a result a lot of the personality and gabby charm is lost. Whereas this format is genius because if anything it encourages you to exaggerate and have MORE fun with it.
I think it’s incredible that people exploring Archer ave will have this available in a handy HTML format that works gorgeously on mobile. This is something really special that can simultaneously serve as a reference book, a game to play, and the equivalent of taking a walking tour with the local kook!
I could also see this being incredibly fun to make, traveling up and down, shooting photographs, remembering and digressing. A real delight and an inspiration for future psychographical deep dives within a CYOA frame!