Carly Kocurek Publishes New Alternate Reality Game

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Author

By Stephanie Healey
Carly Kocurek

Associate Professor of Digital Humanities and Media Studies Carly Kocurek recently completed an experimental project that was highlighted in the most recent issue of Ada: A Journal of Gender, New Media, and Technology.

The game was an effort to build something that meditated on some issues that team members have been thinking about and interested in,鈥 says Kocurek. 鈥淭his starts as an academic article, although even some of that is speculative, but as you dig deeper into the game, it dissolves and really examines a lot of issues: communication and migration, gender, and codes embedded in both digital media and fiber arts. A lot of it is premised on my own optimism and hope that the tools we have at our disposal can be used as radical ways to care for each other, even in the face of disaster.鈥

Kocurek鈥檚 game is featured in Susan Kuchera鈥檚 article 鈥淭he Weavers and Their Information Webs: Steganography in the Textile Arts.鈥 The article examines the history of steganography鈥攖he practice of hiding information in plain sight鈥攊n relation to the textile arts. The author discusses various types of textile arts鈥攌nitting and crochet, embroidery, and quilting鈥攁nd the possible ways each art form could have been used for steganographic purposes. The analysis discusses how the potential use of these stenographic methods in the past, present, and future, could be used as a form of communication between marginalized groups to share and protect information.

Kocurek is a cultural historian specializing in the study of new media technologies and video gaming. She is the author of two books, , which covers the early rise of video game arcades in the U.S., and , a consideration of Laurel鈥檚 career as researcher and game designer. She is also a game designer specializing in educational and serious games; Paste Magazine called her game  鈥渙ne of the best games of 2014.鈥

To play the game, follow the links in the article and complete the subsequent puzzles and clues. Alternatively, to access the game鈥檚 content, you can also follow a walkthrough of the game.