Mia Zhang | SOUP OF THE DAY | 马赛鱼汤: A Chase of The Lost

 
Soup of The Day is an alternate reality game about memories and emotions. Alternate Reality Games, also known as ARG, are a relatively new media form which is “an interactive narrative that uses the real world as a platform, often involving multiple media and game elements, to tell a story that may be affected by participants’ ideas or actions”(162 Meifert-Menhard). The non-linear storytelling, multi-platform, and interactivity features of ARGs bring new possibilities to the narration. This project, hence, is aiming to explore the form of ARG game, trying to engage the audience the most in some certain discussion, with the immersive experience jumping back and forth between reality and cyberspace.
The game starts with a letter. Players receive mail one day and start the journey of exploring their lost identity. The letter led them to a website, and they needed to turn back to reality in order to find clues and resolve puzzles in order to figure out the username and password to log in. There are two major parts of the set up: a website and the physical scene which includes three different real locations. The website is written in html, CSS, and JavaScript, and includes some features of p5. The three spots include one showcase spot for exhibition, and bread stand where players can interact with and find clues, and an ending spot, where players can experience the climax.
By experiencing the main character’s seeking of lost identities, players may obtain a new understanding about memories and emotions. This is the topic this project intends to discuss through the form of ARG. People have many kinds of memories, long term, short term, describable and non-describable. Of all the describable memories, two different kinds of memories are episodic memory and semantic memory. Semantic memory is a cold memory, abstract and related to facts. Just like you know that tomato and egg soup consist of water, tomatoes, and eggs and other condiments, you know this fact, you have no emotion about this fact, or rather, you don’t have to have any emotion about this fact. You know something, that’s all. Episodic memories are event-related, emotion-related, and time-related. It is how you remember the day your mom made you a bowl of hot soup when you came home from far away, you remember how you walked in the door, the way your mom looked, what you said to your mom, the eager and some other looks on your mom and dad’s face, the complex feeling of that bowl of soup in your mouth, and the grounded and familiar feeling in your heart. Thanks to your episodic memory, you can still remember the episode every time you leave home, thus you can feel everything all over again, your hippocampus mobilizes every sense you have, and you take another sip of that day’s soup.