Enigma is a graduate student project being created at Carnegie Mellon University’s Entertainment Technology Center. The team of 6 will design an interactive activity within a role-playing experience. The experience is about the women Codebreakers working at Bletchley Park in England during World War II, who contributed significantly to decoding the German army’s ultimate cipher machine - Enigma. There will be 3 time frames: during the War, after the War, and after the revelation of their identity. These women were strictly ordered to hide their involvement in Bletchley Park, even from their families, after the War. Most were leading normal lives, until their contributions was publicly recognized. The experience seeks to elicit within the players the contrasting emotions of these women during these time periods. The activity is the “codebreaking” part of the whole experience, which takes place during the war time period. The players will be asked to collaborate and solve the presented puzzles as a team. The ultimate goal of this activity is to lead the players to the satisfaction of feeling smart and heroic. It is the intention that this will build up the emotion curve towards the end.
