The Truth Part 2 is a mixed-reality game that takes players to the abysses of modern cities.

The game was developed by fifteen students from the Neue Mittelschule Lehen and members of the media artist group ‘gold extra’ as part of the research project schnitt # stellen.
The Truth Part 2 combines a story, whose outcome can be decided by the players themselves, with puzzles and elements of augmented reality. The game is played live, with 80 triggers that can be scanned with a smartphone app.

The audience embarks on an exciting journey to Shadow Town. The kids have scarcely arrived at school when the director takes a telephone away from one of them. They find a phone in the locker of their friend Haley, who is absent that day, but there is a surprise in store: Haley’s Facebook account has been set to “In Memory of”—which happens only when someone has died …

The players experience a number of surprises, including street chasms, mobs of kids in parks, eerie cellars, diamonds, and pictures of cats. Shadow Town is a dangerous place: French fries, bicycling, and lockers can kill you. The adventure is an exploration of friendship, one’s own neighborhood, the dangers of the city, and—ironically, of course—of failure in computer games. The fails of the players are counted, and the winner is the one who at the end has lost the fewest lives—or maybe it’s the one who took the most risks?

The Truth Part 2 was created with the students in a year-long process. They researched in their neighborhood, designed the game and a system of rules, and produced intertwined adventure stories as well as the picture, video, and audio material. The result is a multilayered adventure full of excitement and humor. The students collaborated with a group of artists under the motto “We are all game experts.” Together, they discussed ideas, aesthetics, and production methods, designing the game as equal partners.