Some of the students at Harvard University taking part in this online activity

December is always a stressful time for students because of their final exams; and for this reason the Harvard University Taiwanese Students Association (HTSA) decided to organize an online game activity to help to ease the pressure. HTSA used an online platform called Online Town that lets people hold separate conversations in parallel and can still participate event together and hosted an online role playing game and Taiwanese language puzzles activity.

Four groups of students from different schools at Harvard University took part. They were given the challenge of solving a puzzle, set about 300 years ago, when Harvard University had just been founded by Mr. John Harvard. They were told that almost all the university’s books had been burnt in a fire. Only one book was left because a student forgot to return it on time. 

Each of the four participating groups had to work together to solve various puzzles, and follow various the clues to find the book. The game included puzzles and riddles that combined Taiwanese culture with details from the history of Harvard University history. By the end, all the groups succeeded in solving each puzzle and found the book at about the same time; so everyone playing the game was a winner! That was a great ending to a very enjoyable activity for all these students so far from home facing so many pressures.