enterprise THE DAVIS
SUNDAY, OCTOBER 25, 2020
After 40 years, cops solve case of missing Woodland mom
Game on Davis resident launches election trivia app on American politics BY JULIETTA BISHARYAN Enterprise correspondent With election day just around the corner, “Election: The Game” asks players if they think they are smarter than the current occupant of the White House. The game app was designed by Davis resident and high school English teacher Matt Biers-Ariel and children’s book artist and author Mark Fearing, with the help of software engineers Phyllis Gallagher and Martin Hald. The music and sound effects were composed by John M. Hull. Inspiration for the game rose from Biers-Ariel’s son’s early love for presidential trivia. Biers-Ariel concluded that monetizing his son’s expertise was “the most American thing to do.” With the help of Fearing, the two transformed the idea into a board game with the intent of selling it to the toy company Hasbro. After building five game mockups, they soon discovered that the company would only buy their game after they sold 50,000 units. Ultimately, Biers-Ariel and Fearing went their separate ways, letting the game mockups collect dust over the past decades and administrations. Years later, Biers-Ariel reached out to Fearing while looking for an artist to
illustrate a children’s story. He then suggested that they turn their old board game into a game app. For three months straight and with a budget of zero dollars, the team worked to transform “Election: The Game” into an app. “At its core, the game is a fun way to learn about our country and our electoral system. This kind of knowledge, to me, is more patriotic than waving a flag,” Biers-Ariel said. “Even at the pundit level, there are a number of questions that we hope will give even a Washington insider pause to say, ‘Huh, that’s interesting.’ ” To win the game, players must acquire the 270 Electoral College votes needed to become president of the United States by campaigning in states and correctly answering trivia questions to collect that state’s electoral votes. The game has two levels, a novice level for kids and a pundit level for well-versed high schoolers and adults. “I imagine President Trump would win at the novice level,” Biers-Ariel said. The art style is based on Fearing’s previous illustration work as an editorial cartoonist, combining political and trivia game visuals. Even though their product is just a trivia game, they are unable to advertise the app on
BY LAUREN KEENE Enterprise staff writer Tom Wulff was away at basketball camp the night his mother, Dolores, vanished from the family’s rural Woodland home in 1979. He recalls returning home a couple of days later and having a conversation with his father, Carl, and younger brother Paul, then 12. “My father told us that she was gone and was never coming back,” said Tom Wulff, who was 16 at WULFF the time and had Vanished in borne the brunt of 1979 Carl Wulff ’s abuse in recent years. “I knew immediately that he had done something.” Dolores, a Davis native and Woodland High School secretary known for her joyful, positive demeanor, would never have left her four children including a 21-year-old son, Carl Jr., and daughter Anna Marie, 19, according to her son. “Her kids were everything,” Tom Wulff said. That night, he and Paul left to stay with their uncle Matthew Rocha in Davis, “and we never returned.” For more than four decades, Dolores Wulff ’s disappearance remained a mystery that haunted her family, the community and Yolo County
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Matt Biers-Ariel looks at the home screen of “Election: The Game,” a game app designed by the Davis resident and high school English teacher and Mark Fearing, a children’s book artist and author. Facebook due to Facebook’s recent ban on political advertisements amid election season. The game offers political, historical and cultural questions, making it both entertaining and educational, Biers-Ariel said, adding that games are one of the best learning methods since players can learn more about the workings of their country while still having fun. Regarding a potential second
version in the future, both Biers-Ariel and Fearing agree on making it multi-player so that friends and family can play against each other. “I think the game’s mix of current political culture and historical trivia can make these times a bit more fun,” Fearing said. “It’s fresh-squeezed orange juice when you’re trapped on a desert island.” “Election: The Game” is available on the App Store for download.
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UC Davis reports zero new cases of COVID-19
Yolo County continues on path back to purple tier
South Davis mixed-use project goes to council
BY CALEB HAMPTON
BY ANNE TERNUS-BELLAMY
BY ANNE TERNUS-BELLAMY
Enterprise staff writer
Enterprise staff writer Nearly a month into fall quarter, UC Davis’ oncampus student population has remained largely virusfree, according to testing data on the UC Davis COVID-19 dashboard. From Oct. 11 through 17, the most recent week with results reported, 2,300 students were tested and none tested positive. Since students moved in on Sept. 14, a total of 9,541
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tests have been conducted, with six students testing positive. The last positive test was reported on Oct. 1. Campus residents are screened weekly for COVID-19 using a quickturnaround saliva sample test that is processed on campus at the UC Davis Genome Center. Until that pilot project is validated, students are being screened concurrently using a nasal swab test that is sent to a
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Yolo County’s daily rate of new coronavirus cases continues to grow, fueled in part by an outbreak at a Woodland skilled-nursing facility. In just the last three days, the county has reported 69 new cases and has averaged more than 15 new cases a day over the last two weeks, according to data on the county’s online COVID19 dashboard.
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That elevated daily case rate would likely meet the metrics of the most restrictive purple tier on the state’s blueprint for reopening. The county has been in the less-restrictive red tier — which allowed a number of local businesses to reopen — for several weeks, but if the average daily new case rate hits 7 per 100,000 residents (or about 15 cases per day) and stays there for two
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Enterprise staff writer A mixed-use project proposed for University Research Park in South Davis will go before the City Council on Tuesday. The proposal received mixed reviews from planning commissioners in August, with one commissioner calling it “a perfect example of a good infill project” and another likening it to sterile Russian apartment housing. The commission voted
4-3 to recommend City Council approval of the development proposed for Research Park Drive between Cowell Boulevard and Drew Avenue. If approved by the council, the 4.5 acres of vacant land northwest of the Holiday Inn Express would become home to a complex of four buildings, each containing four floors of apartment units over a ground floor of office and technology
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