Month: November 2004 (Page 1 of 2)

Project MU Anniversary Tribute and Book Release

November 30, 2004 / Steve Peters

October 1st marked the one-year anniversary of Project MU, a grassroots ARG that was based in the Matrix universe. To commemorate the occasion, some of the more dedicated players created an anniverary puzzle trail that took folks on a trip down memory lane, complete with some pretty tough puzzles.

The trail was finally completed today, and led to a nice credits page and a link to an online book that chronicles the Project MU experience for those who may have missed it. It provides a fascinating glimpse into the world of the players and puppetmasters alike, and was obviously a labor of love to compile. If you’ve got some spare time, grab a cup of coffee and sit down for an entertaining read.

Mad props go out to giskard, wishi, xnbomb and yanka for a job well done. If anyone wants to recruit some pm’s for a future ARG, you know where to look! 🙂

ARGN Site Migration

November 27, 2004 / Steve Peters

Please excuse any site hiccups you may have encountered over the past few days. ARGN is migrating to its new server, along with all of the acommpanying necessary upgrades, etc. etc. yada yada. The site admins over at unfiction have been working hard as well, reinstalling virtually everything due to some new phpBB forum security exploits.

So, if you’re seeing this, all is well. The old ARGN forum archive will be restored soon, but everything else should be working correctly. If you run into any problems, let us know. We now return you to your regularly scheduled ARGing.

EDIT 11/29: The server migration is completed with the addition of the Forum Archive. We’ve also turned on comments, so we’ll see how that goes.

Sable & Shuck: Realworld Reward in Store?

November 15, 2004 / Steve Peters

We wrote earlier about a website called Sable & Shuck, which seems to be part of some sort of viral, immersive, ARG-ish promotion for Stella Artois. A series of sites revealed a story straight out of an old Twilight Zone episode, involving deals with the devil and an obsessed hero named Jon Harker trying to get to the bottom of it all.

Recently, the discovery of an additional website called Help Me Find Jon (www.helpmefindjon.com) has upped the ante, both literally and figuratively. It seems Harker has disappeared in the midst of his investigation of the strange goings on involving a mysterious man in black, and his sister Brigid is asking for help in finding him. Notably, she’s offering a reward of Â£10,946 for his whereabouts. You can register and submit your answer, so it looks like if you solve the mystery, you win the reward. Is it real? Well, as Brigid says, “You have nothing to lose, and everything to gain.”

Unforum Discussion

Live Phone-in Chat with IloveBees Actors

November 9, 2004 / Steve Peters

The Alternate Reality Gaming Network will host a live call-in phone chat with some of the voice actors featured in the Ilovebees Alternate Reality game, hosted by the kind folks at AccuTalk. It will be open to callers both in the US and abroad, and will take place this Saturday, November 13th at 12:00 noon Pacific/3:00pm Eastern. On hand will be Kristen Rutherford (Durga/Melissa/Sleeping Princess) and more from the cast (stay tuned).

This phone chat will work very much like a call-in radio show, as callers will have a chance to talk directly to the actors, and ask whatever questions they like. Watch this unfiction thread for more details as they become available.

EDIT 11/10: more details…
If you’d like to participate, call (404) 920-6610, then enter the conference code 516230#. You’ll be prompted to state your name (or screen name in this case), then will be put on hold until the chat begins at noon.

By default, you’ll be in listen-only mode. If you’d like to ask a question or make a comment, press *1. This will put you in the queue, which will be gone through in order. We’ll move overseas callers to the front of the queue. When it’s your turn, you’ll be ‘voiced’ and able to talk.

EDIT 11/13:
The chat went well. For those of you who couldn’t make it, here is a recording for your listening pleasure:

ilbphonechat (7.47 MB)

Halo2 ILoveBees Game Ends With a Bang

November 6, 2004 / Steve Peters

November 4th brought the final chapter to the 16-week Alternate Reality Game that became known as I Love Bees. A promotional game for Bungie’s eagerly anticipated game Halo2, Ilovebees caught the attention of thousands of gamers and media alike over the past few months. The journey culminated on November 4th, with a live event in four cities attended by hundreds of players (San Francisco, New York, Chicago and Austin). At this event, referred to in-game as a Combat Training Exercise, players got an exclusive chance to play Halo2 before its release on November 9th, and received a commemorative DVD and Ilovebees lanyard. What’s more, the lucky players in San Francisco got a chance to meet some of the Ilovebees Puppetmasters.

Ilovebees was developed by a team headed by Elan Lee and Sean Stewart, who headed up the first real Alternate Reality Game, The Beast, in 2001. Since then, they teamed up to form 4orty2wo Entertainment, and began production of Ilovebees in February. Ilovebees, which launched on July 16th, told the story of an A.I. from the future named Melissa who crash landed on a website server here in 2004. Over the 16 weeks of the game, players completed a series of web-based puzzles and realworld challenges to reveal a compelling story that formed a prequel to Halo2, following its characters through the weeks leading up to the invasion of Earth by an evil race of aliens known as the Covenant. The story was revealed in over 6 hours of audio drama using some of the best voice talent and post-production in Hollywood.

Ilovebees broke new ground in its innovative use of real world distributed puzzles, stellar writing and sheer numbers of players. At it’s culmination, the ilovebees site received as many as 500,00 unique visitors per day, making it by far the most followed Alternate Reality Game to date.

A post-game chat is scheduled with the Ilovebees Puppetmasters on November 7th at 2:00 pm Pacific Standard Time. You can have a chance to ask questions and get the inside scoop on what went on behind the game by stopping by #apocalypso on irc.chat-solutions.org (browser based access).

A Deal With….Who, Exactly?

November 1, 2004 / Steve Peters

Submitted for your approval: A mysterious Futures Trading Company that seems to provide luxury goods and services in exchange for……your soul!!

Sable & Shuck and it’s associated websites were discovered last month, and a few folks received an email from them yesterday (um, Halloween), reviving interest in figuring out exactly what’s going on here. It seems that S&S deals in providing clients with their every desire in exchange for their soul. If you sign up to receive further info, you’ll get this email reply:

You have elected to begin negotiations with Sable & Shuck, a company that provides commodities of supreme quality and worth, in return for human souls that meet our criteria*.

We will resume contact at midnight. If you do not wish to pursue negotiations for any reason whatsoever, simply click the unsubscribe link at the bottom of this page and you will never hear from us again.

*Transactions can only take place after a contract is signed by both parties.

The email is signed by S&S’s “Director of Acquisitions,” who is also listed on their site as Director of Procurement and Director of Punitive Measures(!) among other things. Well, we’ll see what happens at midnight, then.

Digging around takes you to various sites: Trident Air, Inferno Cargo, Marlowe the Hornchurch Star, and finally to the site of the story’s protagonist (we think), He Walks Among Us.

As far as we can tell, this online world seems to be related to Stella Artois, but beyond that, we really have no idea what this is or how deep it goes. In the meantime, I think I’ll book a trip to Valhalla and see what happens.