Month: May 2007 (Page 1 of 2)

Sammeeeees PM Looks a Little Lonely

May 31, 2007 / Jessica Price

Recently, ARGNet learned that Jan Libby, solo PM of the popular indie game Sammeeeees, has joined the Lonelygirl15 team. She began by writing a recent Lonelygirl video, “Sing With Me,” and it sounds like we will be seeing a lot more of her work in the future.

“In addition to writing videos, Jan is also taking a leadership role in implementing more puzzles and interactivity into our show. We are thrilled to be working with her,” says Greg Goodfried, an executive producer for the series.

Jan herself adds, “I have found my eternal song with LG15! 😉 Seriously, Greg, Mesh, Miles, and Amanda make the collaboration process so much fun. I’m having a blast — although this ‘no curtain’ PM stuff will take some getting used to.”

We congratulate both parties on what we hope will be an exciting and productive relationship on both sides of the curtain, and look forward to seeing what’s in store for LG15! We would also like to congratulate the team on their recent Webby award — a well-deserved accolade for this engaging series.

Catch up on the Lonelygirl15 series at YouTube, or discuss the announcement at Unfiction.

Paul Denchfield + Violet Kiteway = Fun

May 26, 2007 / Jonathan Waite

Three weeks ago, we reported on the Frozen Indigo Angel game promoting BBC Radio 1’s Big Weekend music festival. On the same day, we also found out about a season two preview for Perplex City. As it turns out, the two were fated to be reported together, as they were officially connected on May 12th in a blog post on Violet Underground, with a puzzle found in one of Paul Denchfield’s videos leading to a new PXC game web site.

Within a day of finding the puzzle, players of the Frozen Indigo Angel (FIA) game had solved it (see this thread at unofficialmills.co.uk) and discovered the tie-in with Perplex City. On the 14th, Denchfield posted on his blog about the recent activity and the new PXC web site, and Violet blogged about receiving emails which put her in touch with Denchfield himself. At this point, the story revolved around Cyrus Quinton, a member of the myserious Third Power who had set up a secret web page at the newly discoverd Silburn-Griggs Mining web site. Cyrus, according to Violet, is a “sound-engineer-slash-mass-murdering-psychopath,” and Denchfield warns about a “subliminal messaging scheme” Cyrus has planned for the Big Weekend concert — just as Cyrus warns his agents about Denchfield.

From the 15th to the 18th, Cyrus created “ticket challenges” for people to take part in during real world events. These challenges were noted by both Violet and Denchfield in separate blog entries, and players quick to solve the puzzles were awarded with tickets for the concert event. However, not everything is as it seemed, as a timetable was discovered at the same time, revealing that Cyrus was planning on using Perplex City technology during the weekend to send subliminal commands to listeners of Radio 1 who attended the Big Weekend concert. Alas, even as players, led by Denchfield, were told to do whatever they could to stop Cyrus from broadcasting a “primer” over the airwaves, the signal ended up going out on the 17th, “drowning out Beyonce and Shakira.”

Transcript Published for SXSW ARG Panel

May 25, 2007 / Jonathan Waite

Dan Hon was kind enough to send us an email letting us know that the transcript from the 2007 SWSX panel discussion “ARG! The Attack of the Alternate Reality Games” is pubished on his blog, Extenuating Circumstances. Alice Taylor, the Vice President of Digital Content at the BBC, was the moderator for the panel which included Hon (also the COO of Mind Candy), Brian Clark (Founder/CEO, GMD Studios/IndieWire), Evan Jones (Creative Director/Producer at Stitch Media) and Brooke Thompson (Giant Mice and ARGNet).

There is a lot of information to sift through, as the panel talks about everything from how ARG is still “emerging” to how budgets are created. Thanks, Dan.

Love Nevr Dies

May 25, 2007 / Geoff May

So I’m sitting at work when up pops an AIM chat window from itstarted1988. His greeting to me is this: “they speak you listen. Of the Psycaem. You can look forward to games. To your satisfaction, perhaps not… A man, a woman, a line drawn. Not a shepard. Not a shepard. 1988.” In basic ARGer fashion, I go with it, and thus begins the trailhead for “Love Nevr Dies“[sic], another hostage-arg, with a name coined from the dark, creepy artistic design found at MySpace to which players were initially directed.

Do You Believe in Harvey Dent? Possible Batman ARG Launches

May 22, 2007 / Michael Andersen

Promotions for the July 2008 release of “The Dark Knight” appear to have commenced in earnest. The official movie website for the upcoming sequel to Warner Bros Studios’ hit film “Batman Begins”, featuring the Batman insignia, recently directed visitors to I Believe in Harvey Dent. The website displayed an advertisement for Harvey Dent’s campaign for District Attorney. Harvey Dent, played by Aaron Eckhart in the upcoming movie, is better known as the villain Two-Face. Campaign posters have been reported displaying the same image in select major cities.

A handful of Joker playing cards were discovered in Meltdown, a comic book store in California, leading curious patrons to I Believe in Harvey Dent Too. This website displayed a defaced replica of the campaign poster. The posters were reported to be similarly defaced within 48 to 72 hours of going up in their respective cities.

Visitors to the defaced website were prompted to send emails to “tragicpast” to reveal the Joker’s grim visage for the movie a pixel at a time. Once completed, a message reading “See you in December” is displayed amidst a string of laughter. And while it is still too early to determine if this will be a full-fledged ARG or a simple viral marketing campaign, with over a year before the movie’s release, there appears to be ample opportunity for much more.

Click here to view the discussion in the UnFiction forums.
Click here to view the Joker cards found at Meltdown

Editor’s note: If you have any pictures of the defaced posters mentioned in this article, send them to us for a future updated article!

The 4400: The Battle for Promicin

May 22, 2007 / Michelle Senderhauf

USA Network has partnered with Campfire Media to produce an extended reality promotion for the hit television show, The 4400. Fans of the show can join in the debate over the use of Promicin, a neurotransmitter found in each of the 4400. When injected into someone who is not one of the 4400, it does one of two things: it either kills them instantly or gives them an amazing supernatural ability. Not surprisingly, the government wants to stop the use of Promicin, but many, like Jordan Collier, think the public deserves the right to choose for themselves.

While the promotion appears to be an extended reality rather than a full-fledged ARG, it’s still definitely worth a look. According to the official press release, the campaign will use seven websites, 70+ videos, mobile phone network participation and several live events across the United States. The three sites found through the rabbithole are already chock-full of well done and entertaining videos, blogs and other fun goodies.

Join the discussion at the UnFiction forums.