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July 28, 2004

Ilovebees: The Beast is Back?

What began as a mysterious Fedex package of honey, has become one of the most intriguing and highly anticipated (for some) events on the 'net in quite a while. At first, when ARGN received the honey (filled with letters that spelled I LOVE BEES, leading to ilovebees.com) a little over a week ago, we thought it was a new grassroots ARG starting up, but when it was discovered that the ilovebees.com address made an appearance in the recent Halo 2 trailer, we realized this may be much bigger than originally anticipated.

We were right. Since the trailer hit the web on Friday, the entire cyberscape is abuzz, trying to figure out what's going on. The story has been picked up on computer gaming sites such as IGN, GameSpot, and even Slashdot. Thousands of posts on innumerable boards are clamoring to figure out what is going on.

What is confounding some is exciting others who recognize this as a new Alternate Reality Game. Those in the know are even proclaiming this to be the followup to the ARG that started it all: The Beast, which was a promotional game for Spielberg's film A.I. back in 2001. The Beast spawned Cloudmakers, an online smart mob of over 7000 who rabidly followed, solved, and obsessed over who killed Evan Chan. The Beast was a viral promotion like no other, and was an amazing event for those who were involved.

So, what is going on here with ilovebees.com? How does it relate to the Halo 2 universe?? Well, ilovebees.com is an amateurish website for Margaret's Honey that's being hacked by someone.....or something. Margaret's niece, Dana, is the webmaster, and the site points to her blog, where she is asking for help dealing with the virus or whatever it is that is screwing up her aunt's site. Players have emailed her, and Dana has actually replied to some players personally, thanking them for their advice. Upon closer examination, it was discovered that the various images on the site were corrupted with text phrases, which when assembled correctly formed a rather bizarre narrative about a Queen and a Widow.

On July 27th, one of the mysterious countdowns on the site expired, resulting in an update with more hacking goodness, and scaring the crap out of Dana. It seems whatever is taking over her aunt's site is now actually threatening her.

So, what does Halo 2 have to do with all of this? Well, a great Story So Far explains things pretty well, even though it is a lot of speculation at this point. [EDIT: The Guide is also a great place to start, as it's a chronological narrative of what's been going on, and is kept very up to date.]

The ARG community has done an absolutely amazing job so far, organizing information and using tools that were unavailable just a few years ago to create an information and dissemination system the likes of which have never been seen before. If they're right, this is just the beginning of what is sure to be an amazing ride. Stay tuned.

Here are some links to get you on your way:

QuickStart
I Love Bees Guide
I Love Bees Wiki Guide
I Love Bees Trail
Bee Quicklinks
Moderated Blog

Here are some forums discussing I Love Bees:
Unfiction
TeamXBox
Bungie.net

IRC Chat:
#ilovebees

Posted by vpisteve at 02:00 AM

July 23, 2004

Ilovebees.com Link to Halo 2 Release Confirmed

It looks like ilovebees.com (aka SPiDeR) is definitely tied in with the upcoming Halo 2 release for XBox. Check out the trailer for the game being shown in theaters around the US:
Super Hi-Rez version (64mb) | Regular version

Watch the end. It's there. So, we know there's something major going on here, and know that there's a countdown of sorts in progress. Watch for something big within a few days. With Microsoft and Bungie behind this, who knows how deep this rabbithole will go!

Discussion:
Unfiction Forums
Bungie.net

Posted by vpisteve at 11:05 AM

July 22, 2004

Urban Hunt: It's not what you Think

Major find by Yanka on unfiction. Seems there's a new reality TV show in pre-production entitled Urban Hunt. According to the website (www.urbanhunt.com), Urban Hunt will center around a group of contestants that will criss-cross the United States in pursuit of a cash prize of up to $500,000. Bonus Missions will include the use of a team of 'online advisors' comprised of home viewers, who will help contestants' missions.

Also on the site, you can apply to become a contestant and/or an online advisor. Sounds like fun. A cool urban scavenger hunt/online reality show........

.....or is it?

If you apply to be an online advisor, you receive an autoresponse confirming the receipt of your application. Interestingly enough, though, there seems to be a puzzle hidden in the message. Is it a test to see if you can pass muster? Or is it something else?

We won't ruin it for you, but this is definitely some sort of ARG-like rabbithole. The puzzle leads to more sites which reveal a dark secret of a reality show gone very, very wrong. This isn't a reality show, it's a game. And it looks like they've even pulled the wool over on some media outlets.

Props go out to Yanka for finding this.

Busy week in the ARG world. When it rains, it pours.

Trailhead: Urban Hunt
Discussion: Unfiction

Posted by vpisteve at 11:02 PM

July 20, 2004

This Is Not An ARG: A Labyrinth Tutorial

Recently, many players were alerted to a series of puzzles that were hidden in plain sight - puzzles that ultimately revealed a shiny new tool called Labyrinth. This tidy, no-nonsense program is maintained, designed, and implemented by the Karetao group.

Although the Labyrinth tool itself is straightforward and organizationally versatile, we thought we'd provide a couple of short tutorials for you. It seemed only natural to approach the Labyrinth launch puzzle itself, and use it as a means to display some of the basic features of the program.

Let's get started, shall we?

We have a trailhead, found in a known puppetmaster's personal website. The indication here, in a comment code, turns out to be a pointer to a sub-directory on the site named 'thisisnotanarg.' So, we'll call it that!

We open the Labyrinth application, and use the project properties to set the name of our mini-puzzle: ‘This Is Not An ARG’.

Since this does not appear to be a story-based game, our plot elements aren’t going to be characters and locations; they’re going to be the individual pages we come across. Later on, it becomes apparent to us that the pages lead to one another, so for purposes of clarity with this tutorial, we'll use the term 'stage.' We create a new element for the first stage.

The element is created and opened for us automatically.

But wait, there's more!

To store the information about the puzzle, we add an annotation to the element (a simple text annotation; there are other types available, but this will do for our purposes).

We can add another to contain the text.

So there’s the text of the page, but clearly the important bit is the cipher at the end. We add a second annotation for that.

All well and good, but now we need to transliterate it. Letter frequency analysis suggests it might be a Vigenère cipher, but a Vigenère requires a key. A closer inspection of the picture provides the answer: ‘illumination’. Let’s add that information to our project so we don’t forget it. We can do this in many ways: we could edit one of our existing annotations, or add a new annotation specifically to hold this piece of information; we might even choose to create an entirely new plot element for it. For now, we’ll just edit the cipher annotation, because that’s where it seems the most appropriate.

Using ‘illumination’ as the key to the Vigenère seems to work: the cipher translates as ‘begin at the ancient home of a king who paid dearly for his refusal to kill an animal’. Before we try to decipher this, let’s add it to the project.

Now that we have this, let’s find the answer to the riddle. The words ‘ancient king’ imply that we should be looking at mythology, and we find a suitable candidate in King Minos of Crete. Since the riddle specifies the king’s home, we try various combinations of using Crete as a filename and as a directory, but without any luck. Our next tack is to use the city King Minos lived in: Knossos. Using this as a subdirectory takes us to the second stage of the puzzle. We create a new plot element for the new page. (Another handy tip for larger ARGs and research purposes is to create an additional notation with the URL cited for your findings. One player may get stuck trying thisisnotanarg/crete, .../minos, etc., but when another player opens the Labyrinth file and surfs to the websites in the annotation, Knossos may be the lightbulb moment that gets the players moving again. Additionally, as is often employed in ARGs, particular elements of source material may come back at a later time, so these URL annotations are a handy way to keep things 'bookmarked' according to its element relevance.)

Before we add the puzzle information to this new plot element, we can show how we are working through the game. Selecting the ‘structures’ tab on the explorer, we add a new structure to the project.

Once the structure is created, we drag our two plot elements onto it, and create a link between them using the ‘Add Link’ button on the structure toolbar.

Which gives us the following structure:

Going back to the Knossos page, we add the information on the puzzle as before.

As before, this is a Vigenère cipher, and the key is hidden in the image: ‘purgation’, which gives another riddle: ‘head northwest to the home of the preaurelian carnutes’.

A little digging on the web provides us with the answer: before Emperor Aurelian, the Carnute capital was the city which is now known as Chartres. As before, this gives us another subdirectory, and another part of the puzzle.

We add the Chartres section as a new plot element, and add it to the Trail structure we created previously.

A nagging thought occurs to us now. Illumination and purgation are odd words to use as keywords, so perhaps there is some hidden meaning behind them? Similarly, why the choice of Knossos and Chartres? We can flag these thoughts for later by clicking on the Tasks button on the toolbar and adding a task for each of these.

The Chartres section looks like it is solved in a similar way to the previous two, so let’s add the puzzle information to the project. (This is perhaps the point where you can start thinking of the puzzle in stages. Because of this tutorial, you had the benefit of this structure before, but your elements and notes can always change and be re-named to your liking as you approach new ARGs and puzzles.)

As before, this is a Vigenère cipher, and the key is hidden in the image: ‘union’, which gives another riddle: ‘FINALLY CROSS TO THE HOME OF A UNIVERSITY FOUNDED IN THE SAME YEAR AS ITS COUNTRY'S CONSTITUTION’.

The answer to this riddle is Georgetown, so we add it as a new plot element, and add it to the Trail structure.

This seems to be the end of the puzzle, as the Georgetown page contains only a link to the Labyrinth homepage.

Now, with hindsight, we can investigate the items on our to-do list. A cursory search on the terms illumination, purgation and union provides a reinforcement that we have found the correct solution to the puzzle; they all appear on a site devoted to labyrinths. Similarly, Knossos was the site of Daedalus’ original Labyrinth, the cathedral at Chartres contains a very famous labyrinth and Georgetown University has a research project named Labyrinth. How handy.

Stay tuned for further tutorials and walkthroughs for the use and application of Labyrinth. Soon to be loved and revered by players and puppetmasters alike, Labyrinth is also useful for role-playing enthusiasts, academics, and professional writers, as an organizational and archival tool.

(this article was written by Andy Aiken and Krystyn Wells.)

Posted by krystyn at 10:50 AM

July 16, 2004

Two More ARG Leads

Holy crap, what a busy day it's been! First, we find orbitalcolony, then along comes a Fedex package leading to ilovebees.com with its mysteryious AI virus. Now we have two more good solid ARG leads to add for your investigation.

First comes a tip from the trailer for the upcoming remake of The Manchurian Candidate. Seems the evil company portrayed in the film has an online presence: www.manchurianglobal.com. What's interesting about this (very well done) corporate site is that it has a password protected Limited Partners Extranet. In addition, there's a Voice Recognition Game which may provide some fun, and a Kyocera phone, if you're lucky.

Finally, Konamouse at unfiction alerted us to www.sen5241.net, which very well looks like it may be a tie-in to the upcoming DVD release of the classic George Lucas film THX-1138.

Well, that's about it for one day. Happy hunting!

Posted by vpisteve at 11:35 PM

A Honey of a Rabbithole

ARGN got a very odd Fedex package just now. It was from Margaret's Honey, ostensibly in San Francisco, and contained the honey-filled bear to the left.

Lo and behold, in the honey were 9 cutout alphabet letters. I've heard of alphabet soup, but alphabet honey?? Ahem....Anyway, the letters in question were: o-i-v-e-e-s-b-l-e. Anagramming the letters gives us, among other things, I LOVE BEES.

So........www.ilovebees.com. Strange way to start an ARG, but that's what it looks like. Things are not what they appear to be at ilovebees.com.

Stealth launch. I love it. :)

Two rabbitholes in one day..........weird.

[EDIT: We've dubbed this game SPiDeR for now (System Peril Distributed Reflex from the text on the site). A lot better than calling the game I Love Bees. Also, it should be noted that there are indications that this game may be part of another current game, but we don't have enough information yet. We shall see.]

Posted by vpisteve at 02:08 PM

For Sale: Asteroid

Seems there is an asteroid for sale on eBay. As I'm sure the link won't always work, here is the accompanying text:

This is a once in a lifetime offer!

I am the exclusive owner of all the Asteroids in our solar system (By virtue of international law). I wish to sell some of them to you, the public! Take advantage of this once in a lifetime opportunity. Make your purchase for a loved one or as a completely novel gift!.

I am offering Asteroid 4179 Toutatis for sale! Dont miss out on this wonderfull chance of a lifetime!

Asteroid 4179 Toutatis was named after a Celtic/Gallic god whose name is often invoked in the well known comic book series "The Adventures of Asterix," set in ancient Gaul. Toutatis is the protector of Asterix and his compatriots, who fear nothing except that someday the sky may fall on their heads.

It is one of the largest known "Potentially Hazardous Asteroids" (PHA) that approaches our planet on a Near Earth Orbit (NEO). Close encounters with Venus, Earth, Mars and Jupiter constantly alter the shape of the asteroid's path as it loops through the solar system every 3.98 years. On October 31st. 2000 the asteroid passed less than 29 lunar distances from Earth.

Toutatis also has one of the strangest rotations yet observed in the solar system. Instead of the spinning about a single axis, as do the planets and the vast majority of asteroids, it "tumbles" somewhat like a rugby football when it bounces.

At three miles long it would present a terrible danger to the Earth if it were to collide with the planet, although scientists at NASA say this is unlikely. It is travelling at a speed of about 20 miles per second and if it struck the ocean would unleash a "mega tsunami" or giant tidal wave that could reach around the entire globe, inundating millions of hectares of land, destroying coastal habitations and killing perhaps millions of people.

Asteroid 4179 Toutatis (1989 AC)
Record: 4179 SPK-ID: 2004179
Alternate Designation: 1934 CT

PTICAL
PARAMETERS

H = 15.30
G = 0.10
B-V = n/a
albedo = n/a
spectral class = Sk

PHYSICAL PARAMETERS

GM = n/a
radius = 2.00 km
Prot. = 130.000 h

NOTE, this is NOT a scam, not a con job and not against ANY law in any way. I have claimed and do now truly own the property I claim to own. There were no claims of any kind on these properties before me; therefore according to international law they are my property until someone else visits them in person, this is the only way my claim can be invalidated!

Now, look at the bidders. This is where it gets interesting. One is listed as orbital colony. Checking out orbital colony's profile reveals a puzzle in the form of some webdings-type font. We'll leave it for you to decipher, but be assured that the solution leads to something pretty interesting. :)

If you need help, stop by unforums.

Posted by vpisteve at 10:22 AM

July 07, 2004

Letter to the Editor - "The Art of ARGs"

On April 11, 2001, Cloudmakers was founded as a discussion group for the interative web game centered around the film A.I. We officially solved the game on July 24, 2001. I first joined the game in late May and found the experience to be an entirely new one to me. When the game ended I looked around for more. First through Lockjaw and then Majestic and on and on since then. Personally, I have never been able to fully recapture the sense of community and comradery that Cloudmakers had achieved but I keep looking. Had I the financial backing, time and a suitable set of co-conspirators I would rectify the situation by creating my own game but in the meantime I have made a few general observations about what the ‘perfect ARG’ would be for me.

1. The beginning of the game should be hidden in plain sight.
Basically the first part of the game must be the discovery. This would probably be the most uncertain and aggravating part of the game for the puppetmasters. However, from a players point of view this aspect starts the game off with a feeling of mystery and achievement. A good example of this is The Beast concealing a phone number via the inclusion of dots in actual posters and trailers for the movie A.I.

2. The game must draw the players into its reality.
Let mimesis be your watchword. The imitation or representation of aspects of the sensible world, especially human actions, in literature and art. The players should feel as though they, themselves, are part of the story. This is one of the hardest things to accomplish because it must be taken into account during every part of the design process. This is difficult under the best of conditions but for the perfect game you want to include the players as themselves and not as just another character.

3. The designers should be many steps ahead of the players.
This is very important. The game must be prepared for whatever the players can throw at it. If the players complete a puzzle ahead of schedule you must be prepared to move the game along, not at your own pace but at the players’ pace. The same goes for a puzzle the players have been stuck on for much longer then expected. Whether this means throwing another puzzle at the players or subtly crafting a communiqué with hints as to a puzzles solution, the flow of the game should not be compromised. The players should always feel that something is going on as both being stuck on a puzzle and having no puzzle at all give the them a feeling of frustration.

4. The game should be able to interact with the players on various levels.
The perfect game should have a somewhat flexible design that would allow different types of interaction with the players at various points of the game. This could be as simple as adding a few lines to a communiqué complimenting the players on the innovative and unexpected way they solved the last puzzle or berating them for taking so long to figure out a password or as complex as an actual meeting in a chat room, a phone call, snail mail, video, audio, etc. (Personally I am against the chat room as too much unscripted material can compromise mimesis quite easily.) The ultimate interactivity would be an in-person meeting (very strictly scripted of course).

5. The game should be suited to a community, not an individual.
Games like this are more fun when they have a community built around them, with ideas and commentary bouncing around a list-serv or forum. This not only gives the players a better chance at completing puzzles in a timely manner but it also gives the designers instant feedback, allowing them to tailor the various parts of the game to fix flaws or create an even more believable environment. When a community appears around such a game you must keep in mind that the puzzles need to be more difficult than puzzles made to be solved by an individual otherwise the game will not pose enough of a challenge for the players.

6. The story line should be both compelling and fluid.
Some sort of mystery, though no necessarily a murder mystery. Disappearance of a person or an item, the sudden appearance of a bit of video footage or a manuscript or unknown origin, something to draw the players interest and always keep him/her guessing. Discovery is what drives the players so always reward them with something that will draw them further into the story.

7. The reward structure of the game should be fair and balanced.
This one is so simple but so often overlooked! If you throw a very difficult puzzle at the players you should give them a very big reward for solving it. Smaller puzzles should be assigned less spectacular rewards. This is not such a hard concept to grasp.

8. The puzzles should be kept in context!
Ok, I mentioned mimesis before and this is another area where it is very important – the puzzles. You can’t have a journalist sending a message to a friend using old WWII Enigma code without some sort of reason or back story! Make the puzzles fit the story. This may not always be the easiest thing to accomplish but it certainly helps keep the game believable.

9. The designers should remain untraceable until the bitter end.
The players should not be able to trace the game back to the designers. In fact, it is best if they are not ‘aware’ of the designers at all. Of course, they will know that someone has designed it but suspension of disbelief should keep that fact to the side. Doing a whois on a domain and getting the home phone number and email address of one of the games designers ruins the illusion. Cover your tracks! This also has the added ‘benefit’ of people trying to figure out who the designers are, adding a secondary mystery to any well designed game.

10. The game should have a well planned and rewarding ending.
Playing a game for months on end and then finding it come to an anticlimactic or ultimately clichéd conclusion is one of the biggest letdowns. Make sure you are prepared for the end of the game and try to meet the expectations of your audience.

-Mantene

Posted by vpisteve at 09:19 AM

July 05, 2004

The Mystery of El Centro

El Centro is creating quite a stir, lately. What is it? When is it? Who's behind it? What's going on, exactly??

While billing itself as a 'Living Novel' on its website, El Centro seems to be, well, different. The FAQ page doesn't really seem to come clean about what's going on, choosing instead to be rather murky and disturbing. In addition to the FAQ, the site offers Soundtrack music (try popping one of these babies on late at night with just the glow of your monitor lighting the house), a Library with a small selection of odd titles, a listing of Tools for the player, plus an RSS feed to keep current on what's going on.

Oddly, a small Game Status entry currently reads "Pause," but the FAQ seems contradictory:

How will I know when play has begun?
You won't. Not really. However, you may register here at a later date to possibly be notified that play has begun. Or not.

That, combined with a little digging on the site, leads one to believe that there is perhaps something already afoot at El Centro. From exploding $20 bills to building a better doughnut, there's definitely more here than immediately meets the eye. No idea what it is, yet, but it's definitely worth a look.

Posted by vpisteve at 07:53 PM

July 02, 2004

"Missing: Since January" Released

OK, all you Majestic fans. It looks like someone has finally stepped up to the plate and given the "game that plays you" genre another shot. French developer Lexis Numerique and The Adventure Company have released Missing: Since January (formerly released in Europe as "Memoriam").

MSJ is the story of a journalist who is investigating a series of murders, which are being committed by a serial-killer known as The Phoenix. When he and his girlfriend suddenly disappear, a disturbing CD shows up at his publisher's office. Not knowing what to do, they enlist the public's help in finding out what happened.

Interactivity in the game reaches out and touches you in a way that, while quite common in grassroots ARGs, is a first for a mainstream published game. Many emails to ingame characters are handled by real people, and responded to in a realistic way, as opposed to autoresponders. As time goes on, players attract the attention of both the authorities and The Phoenix himself. This, according to GameSpy, is where "the line between reality and a game gets disturbingly thin."

There are web-based puzzles to be solved, many of which are very ARG-like. For instance, trying to find the password to get into the journalist's FTP site. His girlfriend has a blog that provides many clues into his background. Sound familiar?

It's great to see a game like this being released. The developer says that they've been at work for over a year building the game and the websites that are part of it. While not a strict Alternate Reality Game, Missing: Since January looks like it has all the makings of something ARG-fans might really enjoy.

Posted by vpisteve at 01:21 PM