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May 31, 2008
Dharma Needs A Few Gullible Men (and Women)
It should be no surprise to anyone who has been following the show LOST that there would be something special during the season finale. Fans were not disappointed. Close to the end of the episode, a mysterious commercial branded with "Paid for by ABC" aired, advertising a recruiting event for a company called Octagon Global Recruiting. They are looking for A LOT of "volunteers to assist in a range of unpaid positions" - a scrolling list displays diverse opportunities and skills ranging from Physicists, Mathematicians, and Botanical Researchers, to Drivers, Janitors, and Ex-Military. This recruiting event will be taking place in San Diego, July 24-27... wait, what's that, you say? Those dates seem familiar? They should - they're the same dates as the San Diego Comic Con.
The website for Octagon Global Recruiting doesn't currently display much other than a streaming version of the aforementioned commercial. However, there is one other nugget of information to be found, tying Octagon Global to the Dharma Initiative. The two organizations are collaborating and recruiting volunteers willing to "contribute to an important new research project." Interested? Just enter your email to register. So far, no reports have surfaced regarding contact from Octagon, but stay tuned.
Discussion has already started at Unfiction andThe Fuselage
Posted by Celina Beach at 4:22 PM | Comments (0)
May 30, 2008
Fish Mongers, Fairies and Fragglewumps, Oh My!
Writer/Director Guillermo Del Toro recently 'came out' as a member of an organization called HETFET - Humans for Ethical Treatment of Fairies, Elves, and Trolls. It's an organization dedicated to tracking down those who would seek to harm FETs, and bringing justice upon them. Guillermo's upcoming film Hellboy II, is an effort to recognize FET rights, and raise awareness for HETFET's cause. If you join them, you may receive a support package!
But it goes deeper than that. Recently some strange videos have surfaced of what appears to be people traveling through gateway-looking graffiti sprayed at the foot of cement walls. And HETFET knows something.
Cryptic emails were received by fans of GDT, containing hints that eventually led to a Secret Device - also linked from HETFET's homepage. The device is locked with 10 combinations, which are being found in various places connected with HETFET and Guillermo. The first combination - the release date of Hellboy II in theaters (7/11/08) - provides a poem with highlighted letters, roughly spelling out a website, which introduces us to Lexi Lloyd.
Lexi loves fairies.
She also just began her first Youtube VLOG.
Watch Lexi as she vlogs about her life, and shares strange mysteries surrounding a cat, her dreams, her father who went missing years ago, and other cryptic YouTube stalkers like 'dutchfelines' and 'aSmarmyYeti.'
Find out more about PANATROG, a mysterious organization also revealed by the Secret Device. What does the military have to do with PANATROG? Why are PANATROGs training videos so fun to watch? Why is Lexi involved, and what's the mystery of these "gearways?"
"The Secret Device" is a promotional campaign for GDT's movie (they'd have you believe) Hellboy II: The Golden Army, coming to theaters July 11th. The locks are phases in the plot leading to the movie, with a contest as a reward for those who follow through to unlock the 10th combination by the deadline of June 10 - which is 11 days from the time of writing. The two winners of the random drawing will each receive tickets for two to take a 3 day trip to Los Angeles for an exclusive fan preview-screening of Hellboy II hosted by Guillermo Del Toro. For more info, visit the HB2 Production website.
The contest is a nice bonus, and the story isn't hugely complex or long either - so there's plenty of time to catch up and unlock the 10 combinations along with a world of fantastical, strange creatures and trolls before June 10th. Heck, even if it's just to help another cute, innocent girl.
--Save the Trolls!
HETFET.org
Lexi Lloyd's website
Unfiction discussion
In-game Forums at HETFET
Player Wiki
Player Blog
Posted by Geoff May at 4:37 PM | Comments (0)
May 28, 2008
Attention Whedon-ites! The Dollhouse Welcomes You with Virally Goodness
Over at Furious Nads, The One True b!X (founder of Can't Stop the Serenity) reported receiving an email from Adelle DeWitt, a character in Joss Whedon's upcoming drama, Dollhouse. The email reads "Take Southlandlabs.com offline for now, whilst we redesign." The domain Adelle used for the email, AdelleDeWitt.com, currently displays a single login page. And whilst Southlandlabs.com was offline when the email was sent, it is now up with an image of the lab from the TV show trailer, the message "soon. but not yet" in the source code. A comment on the Future on Fox blog from "Kimi Lassek" revealed the username/password combination to access Adelle's email: adelle/wipe. Odd, as Kimi seems to be missing.
The Future on Fox blog also posted a link to the adelledewitt.com domain, implying this may be an official ARG for the upcoming show. Last season, Fox experimented with alternate reality games alongside Millions of Us with the Enitech ARG for The Sarah Connor Chronicles. It looks like they were satisfied with the results if this is any indication.
Click here for the discussion at UnFiction.
Posted by Michael Andersen at 11:00 PM | Comments (4)
Progress Report: The Sky Remains
A couple of weeks ago, ARGN received a witty recruitment letter from The Sky Remains 6th Dimension Detective Agency, kicking off "The Sky Remains," a much-anticipated game by Licorice Film.
If you haven't had a chance to jump in on "The Sky Remains", don't worry! The game is still "in progress," and Licorice Film has designed it in a way that allows players to follow the story at their own pace. In addition to the website, the player-maintained wiki is a good place to start, as is the "Useful Info" post for the game.
Currently, the 6th Dimension Agents of The Sky Remains Agency are working to solve Case #1: the case of Wendy Skinery, a pregnant woman living alone in an isolated house in England's West Country. Wendy's grandfather left her the house and everything in it, including some strange photographs. Agents on the case work under the supervision of agency director, Ms. Poliakov. Players of MeiGeist, Licorice Film's first interactive project, may run into some familiar faces around the agency, as well!
A series of increasingly disturbing transmissions from Wendy seem to indicate that she is being haunted by a mischievous paranormal entity of some sort. Airy giggles and slamming doors give viewers an unsettled feeling as Wendy provides details of the events that she first chalked up to her own mental state. Repeated incidents have convinced her that this is not "all in her head," and she has requested the help of the 6th Dimension Agents to sort the case out.
After signing up to join The Sky Remains, players get an introduction to the agency from Ms. Poliakov and receive their first assignment. The Sky Remains is "leveled," beginning with basic orientation tasks similar to the "tutorial" level in a video game. The introductory level gives players some experience with traditional ARG puzzles and strategies, such as information hidden in a webpage's source code, changing urls to find hidden pages, and messages and clues hidden in a larger message. Part of The Sky Remains can be a single-player game if the player chooses, but forums and a messaging system on the site provide players with the opportunities to interact with each other.
To unlock a new part of the story, players complete tasks assigned by Ms. Poliakov. Once an assigned task is completed, players must submit answers to Ms. Poliakov. As they do so, they advance in rank and are able to view subsequent transmissions from Wendy and receive further information about the mystery. Sometimes, the website does not clearly indicate what to do next after completing a task. Hint: After listening to Poliakov's post-task audio, you have to click on the case file (top left corner of the interface) again in order to get Wendy's next transmission to appear. However, all good detectives must hone their observation skills, right?
Once a certain number of tasks have been completed, Agents earn their bronze and silver badges, along with access to the Filing Cabinet, which holds still more content and introduces the geocaching and mediascape (or mscape) portion of the game. The geocaches, located around the world, contain the "Shards," fragments of messages from Sam Skinery, a relative of Wendy's who may be trapped in the 6th dimension. Not all of the Shards have been discovered yet, and there may be one in your part of the world, Agent!
Licorice Film developed The Sky Remains in partnership with HP Labs and their new "mscape" mobile gaming platform. Mscapes require a compatible gps-enabled device. Players do not need to view the mscapes to participate in the game; however, a significant portion of the game is contained within them. Each mscape contains a narrative and a mini-game. These mscapes serve as portals into the "6th Dimension", where players can communicate with Sam Skinery. Unlike the geocaches, the mscapes don't require you to go to a particular location and can be experienced anywhere in the world. Playing the mscape in a large area where one can move about freely is helpful.
The "Meta" page on The Sky Remains' website indicates that once players have finished the first case, they will be able to open their own case files and create their own interactive narratives. With its forums, The Sky Remains offers not only a game but also a social networking site for aspiring game creators and narrative designers and a place for their creations.
The Sky Remains is currently being discussed in "CF With Potential" on the unFiction forums.
Posted by Brandie Minchew at 10:32 AM | Comments (0)
May 22, 2008
Be on the Lookout for the Red Seal
Over the past few days, a wide variety of people have been finding mysterious envelopes in the mail. Identified only by a customized stamp with a red seal labeled "tb", the envelope contains one of four different letters, each encoded in a different ancient language. In addition, each letter includes a rather striking red seal with an ink blot encircled by superimposed characters.
J.C. Hutchins, a prominent podcaster, novelist and author of the 7th Son trilogy, notified ARGNet and UnFiction of his discovery, linking to a detailed post about the package including pictures of the contents on Flickr and a video describing the unwrapping process that's definitely worth viewing. Jeffrey R. DeRego, a frequent contributor to Escape Pod and author of the Union Dues series, also reported receiving an envelope.
Sightings of the envelope have not been restricted to prominent podcasters, however. Baierman at the pop culture blog YesButNoButYes reported receiving the strange mail, and later discovered an oddly similar banner on Gizmodo that led to chishio.jp, which includes all four messages. Vic Holtreman at Screen Rant received an envelope as did Rod Washington at Cactus Pix, an independent digital production company. More recipients are likely to surface as long as they can figure out what to make of their envelopes--so if you read blogs dealing with podcasting, movies, or science fiction, stay on the lookout for mentions of mysterious packages bearing red seals. Who knows...you might even have one waiting for you in your mailbox.
Currently, there is a lot of speculation regarding what this project is about, but not much is known (although it's worth noting that both J.C. Hutchins and Rod Washington have denied any involvement in the project). However, the graphic stylings of the letters and website are quite striking, so this trail is worth checking out despite the scarcity of information at the moment.
Click Here for the thread at UnFiction.
Posted by Michael Andersen at 9:03 PM | Comments (0)
May 15, 2008
Update: Folding the Wish
Last month, I asked for your help in making one thousand wish-filled cranes to send to Dave Szulborski for the Folding the Wish project. I'm delighted to say that the ARG community faced the challenge head on. In a little over two weeks time, more than one thousand cranes were made and shipped to me from at least seven different countries.
The cranes varied from the most delicate and tiny (no larger than a quarter) to the most extravagant made with handmade paper. Some even included a puzzle or two!
The cranes were carefully strung together and sent on their way last week, arriving on Dave's doorstep one day before he was discharged from the hospital.
Thanks to everyone who helped on this very special project. For pictures and a message from Dave, visit his website - www.daveszulborski.com/folding.html.
Posted by Michelle Senderhauf at 6:10 PM | Comments (1)
May 10, 2008
An Emergen-C at Holomove
It was a busy Wednesday morning for UPS drivers - several UPS Next Day Air packages went out for urgent delivery to unsuspecting ARGers. Despite the UPS Tracking numbers being scratched off, more than likely in an attempt to disguise the package's place of origin, UPS staff had replaced them, and the secret was revealed - the packages had originated from San Francisco. Upon opening, mysterious contents were revealed: an opened and empty packet of Emergen-C (a powdered Vitamin C energy drink) with a picture of 3 multicolored balls joined by white bars on the back resembling a chemical model of... something, and a letter on Department of Energy letterhead, dated January 30, 1985, with sentences redacted in an attempt to protect the innocent (or the guilty) and calling for the resignation of an as-yet-unnamed person. Each letter had different lines blacked out, requiring players to piece together the letter's contents.
Also included was a paper origami crane. As many of you are aware, our good friend and PuzzleMaster, Dave Szulborski, has been seriously ill, and an effort to fold 1000 paper cranes for him is underway, so the appearance of the paper cranes in the packages caused much speculation. Happily, a tip came ARGN's way to let us know it was an homage to Dave, and a way to send their best wishes to him from behind the curtain.
Also receiving a package was Daniel Terdiman at C|Net, who seemed distressed by the open Emergen-C packet, and proceeded to scold the PMs for scaring him. "Does anyone really think sending unmarked packages with cut-open powder packets is a good idea these days?" Granted, this is not the first time the media has freaked out over anthrax scares from trailhead packages.
The C|Net package contained much the same things as the others, with a few differences. This copy of the Department of Energy letter had no blacked out lines. While disappointing - players were still working on compiling the letter contents, only to have it instantly solved for them - it helped answer some questions; the letter is calling for the resignation of Eugene Gough, a researcher at the Los Alamos National Laboratory, because of "philosophical differences." Also included was a sticker with the same multi-colored ball model on the Emergen-C packets that proclaimed "Scientific Anarchy Now" and "Holomove."
Behold, our first in-game site: http://www.holomove.com. In the DoE letter, one of the things mentioned was that Eugene would be better off up at UC Berkeley rather than down in San Diego. Turns out San Diego is the home of Holomove. The first thing found upon investigation of the very pretty Flash-based site is the fact that Dr. Eugene Gough, founder of Holomove, is dead - a tragic accident off the coast of Belize in 2007. The two gentlemen listed with him are Chairman and CEO of Holomove, both of which appeared to have been appointed to their positions shortly after Dr Gough's untimely death. Prior to that, both were at Freyja Capital, a venture capital company. Not suspicious at all, right?
The site's News section also reveals the company developed "patented holographic technology and next generation User Interface (UI)" including "holography, reverse haptics, and sound projections"; and recently launched a $10M "Reach The Future" ad campaign intended to "raise awareness of the groundbreaking holographic technology" developed by Dr. Eugene Gough (www.reachthefuture.com redirects back to Holomove.com, no new site there). The Contact Us and Jobs section also lists several engineering job opportunities (along with an Executive Chef?). Clicking on the job listings redirects to a page with a Recruitment puzzle which must be solved and the solution emailed to careers@holomove.com in order to be considered for any positions. Lastly, a news scroll on the bottom of the page reveals the hiring of Nathan Bozeman as Lead Developer, which leads to the next website: Nathan's blog, CodeWrtN8.
Nate likes to blog - there are over a year's worth of posts, going back to March 2007. He's a fresh-faced young man with a Computer Science degree, some research assistant work under his belt, and a burning desire to "do something important". He quit his research assistant job, traveled the world, and attended a few conferences - MIX and SXSW '08. While at SXSW, he happened to run into a recruiter for a small start-up in San Diego - Holomove. A week later, while going through the "swag pile," he comes across the Holomove recruiter's card, does some investigation of the company, and decides "what the hell" and gives the recruiter a call. He is sent the same Recruitment puzzle linked on the Holomove Jobs section, solves it and sends it in - and finds out that's just the beginning. Seems the company has a puzzle-based hiring criteria that puts both Microsoft *and* Google to shame. Happily for us, he describes
them in detail. He apparently impressed them, as they hired him as their Lead Developer on April 2, and relocated him to San Diego where he began work about 3 weeks ago.
Besides tales of travels and puzzles, Nate has posted about work including several video entries, his Program Manager, Eliza Marks (displaying his obvious attraction to her), and links to his many social networking sites, including MySpace, LinkedIn, Pownce, and Zimbio. He's also posted about some interesting things he's discovered while working at Holomove - during his orientation, he discovered Dr. Gough had died in a scuba accident, and while looking around in Dr. Gough's office (which is kept in the same condition as it was when he was alive and working there), he discovered a very interesting crossword puzzle that is more than what it seems...
On a meta note, some very interesting "real world" people have interacted with him. Lynn Langit (SoCalDevGal) is a real-life Microsoft "Developer Evangelist". I met her last year at the Microsoft Across America Event here in San Diego. She met Nate at MIX in Las Vegas and comments in his blog post about the event. Another mention comes from Brian Goldfarb, another real-life Microsoft employee who currently appears to be working on the Silverlight project. Brian mentioned Nate in a Twitter post, talking about the "bizarre dude from the startup" with a link to Nate's blog.
Discussion is already well underway at Unfiction, and doesn't show any signs of stopping soon. Early spec is that the game is a promotion for a new Microsoft product of some form. There *is* another launch event here in San Diego on May 13th for Windows Server / SQL Server / Visual Studio '08 - and although I personally don't think Holomove has anything to do with it, if Lynn Langit just happens to be there again, I'm definitely going to hit her up for more information!
Posted by Celina Beach at 7:06 PM | Comments (0)
May 6, 2008
Velvet Assassin Sent Us Alternate Reality Gaming Gold
If the number of alternate reality games centering around video games are any indication, video game publishers "get" ARGs. Activision promoted the release of GUN with "Last Call Poker". Sony promoted Uncharted with "Sullivan Stories". And perhaps most famously, Bungie Entertainment promoted the release of Halo 2 with "I Love Bees", and followed that up with "Iris" for Halo 3.
While you're waiting for the rumored ARG for Resistance: Fall of Man, check out Gamecock Media Group's new alternate reality game promoting Velvet Assassin, a stealth action game coming soon to XBox360s and PCs. And I'm not just saying that because they sent us a bar of fake Nazi gold.
That's right, ARGNet received a bar of gold from the Deutsche Reichsbank over the weekend, along with two stickers leading to Follow-the-Dream.com, which redirects to ViolettesDream.com. In addition, there was a note written in German with a Post-It note telling players to "Help me stop them -- Follow-the-Dream". Since it sometimes takes a few extra days for mail to reach Canada, the folks at Destructoid and Unfiction have already translated the letter. One of the commenters on Destructoid notes that "If RedRabbit's translation is right, you just got a Nigerian scam email in videogame PR form."
It appears that Dan Corrigan, field operation assessor for an insurance company, is digging into the past, involving artifacts from World War II in particular. And somehow, this relates to a vast conspiracy to cause economic markets to plummet, inflating the price of gold. The man behind the Violette's Dream website is intent to stop the nefarious plot, and somehow Violette Summer, the protagonist of the Velvet Assassin game, is posthumously involved in everything.
So far, Violette's Dream is shaping out to be your standard alternate reality game (if there is such a thing) with stegged images, ciphers, blogs, and even a Twitter account. However, a recent presentation at EIEIO 2008 implies Gamecock might be going a bit further with this project. Replay Studios Creative Director Sascha Jungnickel mentioned at EIEIO that players would be able to use the game's "morphine" mode mechanic to overdose and uncover hidden clues leading players to find hidden Nazi gold in real life. So while many alternate reality games end with the release of the game, it appears Velvet Assassin might continue the ARG, using the game as a vehicle to tell the story.
Click here to check out the discussion at Unfiction
Click here for the trailhead
Posted by Michael Andersen at 5:46 PM | Comments (1)
May 3, 2008
Is This a Game? IGDA Talk on ARGs in NYC
On May 14th from 6:30-9:00 pm, the New York City Chapter of the International Game Developers Association (IGDA) will host a meeting entitled "Alternate Reality Games: Is This a Game?" The announcement describes the meeting as follows:
Alternate Reality Games blend the real world with the online world and fuse the players' creativity with that of the designers as the story unfolds. A genre that began just a few years ago, ARGs have been used for marketing, for independent and self-funded storytelling, for serious games, and for no other purpose than to have fun.This panel will address the genre's roots in games and with gamers, explore what ARGs and traditional video games have to learn from one another, and even speculate on how the ARG is changing the face of 21st Century entertainment.
The panel will be moderated by Andrea Phillips, best known for her work on Perplex City, and a leadership council member of the IGDA ARG SIG, and will include panelists Frank Lantz, a founder and director of area/code, the creators of the Chain Factor (Numb3rs) game; Catherine Herdlick, creator of the grassroots game, Lawn Games for Life, co-organizer of the Come Out and Play Festival and a designer for The Case of the Coveted Bottle; and Mike Monello, co- founder of Campfire Media, who has been involved in transmedia storytelling since the Blair Witch Project.
You do not need to be a member of IGDA to attend, but you do need to RSVP.
Thanks to Rose from unFiction, the meeting's organizer, for letting us know about this event.
Posted by Marie Lamb at 5:09 PM | Comments (0)