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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)

April 13, 2008

Harvey Dent Press Conference Today

The latest in The Dark Knight promotion is upon us. Today at 3:00 EDT, the I Believe in Harvey Dent campaign will be streaming a live press conference on their website. The email announcement says in part:

Everyone who knows Harvey Dent knows that the vicious smears by a mysterious group calling itself "Concerned Citizens for a Better Gotham" are not true. Harvey Dent is innocent of these charges, and the truth will triumph.

Harvey Dent believes that the movement to take back Gotham is bigger than one person. It's never been about Harvey Dent. It's about our hopes for our city. It's about you.

Harvey Dent has always said that if he becomes a distraction from the bigger issues of the movement to fight crime and corruption, he'll make the best decision for the movement itself.

We've done a lot in the last few months. We've shown the city that we will not stop fighting against the dark forces that have Gotham in their grasp. We showed everyone that we do have power. That there is hope for Gotham City.

If past events are any indication, it's clear this will be more than just a press conference. Tune in to see what happens.

Posted by Marie Lamb at 12:04 PM | Comments (1)

February 27, 2008

Start Spreadin' the News

Come Out and Play is back, baby. After running in Amsterdam last year during PICNIC, the three day festival returns to the Big Apple June 6-8, this time hosted by bookstore Blue Stockings.

They are currently accepting proposals for new games (The application form is on the main page of the web site.) This is your chance to take your dream of running a big street game and make it a reality.

Read ARGN's report on the 2006 Festival here.

Posted by Marie Lamb at 9:35 AM | Comments (0)

January 14, 2008

Torchwood Needs You

From the BBC comes word of an online game that will run concurrently with the new season of its sci-fi drama, Torchwood. If the name Torchwood doesn't mean anything to you, you might have heard of the series it was spun off of, a little show called Doctor Who.

In the guise of being recruited as Freelance Operatives working for the mysterious Torchwood Institute, players will be given weekly "missions" which they must complete to prove they are worthy to join the Torchwood team. A genetics professor who claimed to be hunted by aliens has gone missing. The Torchwood team passes this minor case on to its new recruits. Do they have what it takes to figure out what's going on?

The game story was especially written by show writer Phil Ford, and will be revealed slowly, with new details weekly leading up to a final climax. Game content includes video "minisodes" featuring cast members Eve Myles, Gareth David Lloyd and Naoko Mori. Appearances by other cast members and special guests have been hinted at. The game story is separate from the series, but will intertwine with what is happening on screen. "The game is what happens in Torchwood between each episode. You'll see and hear characters referring to events that have just happened in the show," says Senior Producer Mat Fidell. "The only difference from the TV show is that it's up to you to move the story forward. You must solve the clues, find out what's going on and report back to the team. You'll need to use all the skills and talents you have – and Torchwood will provide you with some tools to help you along the way." The Torchwood website has been redesigned for season two, and incorporates the online game component with an interface very similar to the computer set-up the characters use in the show.

Although registration is not required to play, players who sign up to take part at the show's website will be emailed as each mission is launched (one per week) and will be able to track their progress from week to week. Recruitment starts January 16th, along with the U.K. premiere of Torchwood Season Two.

Tell Captain Jack we're on our way!

Update: As noted in the comments, the game (and, sadly, much of the website) is restricted to U.K. use only. Our contact at the Beeb apologizes, but this is due to the public funding of the BBC. We hope our U.K. readers will report in and let us know what they think of the game!

Posted by Marie Lamb at 8:16 AM | Comments (4)

January 12, 2008

Tachyon Me - EniTech Backs Look Into the Future

If EniTech Research Labs is to be believed, they have a camera that is recording images from the future---1193 (originally 1191) days into the future, to be precise. Espousing an "Open Source Research" philosophy, employees are documenting their findings on the company blog, and asking for feedback and suggestions for future experiments. The latest experiment seems to have captured a disturbing future look at a devastated San Francisco.

Also of note is researcher Frank Bentley's former employer, CyberDyne Systems. You may recognize this name as the company behind SkyNet in the Terminator series of movies. Frank has started a Facebook group for former CyberDyne employees, asking them to post what they've been up to in the last sixteen years since the "tragic attack".

Another site called to our attention is Take Back the Future, which has a countdown clock for, yep, 1193 days. TBTF currently has an animated graphic that shows human vs. cyborg world populations, with an alarming shift in numbers after what looks like targeted nuclear or other tactical strikes.

Details like these have lead Unfiction players to connect these sites to the new FOX TV series, Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles, which premieres this Sunday night. (Check your local listings.) What is not known, however, is how EniTech and TBTF will change once the show starts, but we think it will be fun to find out.

Join the Unfiction discussion for more details.

Posted by Marie Lamb at 2:56 PM | Comments (1)

January 11, 2008

The Hills are alive... No, really, they're alive!

From intrepid Unfiction denizen and player, Rowan, comes this interesting news, which we've condensed from her excellent forum post:

During my long hours of watching college football bowl games, I kept noticing weird TV ads. There was a blinking alert with a voice over stating that despite rumors online, the Winter X Games would still be taking place. The ad also linked to a website: http://www.winterxrumoralert.com/

The Winter X Rumor site has some tantalizing information. A earth moving machine went missing. An X Games competitor would not be attending. A video clip of someone almost being eaten by the mountain. The most interesting bit is that it links to another website ( http://www.buttermilkisalive.com/ ) run by a geology professor who is convinced that the Buttermilk mountain is undergoing extreme seismological events and is unsafe.

Buttermilk Is Alive has a bunch of background information detailing how Dr. Jim Vaile is upset that people aren't taking him more seriously. The site has also been 'newly redesigned' so that only some of his older entries are now on the site. He has a bunch of links, most to what I take as real world websites, although at least one link is to a nonexistent website. There's also some commented out 'entries' that you can see in the source that look to be pre-written blurbs that are ready to be updated to the sight. Oh, and there's a commented out 'Blogroll' with a list of names - none of which I had much luck in Googling. He also links to a blog, which he calls a forum, where you can leave comments: http://buttermilkisalive.wordpress.com/

The Buttermilk Blog has been quietly updating ever since I first found it. Beyond calling for people to help prove that Buttermilk is dangerous (but due to natural phenomenon - not aliens or magical stuff) there really wasn't much of a catch. Today the website updated with a new entry talking about an email from a disgruntled reader by the name of Rusty. The email links to Rusty's blog (http://www.rustytruth.com/ )which is, well, one of those whacked out conspiracy websites you come across on the web every now and then.

edit: Google has now indexed a Flicker page of Benji "Ben" Beale (one of the commented out blog roll names.)

Early on, Rusty's blog appeared to be the victim of a hack that left a trojan in one of the comments. That blog has now been cleaned, so feel free to surf on.

Rowan also has started a guide for the game.

Posted by Marie Lamb at 10:05 PM | Comments (0)

Programming Alert

Tonight on National Public Radio's "All Things Considered", Neda Ulaby talks about Cloverfield--the movie, the promotion and the community. Tune in to your local NPR radio station at 7:00 p.m. EST to hear the show, which we were told will be the second to last segment of the broadcast. The show will also be archived on the NPR website after 8:00 p.m. EST. Unfiction owner and ARGNet staff writer Sean C. Stacey, and Dennis Acevedo of cloverfieldclues.com, were both interviewed for this story.

Posted by Marie Lamb at 12:59 PM | Comments (0)

October 13, 2007

Changing the game

Given $2600 and the resources of a major charity dedicated to cancer research, could you come up with an alternate reality game to help raise funds for a worthy cause? That's what Six to Start and Cancer Research UK would like to find out. Adrian Hon, formerly with Mind Candy, announced the unusual contest on Unfiction last month.

Let's Change the Game is a competition for aspiring ARG designers, with the challenge of coming up with the best game to raise money for Cancer Research UK and awareness of cancer in general. The first step for potential puppetmasters (after putting together a team with a minimum of three people) is to submit a 500-word design summary to the competition website by November 16th. The best summaries will be shortlisted and asked to submit full proposals. Complete details along with rules can be found on the Let's Change the Game website. Judges include ARG illuminaries Sean Stewart, Rhianna Pratchett and ARGNet's own Jonathan Waite.

Posted by Marie Lamb at 9:29 AM | Comments (0)

October 11, 2007

And the Emmy® Goes to...

We offer our belated but no less heartfelt congratulations to the team at Xenophile Media, who along with co-creator Matt Wolf were winners of a Primetime Emmy® award for Outstanding Creative Achievement in Interactive Television, presented at last month's ceremony in Los Angeles. The team got the nod for "The Ocular Effect," the alternate reality game tied in to the ABC Family television movie, Fallen. Xenophile previously won an International Emmy® for the ReGenesis Extended Reality Game.

The Ocular Effect told the story of Faith Arella, a girl searching for her roots in a
transglobal hunt for clues that started with a mysterious sphere called the Oculus. Players at Unfiction and elsewhere helped Faith find the secret of the Oculus and deciphered other puzzles along the way to help her on her journey.

We are also bursting our buttons with pride here at ARGNet, because our very own Jonathan Waite was a part of the Ocular Effect team. Congrats Jon, and rest of the crew
at Xenophile. We look forward to your future projects with great anticipation!

Posted by Marie Lamb at 3:43 PM | Comments (0)

August 2, 2007

Right or Wrong, Ethan Haas is a Bit of a Disappointment for ARG Fans

The site Ethan Haas Was Right (EHWR) has had a bit of a identity crisis in the last few weeks.

First, it was connected (wrongly, as it turned out) to the mysterious Cloverfield movie project. Then, once people began to accept that it was in fact a separate entity, players started to wonder if it was a trailhead for an alternate reality game. The slick Flash-animated puzzles and grainy interstitial videos were mysterious and intriguing. Careful research led them to new sites, and voice mails and other clues set up expectations for a much larger story to come.

The much anticipated August 1st date has past, and the EHWR website (along with all other associated sites) finally updated late last night with a direct link to www.alphaomegathegame.com, what looks to be the official site for a new tabletop role-playing game called Alpha Omega, developed by a little known company, Mind Storm Labs. To say this is a bit of a letdown for people who were hoping for a true ARG is an understatement. We have here what appears to be a genuine "drink your Ovaltine" promotion. Perhaps this is unfair in some ways because of all the extra attention the site garnered due to the insistent attempts to connect it to Cloverfield, but it is still the case that the people behind EHWR went to lengths to set up several websites with puzzles, release working email addresses with personalized responses as well as auto-responders, and had voice mail boxes for in-game characters that changed messages over time. One player even got a letter hand-delivered to his place of work. You can't blame players for taking these earmarks of an ARG and trying to run with them.

So what is/was www.ethanhaaswasright.com? Before August 1st it was just a very well designed puzzle trail, with beautifully rendered graphics, some grainy, crackly videos and a few easy to mid-level puzzles that have been well documented elsewhere. At the end of the puzzle trail was a mysterious code word, DIVINUS, and a place to register your name and email address, and a promise of more to come on August 1st. The story background is that the man in the videos, Van Mantra, set up a series of tests (the puzzles) to identify people who would be willing to work with him to spread the word of a 19th century prophet named Ethan Haas and help him save the world. The bad guys in this case appear to be the Mezin, who set up their own website, The Truth of Ethan Haas, and prefer to communicate via the Devanegari script used for the Indian language Hindi. While there have been several game-jacking and/or unofficial fan sites that I won't link to here, the blogspot site was taken to be authentic because they called themselves the Mezin the day before Van Mantra changed his voicemail recording to say that the Mezin had found him and he needed to go into hiding. Also, Unfiction member theonetruebix (B!x) says he got an email from Van around this time in which Van said that there was one site for truth and one site for deception, which B!x took to mean the blogspot site. It's a tenuous connection, but the blogspot site didn't disrupt the game like a game-jacking might attempt to do, and they did at least make a great effort to link readers back to the EHWR site.

Players who are interested in the game up to August 1st can find the highlights at B!x's blog, OMGWTFEHWR, which traces not only the in-game information, but also his quest to find the people and purpose behind the sites. He was the first player on Unfiction to suspect that EHWR was a promotion for the RPG, and he documents his meta pursuit of the people behind Alpha Omega on the blog in detail. You can also find the original puzzles by clicking the "No I need to see and hear the warnings first" link on the main page of www.ethanhaaswasright.com.

Fans of tabletop RPGs can check out the Alpha Omega site for more information on that game, including upcoming events where the game publishers will be in attendance.

Posted by Marie Lamb at 10:03 AM | Comments (2)

July 11, 2007

"I'll have some nachos--oh, and one creepy guy to follow me home, please."

The next time you're at the theater, why don't you bring home more than a bellyful of popcorn? The horror movie HEAD TRAUMA is promising to follow you out of the theater. Filmmaker Lance Weiler is calling this special, multimedia presentation of his film a "cinema ARG" and admits that he wants to "disturb" people.

The chills will unfold July 14th at the Museum of the Moving Image in Astoria, NY as part of their week-long retrospective on horror films. Bring your cellphone--“This is one of the only films where you’ll be asked to keep your cell phone on during the screening,” says Weiler.

Posted by Marie Lamb at 7:15 PM | Comments (0)

March 7, 2007

"I'm a WHATmaster?" The Lonelygirl15 Creators Appear at ARGfest-o-Con to Tell Us Why They Love Their Fans in Spite of Themselves

A week before a much publicized appearance at SXSW, Lonelygirl15 creators Miles Beckett and Greg Goodfried, and Glenn Rubenstein, the Puppetmaster for the official Lonelygirl15 ARG, OpAphid, appeared at ARGfest-o-Con to talk about the Lonelygirl15 phenomenon and their introduction to the alternate reality of fame, fans, and the internet community's dogged pursuit of information.

The Creators (as they label their forum posts on the Lonelygirl15 website) never intended to get into ARGs at all. Miles said they just wanted to "tell an interesting story on YouTube." There were no puzzles at first, just the mystery about whether Bree was real, and if not, who was behind it all. They didn't count on the fan community's voracious appetite for information--"Is this a game, and if so, what are we supposed to solve?" Since there weren't really any clues in the story itself, the community focused on finding the people behind the story, trying to figure out who they were.

In Greg's case, this meant a surprising amount of information about his personal life was dug up and posted online. The first thing found was the registered trademark Greg's father had applied for as the team's lawyer. Then within a few weeks, it was his father's name, his mother's name, his sister (who superficially has a lot in common with the character of Bree), and eventually even his wedding pictures became the stuff of internet posts. "It became frightening," he admitted. "I'd wake up wondering what was going to be on the website next." His wife, who was the person answering Bree's email, was caught in an online trap and revealed to be an employee of Creative Artists Agency.

Around this time the team "realized there's something out there called an Alternate Reality Game" and decided to give the community the content they were craving, to refocus the goal of the hunt on the story's mystery, not on digging into the lives of the production team. Miles felt this fit in well with their goal of creating a new show with as many interactive elements as possible. "We have this community that has kind of come to us, we should engage them more. And we should give them more things to do...rather than stalking us." The problem at the time was they didn't have the experience, resources, or the time to do it themselves. Luckily, the community again provided an answer.

Glenn was watching Lonelygirl15 as a fan, and also following CassieIsWatching, which was the first fan attempt at an online ARG. When the Creators posted a disclaimer about Cassie, Glenn realized that if no one was doing anything officially, then anyone could do it if the quality was good. He got sucked into the role of Puppetmaster by launching his own fan fiction ARG, OpAphid, and "the rest of my life pretty much ground to a halt." While CassieIsWatching eventually faded away because it tried to follow the Lonelygirl15 plot too tightly, and made some wrong assumptions about what direction the producers were going in, Glenn tried to keep OpAphid flexible by having several different possible ways its story could go, depending on what Lonelygirl15 did with her story. And the watcher was being watched. The Creators were following OpAphid as fans, and they were impressed with the quality of what they saw. Greg decided to send an email to Glenn, in character as Bree, to express the team's admiration of OpAphid, and to discuss working more closely with him. Eventually Glenn was invited to story meetings and given scripts. OpAphid became the Official ARG of Lonelygirl15, and Glenn has even written and directed new Lonelygirl15 videos. He has moved from being a fan, to writing fan fiction, to becoming a full-fledged member of the Lonelygirl15 creative team.

So what's in the future for Lonelygirl15? While no one is telling what's going to happen to Bree, Daniel and the rest of the characters, the production team has many ideas about how they want to expand her universe and give fans more opportunities to create content. Miles feels that while Lonelygirl15 will never be an ARG in a strict sense, there is the opportunity to incorporate more ARG elements in the storytelling. "Our narrative isn't unlocked by the puzzle solving, the puzzles are a component of the narrative." He wants to make sure there is enough content to keep the ARG fans happy while still building the wider, general audience for Bree's story. To that end, the team is working on a "massive rebuild" of their website, and will introduce tools to allow people to produce their own stories in the Lonelygirl15 universe. He envisions other directors producing videos as well as fans, and hopes to find more talented people to work on all the projects the team has ideas for. Yes, that's right folks--Lonelygirl15 is hiring. They need more help to expand, and they don't discount the possibility of finding more talent in the fan community. "We have lots of ideas and not enough people." Greg added that if they see something good submitted by fans, they will contact those fans to discuss working together.

One thing that will definitely continue is fan participation in the Lonelygirl15 universe. Besides looking for talented people to bring on board in an official capacity, the Creators include live events in their plans, along with character meetings and putting fans into the storyline as characters themselves. The intensity of the fan base has not diminished at all with the revelation that Bree and her cohorts are inventions and not real people. 35,000 people showed up on the website when Bree mentioned she would be online there in a recent video, and fans continue to email her and comment on her videos in character. Greg is quick to point out that those fans influence what they do with the story that unfolds. "If Bree were a 16 year old living her life on the internet, and she had 35,000 people sending her messages, writing text comments, making videos, that would affect [her]."

At the end of the panel, Glenn expressed his appreciation for Unfiction, and the online resources of the ARG community. He took to heart especially two key pieces of advice: "I understand why one person should never do an ARG" [by themselves] and "don't implode."

Posted by Marie Lamb at 11:40 PM | Comments (1)

December 24, 2006

More Than Meets the Eye? ARG in Disguise?

Transformers fans are all atwitter about some mysterious goings-on in the trailer for the live-action Transformers movie, set to come out in July 2007. At a certain moment early in the trailer, the words "Sector Seven Org" and "takara83" appear at the top and bottom of the frame, respectively, leading the curious to www.sectorseven.org. Entering "takara83" in the submit box opens up a very stylish desktop, with a few goodies, including a live-action video and some image files. Also oddly present, a facsimile of a (fake?) legal agreement between "S7 Industries" and Takara, which is the real-life Japanese company that developed Transformers. Many of the desktop icons are locked, leading hopeful fans to believe that more is coming.

Is this a Transformers ARG? In my opinion, it's too soon to tell, as right now it looks just like a standard movie viral site. But those Decepticons can be tricky creatures.

More details and discussion are at Unfiction.

Posted by Marie Lamb at 9:09 AM | Comments (0)

December 4, 2006

Bay City ARGers: The 'Fest in Fogtown '07

It's official folks: ARGfest-O-Con 2007 is coming to San Francisco and plans to leave its heart there the weekend of March 2-4. The focus will be on "How to PM a Game" and "The Future of ARGs" (working titles). Save the date! And after you scribble it down excitedly on your Dilbert calendar, or type it excitedly into your Nerdtastic Online Scheduler 6000XV, find your to-do list and write down the following: Help plan ARGfest.

Yes, this is your chance to jump in at the beginning and help put together the best fest yet. Rose, Unfiction regular and ARGfest NYC hostess extraordinaire, has once more agreed to helm the efforts to get this show up and running, and she would really like some local help to get logistics settled as soon as possible. Specifically, she needs people familiar with the city and its environs to suggest local venues for hotels, restaurants, amusements, potential field trips, and/or any other information about the area that you can provide. She promises you will not be overburdened.

We also need volunteers to suggest and help coordinate speakers/panels, and help run the registration process. You do not need to be local to do this.

Would you or your company like to help sponsor ARGfest? Contact Rose to discuss the possible arrangements.

PM her at the Unforum (user name: rose) or add yourself to the handy ARGfest-O-Wiki on the Help page with your preferred contact information.

See you by the bay!

Posted by Marie Lamb at 8:28 PM | Comments (0)

September 28, 2006

We Came Out and We Played: A Weekend of Public Gaming in NYC

Will is disdainful. "No way I'm running," he declares, "I refuse." We are moving in a group of four, myself, Will, Rose and EGo, trying to find the best way from West 21st to West 32nd, only using our feet or public transportation. We expect to be chased at any moment. We walk quickly, and manage to catch a crosstown bus. We make it to the first checkpoint safely. But then as we move towards Penn Station, we hear a sharp "Hey!" to our left. A man on a bike, with the dreaded yellow caution tape around his arm, has seen us. Will looks over. He stops in his tracks, and then... he starts running, bike man in pursuit. The game is now more real than we ever imagined.

For it is a game, one of many offered last weekend as part of the first Come Out and Play Festival, a celebration of street and other "big" games in New York City. Included in the weekend's offerings are games of chase, espionage, assassins and familiar video game favorites, expanded and released into various public spaces around the city.

Our evening actually began earlier, at Eyebeam, an art and technology gallery that is the Festival's Headquarters. Here, players, gamemasters and developers gathered to kick off the weekend, find out how the various games will be run, and play a really massive game of Space Invaders.
Outside, the familiar chunky graphics race across the side of the building opposite, while a player uses his body to move the controller, raising his arms to fire. Inside, I find Jane McGonigal, ARG maven and game designer for 42 Entertainment, who brought us I Love Bees and Last Call Poker most recently, who is trying to recruit more players for her featured game, "Cruel 2B Kind" which will run tomorrow. "If I can get three more teams," she muses, "then I'll have an even 100." Other players check in with Ken Eklund, the Headmaster for "Spy School." He recruits me on the spot as an accomplice. "Here," he says, quietly sidling up and handing me several folded strips of heavy gray paper. "Pass these surreptitiously to Rose when you get a chance." In an adjoining room, two guys with guitars play in front of a projection of Mortal Combat, controlling the game with their instruments. Later on they switch to Mario Kart. In a corner, players intently study a large map of Baghdad with New York streets superimposed on the other side for "You Are Not Here". For all the notion of play, games are being taken very seriously here.

The final game of the first evening is "Journey to the End of Night," described as "a pursuit across Manhattan in four parts." Run by SFZero, this is the first time it is being played in Manhattan. The group of players disperses with nervous laughter, some running, some walking, all looking over their shoulders. It's like a giant urban game of "Tag." The game is enjoyable, if a little chaotic and disorganized, with two checkpoints being shut down by non-players and moved before we get there. Ultimately, we'll make it to four of the six checkpoints before being caught by a "Chaser". And yes, we all ran. "It's fight or flight," says Will, trying to explain his reaction afterwards, "I saw him [the Chaser] and instinct took over--I was like a gazelle."

The highlight of the Festival for me comes on Saturday, with "Cruel 2B Kind," a game by Ian Bogost and Jane McGonigal, . Jane is nowhere to be seen, running the game remotely from an undisclosed (to us) Starbucks. Will, my partner, dials in on his cellphone and we are checked in, given our weapon and our weakness. We ramble down Broadway, trying to look like tourists, even picking up a brochure for a tour bus. Will and I scan the faces of the crowd, looking for suspicious couples, while trying not to draw attention to ourselves. We run into Unfiction member tomtom and his dad, but our mutual attacks fail. We try our attack on our first strangers: "Have a spectacular day!" we cheer. They scowl at us and move on. Dang. We try again, further down the street. "Spectacular day!" They respond with "You're too kind!" and add quickly, "Nice shoes!" "You're too kind!" we demur. Another bullet dodged, on both sides. Alas, any hopes we have of doing well in this game are cut short when we are taken from behind, off guard, by Jenny, a perky blonde, and Dave, her curly-haired accomplice, whom we had ignored earlier because they were toting Trader Joe bags, looking very much like shoppers and not the deadly assassins they turned out to be. "Hey, way to go!" they enthuse, and we're dead, forced to turn over our surrender code and follow them in pursuit of more victims. Stalking our prey up and down Broadway, we pass roving bands of up to fifty, screaming at each other from across the street while they mingle with the matinee crowd. "Knock knock!" one team choruses. "You're too kind!" comes the reply. "Can I help you?" comes the counterattack. Other teams declare us "stunning" and thank us "from the bottom of our hearts." Team Killer Tomato ends up taking one more group of six before the game ends and we decamp to the edge of Central Park, for cupcakes, juice boxes, and final awards of shiny hats to the best assassins. The top award goes to Team Nerdgasm, composed of Chris Haigy and Jon Thompson, who describe their winning strategy as "pure luck."

The next game in our sights is SpyText, headed up by Matt Plotecher. The SpyText team hands out our assignments, Diplomat, Spy or Citizens, and we search through the Park for answers to point-based trivia questions such as "How many crabs are at the base of Cleopatra's Needle?" If the Citizens can collectively get to 15 points before the Spy gets to the Diplomat, we will learn his identity and win the game. Again, Will and I are teamed up, and despite our protestations of sore feet, we end up walking as far as the zoo before we find out who the Spy is. A traitor! The Spy is none other than EGo, who, with his accomplice Rose, had earlier tricked us into giving them our player numbers. "I could have killed you at any time," he brags, "but I held off." What a pal. We decide the game would have been more fun if the Spy could have tried wooing players over to his side.

Saturday evening finds us back at Eyebeam, for a Panel Discussion on games, players, public spaces, and what it all means. Festival organizer Nick Fortugno introduces what he calls "a rock star line-up" of game designers and academics, who hold forth on various theories of game play and the use of public space. Roy Kozlovsky, an architectural Ph.D. student, discusses the history of playspace in terms of the physical, how play was moved from the street to the play ground. Franz Aliquo describes how "boredom" led him to create Street Wars, and how he finds joy in leading people through finding their inner action hero. Others comment on the "awkwardness" of public games and the challenge of making them move from novelty to being repeatable and replayable.

Those who know me will know that I find much of such talk tiresome (too much meta makes baby cranky), but most of the discussion was insightful and compelling. While the focus of this Festival was street, or big, or public games, many of the questions posed to the panel were shockingly similar to the meta discussions we find in our own genre of Alternate Reality Gaming. What, if any, are the boundaries of play? How far is too far? What is the relationship between what is inside the game, and what is outside? What are the limits of public spaces? How do these kind of street games blur the lines between what is "real" and what is a "game"? Perhaps the most compelling comments of the evening come from Jane McGonigal, who emphasizes her desire to work with "everywhere games" where games are played with a sense of purpose in real life and help communities be more responsive to each other. She also issues a challenge to players and developers to take the spirit of the Festival beyond the weekend and build upon it, running more games in more locations, making it take on a life of its own.

But not now. It's Saturday night and we have scored tickets to the Nokia party to celebrate the conclusion of one of their sponsored games, "Manhattan Story Mashup." We retreat to the open bar and buffet at a nearby brewhouse, and find ourselves listening to a very loud band with a screaming female lead singer banging on a cymbal with a drum mallet. Mercifully, their set is short and we can communicate again after the ringing in our ears subsides. The evening improves and we find ourselves deep in discussion with Juancarlos and Karen, from Mexico, who are looking to bring ARGs to a Spanish audience. Get in touch guys, we'll be more than happy to help.

Sunday it's time for Spy School's Final Exam. All weekend Rose and EGo have been collecting strips of paper, trying to figure out who their fellow students are and gather intelligence on them. Now they put what they know down on paper. EGo is declared top student, with 100% on both quizzes and 10 pieces of intelligence gathered, but he won't know his final score until the exams are graded later in the week. The spies talk about their experiences with Ken Eklund, who started his gaming career writing computer games and D&D type role-playing games. Most agree that the way the Festival games were spread out, and the short amount of time that players were all in one location, made it difficult to identify other players, let alone collect information on them. But all seem to have enjoyed their weekend of studies.

Our last stop of the weekend is to check out the Go Game, another installment of the very successful Nokia-sponsored game run many times in many cities. Alas, the four-hour duration prevents us from playing, but we have a chance to chat with The Diplomat from our SpyText game, Alex, who has come all the way from London to participate in the weekend. His experiences with Punchdrunk Theater have led him here to investigate new ways of incorporating game play into theater experiences. We wish him luck and head out for the last game of the weekend: help Marie catch her bus back to Boston. We won.

Many thanks to Will Bagby, Rose and EGo for help preparing this report. Thanks also to Joe Brent for logistical help and really funny stories.

Posted by Marie Lamb at 12:01 PM | Comments (1)

August 19, 2006

I Died Here (and here and here and here and...)

Hot off the ARGN Tipline comes news of a new ARG based in India. I Died Here is sure to appeal to anyone who enjoyed The Blair Witch Project. The basic story: three 20-somethings are staying in a guesthouse called Shanti Cottage outside of Mumbai (Bombay) that has a dark history. They intend to document their stay via cellphone pictures and video (promised) as an "adventure" to try to find out why there have been five suicides in the house. They have started writing about their experiences so far in a blog, and also have posted puzzles that need to be solved to reveal information they've collected so far.

Thus far, it appears they have arrived at the house and are experiencing odd events, like cold spots and eerie noises. There are also some alarming lemons that they need explained. Three out of the four puzzles posted have been solved, so don't read the comments on the blog if you want to try your hand at them first.

Websites:
I Died Here (Trailhead)
Blog
Rohan Lives

Posted by Marie Lamb at 10:47 AM | Comments (1)

July 30, 2006

Kyle XY: Why, why, why?

Kyle XY gives us another in a series of ABC Television's efforts to bring the TV show's audience on-line with a vaguely ARG-like game. Unlike The Lost Experience or Ocular Effect, however, this seems to be the ARG that can't get off the ground. So far we have one site, MadaCorp, which is some kind of scientific research company. The site itself is slapped together with some not-too-interesting Flash bits, and has whole pages with no content of any kind. Clicking on "Our Jobs" takes you to a secret blog, where a mysterious insider talks about his efforts to bring the truth about Kyle to light, but the entries are obtuse and repetitive, leading this reporter to wonder if he's the dumbest whistle-blower ever, or the "clues" are so convoluted that no one has been able to figure them out yet.

The show itself, running Monday nights on ABC Family, is a charming bit of science fiction in the guise of a family drama. Matt Dallas brings a kind of goofy innocence to the role of Kyle, and his interactions with the world make for some very funny and touching moments. The family Trager is bland California, however. The acting is competent, at least.

Overall, I can't say that this has much to recommend it, and yet I can't stop watching, either. I have this hope that something more will develop and make all those blog entries mean more than the insipid ramblings they appear to be currently. Also, I really want to find out why Kyle doesn't have a belly button.

Posted by Marie Lamb at 9:23 PM | Comments (1)

May 16, 2006

Takin' it to the Streets: Game On in New York City

Does playing on a computer cramp your style? Feel restricted by that Monopoly board? Or maybe you're a Puppetmaster who wants to do more than the usual email and websites with your next ARG. This fall, games will bust out of the screen and the box, and take to the streets in a new, three-day event called the Come Out and Play Festival. Based in Manhattan, the festival "seeks to provide a forum for new types of public games and play. We want to bring together a public eager to rediscover the world around them through play with designers interested in producing innovative new games and experiences. Oh yeah, and we want to have fun."

Come Out and Play will be held September 22-24, and organizers are currently soliciting applications for games that will be fun and interesting, and make use of public spaces. Organizer Greg Trefry is also interested in submissions related to ARGs, noting that their ability to blur the lines between the screen and the real world fits in nicely with the goals of the festival.

Apply online at the festival website by June 30th.

Posted by Marie Lamb at 8:12 PM