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November 26, 2006

ARG Netcast, Episode 6

If half a dozen netcasts are as sweet as half a dozen donuts, then feast your ears on the sixth ARG Netcast. Sean C. Stacey, Brooke Thompson and Jonathan Waite are joined this week by Carie Ward, ARGNet staff writer and webmaster of wonderweasels.org. Subscribe to the ARG Netcast feed through FeedBurner or via iTunes.

Game News

• Ny Takma wrapped up this past week. The puppetmasters have spoken -- find out what we think about the endgame.
  
• Sammeeeees players are hot on the trail of the 4th and 5th Spoocheeeee disc pieces, and konamouse offers a Top Ten list. Does this ARG have the personal touch mastered?
  
• OpAphid becomes the "Official LonelyGirl15 Alternate Reality Game, according to the official LG15 forums. Is this ARG 2.0?
  
• Deus City rolls on. There's a basic plot time line and cast of characters at the Unfiction forums.
  
• tCotSA (The Committee of the Sedulous Amalgamation) shows signs of life with new snail mailings to various players. ARG or puzzle trail?
  
• Lawn Games For Life is a new ARG. Brooke and Carie have the skinny on this emerging campaign, including info about the PM herself.
  
• NeoVenus Construction may or may not be an ARG related to Capcom's Lost Planet. Slick web sites, more information to follow this week.

Puzzle of the Week

• In the grander sense of puzzle solving, do your part and help plan ARGFest-o-con 2007: San Francisco. A wiki and blog have been set up. Three words: ARGFest-o-cons are fun.
  

Topic Discussions

• How do you explain ARG's to your friends? Not exactly the answer to the Meaning of Life, but still a worthy discussion to listen to.
  
• Corporate ARGs and Indie/Grassroots ARGs -- a round table discussion about the myths and facts concerning an ongoing debate.
  

Listener Email

• DJ Sampson clears the air about the private MySpace site for Deus City players.
  
• konamouse and Lou like the "An Arg A Minute" segment. We need YOU to start sending in your AAAM summaries!
  
• Eric Parks gets a shout out because he's a swell guy.
  

Weather and White Christmas

• Brooke enjoys 80 degree heat while the rest of us, um, don't. Also, a hot argument about whether snow equals Merry Christmas.
  

As always, contact us at our special netcast email address, netcast@argn.com with your tips, suggestions, concerns and submissions.

Posted by Jonathan Waite at 11:30 PM | Comments (3)

November 20, 2006

ARG Netcast, Episode 5

On the fifth ARG Netcast your panel gave to you... Sean C. Stacey, Brooke Thompson, Jackie Kerr and Jonathan Waite. Subscribe to the ARG Netcast feed through FeedBurner or via iTunes.

Game News

• VirtuQuest OpenARG 6.5 set to launch soon, available for the public.
  
• Free! Psychic Readings ended yesterday.
  
• EVA launches with allusions to the End of the World. A summary thread can be found here at the Unfiction forums.
  
• Avelon 2 is up and running -- a sequel to Avelon from 2005.
  
• Correction from last week: Deus City ARG is not done by the Ares Station group. Ares Station group went on to create Studio Cyphers.
  
• Deus City is one week old, and already there is game play controversy involving factions and separate password-protected forums.
  
• The Human Pet is back under a new YouTube identity.

Puzzle of the Week

• Puzzles within Perplex City cards are still unsolved, according to Guy Parsons from Mind Candy.
  

Topic Discussions

• In-Game Chats: How useful are the long AIM/IRC chats to the overall playing community? Thanks for thebruce for the topic idea.
  
• Sean answers questions about his article Undefining ARG.
  

An ARG A Minute ** New Segment!

• In the first ever AAAM segment, Jackie Kerr uses 135 seconds to explain the eight weeks of game play that was Last Call Poker.
  

Listener Email

• Sveinbjörn J. Tryggvason finds the netcasts interesting and wants them longer. Mind you, he also adds that longer netcasts could be dangerous.
  
• Arkaham asks about the player v. player controversy regarding Deus City. He wants solutions, and we do our best to accomodate.
  

Let the Console Wars Begin

• PS3 or Wii? The panel casts their votes towards two new consoles that, unfortunately, half of them can't afford.
  

Happy Thanksgiving (US)!

As always, contact us at our special netcast email address, netcast@argn.com with your tips, suggestions, concerns and submissions.

Posted by Jonathan Waite at 12:37 PM | Comments (3)

November 12, 2006

ARG Netcast, Episode 4

Episode 4 of the ARG Netcast contains more of the same tantalizing discussion that you've grown accustomed to over the past few weeks. Regular panel members Sean C. Stacey of unfiction, Brooke Thompson of Giant Mice and ARGNet's Jonathan Waite are joined by special guest Steve Peters of 42 Entertainment. Subscribe to the ARG Netcast feed through FeedBurner or via iTunes.

Topics of Discussion

• With our special guest joining us, we grill Steve Peters about his move to professional puppetmastery, and get his thoughts on the directions that we might see ARG move towards in the near future.
  
• Elan Lee, another 42 Entertainment alum, gave a speech at the Montreal International Gaming Summit this past week (our own Carie Ward broke the story here), and our panel looks at some of the things he said.
  

Game News

• Ocular Effect -- new email suggests closure while maintaining sliver of hope for continuance.
  
• The Human Pet -- As reported earlier this week by Brooke Thompson, new developments have YouTube pulling the plug on the videos, citing TOS violations.
  
• Deus City -- Game launches with fun, mysterious video. Looks like a good one to get into early on. Correction: Thanks to Ian, who commented on this Netcast, we know that the Ares Station team is from Indiana University (not Texas University, as we mistakenly said) and that they went on to create Studio Cypher, and have nothing to do with Deus City. Sorry for the error in reporting.
  
• Free! Psychic Readings -- We have in-depth coverage thanks to Sean and players Sylvia and Ruuku.
  
• Ny Takma has new puzzles to solve which could be extremely important in figuring out just who Kendra really is.
  
• Sammeeeees has another trivia night and another character death.
  
• Descry (from the Studio Cyphers group) is released and includes a Flash-based seance... thingy. Another recent launch which looks to be fun to get into.

Game News

• There's a Rhombicosidodecahedron to be solved. See this thread at the unfiction forums for current developments.

Listener Mail

• Rose thinks we're offering a good resource for people who don't regularly read discussion forums.
  
• Caspian wants to know more about ARG business models, and notes that we still need more game experts. ARGNet Nation, we're counting on you!
  

Shameless Plugs

• Thoughts from the head of Steve Peters can be found at mysdirection. Be prepared to waste time there.
  
• Sean has a new article up at unfiction, a must read in our opinion.

Contact us at our special netcast email address, netcast@argn.com.

Posted by Jonathan Waite at 11:28 PM | Comments (3)

November 6, 2006

ARG Netcast, Episode 3

It's already Episode 3 of the ARG Netcast series. Once again, this week offers the comedy stylings of unfiction's Sean C. Stacey, the politically-charged folk songs of Giant Mice's Brooke Thompson, and the gospel hip hop of M.C. Jonathan Waite of ARGNet. Subscribe to the ARGNet feed through FeedBurner or via iTunes.

Game News and Topics of Discussion

• No response from Mind Candy regarding Perplex City yet, but the Sentinel is back up and us Earthlings are being looked down upon. Oh, those Perplexians.
  
• AV wraps up, and the Puppetmaster comes out of hiding.
  
• konamouse of the unfiction forums helps out the Three Blind Mice as they try to make sense of the Puzzle of the Week, Sammeeeees's "Free the Five".
  
• Ny Takma introduces a new character. Trust him at your own risk.
  
• Ocular Effect -- is it rising from a Near Death Experience?
  
• Cassie is Watching, Cathy's Book, and Edoc Laundry chug-chug-chug along.
  
• Hallow's End launches just in time for Halloween, but we need more information, and you need to send it to us. Yes, you.
  
• Studio Cypher will release another ARG soon, see descry.us for more details.
  

The Hot Topic O' The Week

• Trailheads and Rabbitholes -- how far should creative teams go to have them found? We discuss the pros and cons of stealth launches vs. the 'anonymous tip'.

Listener Mail

• Congratulations to Sylvia, who won a shiny new copy of Cathy's Book.
  
• _mark and molecularr have nothing but accolades for Episode 2, and SirQuady offers up an interesting idea, which we hope all of you listeners can help out with.
  

Rock the Vote!

• Vote your butts off, America. In fact, vote more than once, if you can. Also, Oregon mails it in.
  

Contact us at our special netcast email address, netcast@argn.com). Once again, special thanks to Larry Eisner for providing the original music used in the podcast. This will be the last time we specially thank Larry, officially, so we hope he basks in it while he can.

Posted by Jonathan Waite at 10:09 PM | Comments (3)