Month: April 2005 (Page 2 of 3)

Feed Me!! RSS and Alternate Reality Games

April 20, 2005 / Steve Peters

Alternate Reality Gamers are always looking for the best way to keep informed of what’s going on in their favorite game. Not everyone can surf the boards reading each and every post all day long (yes, some people actually have to work at work), so players are always looking for ways to stay as current as possible without having to sacrifice huge amounts of time. Historically, moderated lists or blogs that would email updates to players’ in-boxes were pretty much the standard vehicle for letting players know about game updates in a timely way.

Recently however, ARGs and their corresponding player-authored resources have begun taking advantage of RSS syndication, which is a way of pushing new content out to players, but surprisingly, this great vehicle is often going underutilized. So, we thought we’d offer a little primer for those of you who have always wondered what those little RSS buttons that show up on various websites are for.

What is RSS?

RSS stands for Real Simple Syndication, and is a standard format for publishing and distributing regular updates around the web. Using this standard, website publishers can provide updates like the latest news headlines or blog postings to consumers who use RSS reader applications (or one of a growing number of online services) to collect and monitor their favorite feeds in one place (RSS content viewed in one of these readers, is often called a “feed”).

Major news websites such as Wired and news-oriented community sites such as Slashdot and Fark offer RSS feeds, but it’s not just for news. Almost anything that can be broken down into discrete items can be syndicated via RSS: the “recent changes” page of a wiki, new items for sale on Amazon.com, even recent postings or new topics in a forum. Once information about each item is in RSS format, a feedreader program can check the feed for changes and notify you when they occur.

Alternate Reality Gaming: A Dog-Eat-Dog World?

April 18, 2005 / Jonathan Prendergast

I am sure that we have all pondered how the world of Alternate Reality Gaming will shape up in years to come. Will our genre be overshadowed by rabid publishing houses, clawing at each other for the largest market share, or will the dedicated PM with 63 dollars and three cents reign supreme?

There tends to be a peaceful coexistence between Grassroots and Corporate games. There is no visible attempt to pull players away from one ARG and draw them to another. The consensus of most, if not all, ARG Puppetmasters is to see their fellow game maker succeed in their foray behind the curtain. It is disheartening, to say the least, to see people talking about our world being “Grassroots vs. Corporate.”

The only real disadvantage of a grassroots game it that many have launched, attracted followers, and then collapsed prematurely the next weekend! It is mainly this fear that stops us normally eager ARG’ers from diving headfirst into a newly launched grassroots experience. Investing our time and effort in it only to see it meltdown becomes depressing after the nth time.

The Art Of The Heist: Atlanta Update

April 17, 2005 / Jonathan Waite

Yesterday’s real world event in Atlanta, part of the Art of the Heist ARG, turned out to be an adventure of sorts, as three ARG community members played crucial roles in the story and provided more drama and intrigue in the game that continues to blur the lines between reality and Alternate Reality.

The three ‘retrievers’ who play on the Unfiction forums (Valkyros, Meghan, and j5) met with in-game character Nisha at a restaurant early in the day, where they were given a mission: obtain an SD card from the inside of an Audi parked at a nearby dealership. The three players devised a plan:

Excerpt from Valkyros’ account of what happened:
The plan was straightforward, I was to proceed first to eyeball the site and provide security overwatch. Meghan was then to saunter in and corner the salesman posted near the A3. Nisha suggested that Meghan steer him to the $129,000 A8 parked in the northernmost corner of the show room. Once this was accomplished, J5 would enter showroom and get in the relatively untended A3. From there he would rifle the car and hopefully locate the SD card.

The actual retrieval process by j5 was like something from a James Bond movie, while online players watched the scene via webcam:

Excerpt from j5’s account of what happened:
I did a once around and entered the driver’s side door. Once in, I immediately started looking in the obvious places. I opened the armrest, found an accordion panel and slid it open, â€œnothingâ€ I felt around the steering wheel â€œcheck under the floor matsâ€ Nisha suggests in my earpiece. Right about the time I start lifting floor mats, a tall man in a white dealership shirt approached and introduced himself, holding out his arm at full length to shove his hand into the window of the car. I took him to be the GM of the store based on his presence, so I shook his hand and introduced myself. He asked If I had any questions or needed help with anything or if I was interested in a brochure. â€œAs a matter of fact, a brochure would be great, can you locate one for me?â€ Once he was gone, the search began again in earnest; I was sliding seats all the way back in their tracks, removing ashtrays, pulling off panels. Nisha continued offering suggestions and asking where I had looked.

The mission was a success, as J5 found and retrieved the SD card and then met up with Nisha and the other players at their rendezvous point.

With the high profile theft of an Audi A3 from a car show, and this intense mission, this game has quickly become one of the most impressive games in ARG history. We can only hope that Art of the Heist continues to blow our minds as the story unfolds.

Trailhead
Discussion at Unfiction
Trail
Chat in #heist

The Art Of The Heist: Atlanta!

April 15, 2005 / Jonathan Waite

After an interesting real world event in New York City involving a stolen Audi A3 two weeks ago, The Art of the Heist appears set to bring their Alternate Reality into the lives of those players lucky enough to live in Atlanta, Georgia. In-game communication between two characters led perceptive players to ads at Monster.com (which has since been removed) and Craig’s List, where Nisha, one of the protagonists in the story, asks for public assistance.

Once the ads were decoded (what would an in-game announcement be without encryption?), players were prompted to email the character for more details. Those that made the effort were sent this reply:

Thanks for your interest in helping. We are looking for retrievers in Atlanta to help secure an item. You must pass a background check in order to accomplish this task. You will be required to sign a release. You will be trained to operate some electronic equipment and given a task to accomplish, and you will work as a team under the direction of Nisha Roberts.

Applicants were told to be available for Saturday, April 16th, from Noon to 3:00 pm local time if they wanted to participate. The players were also subjected to background checks — three Unfiction forum members have passed these and are going to be on-scene for the event.

Within days of the ads being discovered, information was released in-game about the location of where the event will take place — an Audi dealership. As well, the characters have set up a image webcast for their worldwide audience to tune in as things happen. This means that all players (and not only those who can make it to Atlanta) will be able to take part in this unique opportunity. Community members are extremely excited about this event, and are eager to find out what will happen in this exciting ARG.

So far, this game has been a huge hit with the players, and with the innovations and creativity they’ve seen so far, it’s easy to see why AotH players are hooked. ARGN will bring you the very latest details as this story unfolds.

Trailhead
Discussion at Unfiction
Trail
Chat in #heist

IGDA San Francisco Presents: I Love Bees, 4orty2wo

April 15, 2005 / Steve Peters

On April 26th, the International Game Developers Association will present “THINKING OUTSIDE THE (x)BOX (or “HOW I LEARNED TO STOP WORRYING AND LOVE BEES”) at 7:00 PM at the Metreon’s Action Theater in San Francisco (101 4th Street @ Mission).

Featured speakers will be Jordan Weisman, Sean Stewart and Jim Stewartson of 4orty2wo Entertainment, the team behind the Alternate Reality Game “I Love Bees.”

4orty2wo’s Alternate Reality Game became a phenomenon last year, sending thousands of players running to payphones around the world. The innovative Halo 2 prequel involving a seemingly innocent website of a Napa Valley beekeeper and a shipwrecked AI from the future received a Game Developers Choice Award for Innovation, was featured at GDC’s Experimental Gameplay Workshop, and became the latest and most successful example of the nascent Alternate Reality Games (ARG) genre.

But what place do ARGs have in the world (and future) of video games? What is their relation to one another? Are there lessons to be learned from ARG production that can impact the way video games are made?

Join Jordan Weisman, Sean Stewart, and Jim Stewartson of 4orty2wo Entertainment as they examine I Love Bees to discuss the strengths and weaknesses of ARGs, their intersection with traditional video games, and the future of this exciting new form of digital play.

This event is free and open to the public. For more info: www.igda.org/sf

April ARG Announcements

April 14, 2005 / Steve Peters

ARGN has been receiving an increasing amount of cryptic emails and/or packages, most likely as a result of the increased attention Alternate Reality Gaming has been getting lately. Most of the time, they’re simply spam or perhaps a hint that leads to someone’s stab at a work of interactive fiction, but every so often something will lead to a very worthwhile Alternate Reality Game. The trick is being able to sift through things (especially some of the emails…hmm, a Nigerian ARG??) to figure out what’s worth mentioning. So, without further adieu, submitted for your approval, as they say:

Yesterday morning, ARGN received a zip file (1.26 mb) of what looked like 7 colorful desktop wallpapers from someone calling themselves Your Friend (historyneverdies at gmail.com). Along with coded info along the top and bottom, they all seem to be pointing at a game that will start up in Winter 2005. Subsequent emails to the above address have yielded an additional image. Players have made progress in decoding things, and it seems the lower right characters all decode to the names of characters that were featured in Project Gateway, an ARG we reported on last September. So, it looks like we’re in for a sequel coming this winter. Of course, is that winter in the Northern or Southern Hemisphere??

As if that wasn’t enough fun for one week, ARGN received a package just this morning. It was simply a To Do list, dated April 7, that listing such errands as going to the grocer, dry cleaner, and submitting an ad to the NY Post (see a larger version of the note by clicking the image at right). Apprently, the NY Post advertisement led to a rather extensive blog by an Alesha Periwinkle, whose fiancee has disappeared. If you look closely, you’ll see that all of the photos on the blog have been “deleted for reasons of national security.”

Quite notably, players have already received in-game phonecalls and text messages. Looks like a pretty promising (indie?) ARG is shaping up with this one.

desktops discussion at unfiction
ne1seenjames discussion at unfiction

Alternate Reality Gaming was the subject of a feature article in the May 2005 edition of PC Gamer Magazine in the UK. For those of you without access to the magazine, you can find some scans of the article (along with more comments by the author) over at the unfiction forums.