For those of you who still have lingering questions after our special ARG Netcast on ARGFest-o-Con 2007, you are in luck. Tomorrow, in the #argfest room at the Chat-Solutions IRC network, organizers and attendees alike will be present to discuss the festivities, as well as organize some of the details for the event. If you are interested in attending the chat, it will happen at 8:00 pm EST on Thursday, January 25, 2007. We have set up a dedicated chat channel for your convenience, so now you really have no excuse for not being there. Come one, come all, and bring your ideas and questions!
Month: January 2007 (Page 2 of 4)
Sing it with me, ladies:
I need a Hero[es ARG]!
I’m holding out for a Hiro ’til the end of the night.
It’s gotta be sure [it’s an ARG]
And it’s gotta be soon
And it’s gotta be larger than life…
Okay, I never was any good at the parody-lyrics thing. And while I’d love a full-blown Heroes ARG (if for no other reason than to feed my Hiro crush), even a “digital extension” of the Heroes story seems like a fun opportunity to immerse oneself in the world of this hit series.
It’s probably too early to dub Heroes 360 an actual ARG, but audience members who have been watching closely have been aware of some Lost-style clues in the show that suggested there might be hidden rewards for those willing to dig deeper. NBC promises “rich, original content” including on-air clues to investigate, “interaction with unique mobile content,” access to the phone system of one of the companies in the show, and additional content on the NBC site including hidden sites and secret files.
A website for Primatech Paper was shown on-screen in this week’s episode of the show. Call the number on the site and you receive a code which, when entered, redirects you to a job application form (unfortunately, applications at this time are limited to US residents). Despite the press releases from the network (and unlike ABC’s comparable efforts for LOST, KyleXY and Fallen), the site is intriguingly subtle about its connection to the show and as yet makes no reference to Nissan, NBC’s corporate partner in producing Heroes 360.
I purchased The Adventure Company’s recent release, Evidence: The Last Ritual with high hopes that it would provide immersive gameplay that would appeal to the ARGer in me. Touted as an adventure/puzzle game, Evidence is a step towards a pre-packaged ARG: there are websites to discover with voluminous content as well as in-game emails that follow your progress through the game.
Boy, are there in-game emails. There are scads of in-game emails. In fact, within 10 hours after registering the game (a necessary step in order to proceed to gameplay), I had received a whopping 28 emails – 25 of those in the first two hours. I eventually got a mail saying, “No news from you for several hours now? Are you ditching us like a pair of old socks, or what? Please, we need your help…” Nothing like a little guilt trip to make me want to pop that game right back in! Most mail was to provide clues, and several times the timing was off so that I would get clues for puzzles I had already solved.
The story behind the game is that there is a serial killer on the prowl, and he has produced this teasing, taunting set of CDs with information and clues about his victims. The CDs contain a lot of well-acted video clips which the player is rewarded with after solving puzzles. The gameplay itself is almost reminiscent of the movies Se7en or Saw, with a gritty, surreal atmosphere. The puzzles range from piece-o-cake easy to insanely difficult, and there are little to no clues about solves in some cases. What I found most difficult at times was actually being able to “catch” the right icon in order to proceed to the next puzzle — the tiny icons bob up and down on the screen, and for those of us with bad reflexes it can be pretty frustrating.
As the genre of alternate reality gaming continues to grow, so does ARGNet. Last year, we welcomed the additions of five new staff writers, and while we officially announced the addition of three in April, we were remiss in failing to officially welcome Nicko Demeter and Jessica Price to our staff in the latter stages of 2006. As faithful readers (you all are, aren’t you?) you’ll have already had an opportunity to enjoy Nicko’s articles on topics like Stranger Adventures and Perplex City, while Jessica has written about Ny Takma and Sammeeeees and was a driving force behind the 2006 Year in Review. Although they’ve both been kicking around our staff lounge for a while, partaking of our wonderful buffet of nachos, we want to officially welcome these two bright, enthusiastic writers to our staff.
If you’ve not visited the ARGNet web site recently — perhaps you subscribe to our RSS feed instead — this month has been one of the busiest periods in ARG history. Our What’s Hot section has ten games we’re currently keeping tabs on, and there are a few more which are starting to show up on our radar as well. With all of the news coming out regarding ARGs, we are hoping to find a few good men and women to assist us in writing articles and features for our web site. Therefore, starting today, I am putting out an open call for writers, in the hopes that there are still people out there who don’t mind a little bit of volunteer work in exchange for worldwide notoriety and fame. Okay, maybe not fame, but definitely notoriety.
If you are someone who is dependable, honest, and willing to write an article for ARGNet once a month, we’re looking for you. The submission guidelines are as follows:
- Write a 100-150 word blurb-style article on any currently running game. For recent examples, see The Case of the Gumshoe Radio Play and The Trouble With Tropes.
- Write a 400-500 word feature article about any of these topics: 1) a game, current or historical; 2) an interesting story or aspect of the ARG community; 3) a topic of interest to the ARGNet readership; 4) being a puppetmaster or behind-the-scenes game creator.
Submissions need to be sent in to [email protected] by 11:59 pm (CST, GMT -6) on Friday, February 2nd, 2007. Naturally, spelling and grammar count, and a submission does not guarantee an invite to join the ARGNet staff. However, we’re confident that through this process, we’ll be able to expand on our award-winning* team of journalists**, so if you’ve always wanted to be a part of our dynamic*** squad of writers, here’s your chance.
* No awards have been given to ARGNet in the past. This is simply a precognitive statement.
** The definition of “journalist” is broad enough for us to use this term liberally.
*** Dynamic doesn’t even begin to describe our staff.
Well, either I’m a psychic genius or someone out there is listening close to our netcasts. Hot on the heels of my prediction in Episode 8 of the ARG Netcast series that there would be a radio play-style alternate reality game released sometime in 2007, we got a game tip about Gumshoe, an “interactive, 6-part radio drama.” The first episode in the series is set to be released on Valentine’s Day by the Gallagher Brother’s Radio Theatre. We can’t say for certain how the interactivity will be built into the series, but the site is currently advertising a free membership in something called the Gumshoe Secret Society, which includes “an exclusive Decoder Ring, which you can use to discover hidden clues within each broadcast.”
Anyone interested in what could possibly lie ahead in this detective tale can listen (in browser or as a download) to the first preview for the radio play. It’s too early to be certain about what Gumshoe will end up looking or sounding like, but it would be very satisfying for me, personally, to be dead-on right about a prediction for once, so we’ll get back to you after February 14th to see what shapes up.
Back in November, we reported that Virtuquest, makers of City of Domes and other popular ARGs, had announced that they would be producing a public ARG. At the time, it was known only as Open ARG 6.5. We’re happy to report that the game has launched: Virtuquest’s Township Heights is open for business, inviting players into a Stepford-like world where the most upstanding citizens may also be the most dangerous.
At first glance, the city of Township Heights appears normal enough. They have a yearly festival with a parade, fireworks at night, and concerts in the park. They have a nice little Italian restaurant and a lounge where local bands play. Ah, suburbia! The town’s website proudly proclaims Township Heights “a model town,” one for “living and enjoying” in bold, majestic prose. Stately homes speckle the landscape, making Township Heights appear a modern utopia, but any scholar of Thomas More could tell you that the most utopian of locales is usually anything but.
masquerade nyc
black watchmen
subtext game
meow wolf
undertone
pendog creative