Month: January 2007 (Page 3 of 4)

Erwin Don’t Like It, Rock the MeiGeist

January 16, 2007 / Brooke Thompson

Erwin is missing! There’s a great twist to this ARG clichÃ©: you see, Erwin is a cat and back in December he fell down a rabbit hole and hasn’t been seen since.

Erwin’s person is Eva McGill. Eva’s a cute 20-something living on her own over in the UK. Her life seems to be quite ordinary. She stresses over her studies, she looks for her missing cat, and, oh yeah, she blogs.

If all that mundane activity doesn’t get you going, what if I told you that there’s an actor, Melvin Geist, who seems to believe that he was experimented on by aliens and can control people’s minds and wants to build some sort of large something on his property outside of Los Angeles, CA? There are puzzles to leave you spinning, some sort of mysterious countdown to keep you guessing, and a most awful sounding herbal supplement with its own bacterial chatbot that knows a bit more than it should (and, like all chatbots, not nearly enough).

Meigeist, the game percolating all of these fantastic moments and images, launched this past weekend and promises to be an eight week long experience unfolding online and off with websites, live events, email, and text messages. It’s being produced by the UK-based Licorice Films with support coming from HP Labs, UK Film Council, and Watershed – with all that support and talent behind it, it is no surprise that it has gotten off to a promising start. So whatcha waiting for? Go follow Erwin down that rabbit hole!

websites:
Learn more and register for the game at Enter-Geist.com
Check in on Eva at EvaMcGill.co.uk
Chat with Yuki at youkin.org
Wrap your mind around a puzzle at KeirJones.co.uk

And, of course, meet and collaborate with other players on the MeiGeist forums at unfiction and on the player-run wiki.

ARG Netcast, Episode 9.5

January 15, 2007 / Jonathan Waite

In this supplemental, special netcast, the panel from episode 9 return to talk about ARGFest-O-Con. This is a very informative, relatively short netcast dedicated solely to discussion about the 7th installment of the ARG discussion conference and social get-together. Subscribe to the ARG Netcast feed through FeedBurner or via iTunes.

What’s the story?

ARGFest-O-Con 2007 is the 7th in a series of social events for the alternate reality gaming community. From the website: ARGFest-o-Con 2007 will be held Friday through Sunday, March 2-4, 2007, in San Francisco, California, USA. The focus will be on â€œHow to PM a Gameâ€ and â€œthe Future of ARGsâ€ (these are working titles).
The web site has a handy wiki where people interested in the event can communicate with attendees, view schedules (under construction), and get information on accommodations.
Speakers for the event, so far and officially announced, include Adrian Hon (Mind Candy), Evan Jones (xenophile), Kristen Rutherford, Brooke Thompson (Giant Mice), Krystyn Wells (glitterbook), Sean C. Stacey (Unfiction), speakers from sf0, Dave Szulborski, Brian Clark (GMD Studios), Jane McGonigal (avant game), Steve Peters (42 Entertainment), and keynote speakers Elan Lee and Sean Stewart of 42 Entertainment. Stewart will also be signing books at the event.
Events are still being planned, and restaurants are still being chosen for social gatherings.
Registration for the event is $10 US, which gets you a neat-o registration package. Registration will be available online soon, watch the web site for updates.
A Fest Quest is in order, but the organizers need locals to step in and help out. Sponsors are needed to help out with costs. Also, if you are particularly good at dealing with the media (who have expressed much interest), there’s a job waiting for you. Contact us here at ARGNet if you are available to help out with any of these situations.
A T-Shirt contest is open for the event, but will close soon. There’s a fabulous prize available, so enter now and enter often!
We go on (and on, and on) about how much fun these fests are. You just have to attend.

Contact us at our special netcast email address, [email protected] with your tips, suggestions, concerns and submissions. Call us on our ARGNet voicemail at 630-274-5425.

ARG Netcast, Episode 9

January 15, 2007 / Jonathan Waite

Caution: possible spoilers about Perplex City are revealed in this netcast.

It’s our first netcast of 2007, and I’m happy to be joined by regular panel guests Brooke Thompson, Jackie Kerr and Marie Lamb, with special panel guest rose. In our ninth netcast, we talk about games, games and more games. Subscribe to the ARG Netcast feed through FeedBurner or via iTunes.

Game News

Vanishing Point is live and full of wonderful prizes and challenging puzzles. And, no, we don’t all think it’s an ARG… even if 42 Entertainment is behind it.
Puzzle of the week: The META puzzle from Vanishing Point. Read more about it at the Unforums.
Township Heights, the new VirtuQuest alternate reality game, launches with a pay-to-play model and a few T-shirts.
Meigeist (the ARG formerly known as Geist) goes live and people are already buzzing about the quality of the game this far. Oh, and there are cute, cuddly cats involved. You can get behind-the-scenes information here if you can’t wait for us to publish an ARGNet article about the game.
NeoVenus Construction (AKA Nevec) looked to be stalled before candy bars and a new blog opened the game back up with a resurgence. See Krystyn Wells’ ARGNet article for more information.
The Sector Seven/Transformers ARG viral campaign stalls. Fanboys and fangirls around the world really want this to be more than what it currently is.
Perplex City has life, as the players feel that they are close to finding that darn cube. It’s not an easy path, however.
Second Life Future Salon panel discussion on ARGs took place on the 27th of November, we hope to have access to the audio from that discussion soon.
The Human Pet reinvents itself with more videos and a shiny new website, complete with community-forming forums.
Deus City is on a bit of a hiatus, claiming that the recent storms in the U.S. have thrown an icy wrench into their plans. Yeah, sure — nice excuse. No, really, we like it.
Marie talks about Doom Skull, which we were ready to pass off as just another game… until she really sold us on it.
Preview for next week — Bristelgoodman.. On first glance, it looks rather creepy. We’ll know more by next week.

I Wanna Be Your Backdoor Man

January 14, 2007 / Will Bagby

Question: How many ARGers does it take to free a group of crack scientists held captive in a super secret research facility? That was the question we needed to answer on Tuesday, as a group of players converged on IRC to tackle one of the more innovative “puzzle events” in recent ARGs. The answer, as it turned out, was “Five, but bring backup.”

In a nutshell – a group of scientists was being held in a compound called “The Village.” A small group of employees outside The Village wanted to stage a rescue mission, but they needed a way around the security system. The only chance to free their co-workers would involve disabling the security system long enough so that they wouldn’t be detected entering the compound. Fortunately, a series of backdoor servers was set up by (former U-media employee but now deceased) Ed, through which a small group of attackers could occupy the computer system, effectively shutting down security. Then, a U-media employee could unlock the gate to the compound (by physically clipping the chain that locked it), and free the captive employees.

Got all that?

McGonigal Chat Transcript is Online, and the Second Life Future Salon

January 14, 2007 / Jonathan Waite

On December 19th, 2006, Jane McGonigal was interviewed by CNET‘s Daniel Terdiman at the CNET Bureau in Second Life, as we previewed the day before. As a follow-up, readers who were not able to get into the live audio interview may want to know that the chat transcript has been posted online for the past two weeks in the Newsmaker section at CNET. McGonigal talks about her history with alternate reality gaming, the possibilities of ARG within Second Life, Cruel 2 B Kind and the Nintendo Wii.

Speaking of Second Life, it’s been quite a while since we were supposed to have reported on the Second Life Future Salon podcast, so now’s just as good a time as any. On November 27th, 2006, the Second Life Future Salon podcast series recorded its second episode. Tony Walsh (Clickable Culture), Elan Lee (42 Entertainment), Adrian Hon and Dan Hon (Mind Candy) joined Jerry Paffendorf of The Electric Sheep Company for a discussion of alternate reality gaming and its relation to Second Life, which also gave the panel an opportunity to pontificate about the future of ARGs in the Second Life universe. While the audio quality is not the greatest, it’s an interesting discussion and is worth taking a listen to.

Alfred Alan is Still Really Worried

January 13, 2007 / Krystyn Wells

Lurkers and active players alike were somewhat doubtful that the Lost Planet alternate reality game (AKA Nevec, the handy abbreviation for the Neovenus Construction trailhead web site) would last beyond the January 11th launch party — the game sites were noticeably dormant over the holidays, with virtually no updates or story movement.

However, thanks to a mini candy bar stash (noticed by astute player blue_j, who provided the picture for this article) at the launch party (see here for spoilers on access to that part of the site), Nevec players were given confirmation of new material in a new secret blog by the ARG’s main character Alfred Alan. Hiding in the 111 directory, he writes:

“Things have gone very wrong.”