Month: May 2007 (Page 2 of 2)

Crossing Your T’s

May 17, 2007 / Jonathan Waite

About two months back, I was watching the Conan O’Brien show on a whim, when I was treated to his story about hornymanatee.com. As Conan related to his audience, he had used the URL as part of a joke on a Monday night, but when the standards department of NBC got wind of the situation, things got complicated. Conan was told that if a web site URL is used on-air and doesn’t already exist, then NBC may be liable for the site’s content, which means that they must go out and purchase the URL themselves. So, in summary, NBC is the proud owner of a fake manatee porn site because of an ad-libbed joke.

As fans of alternate reality gaming already know, assets of any ARG must be secured before a game utilizes the asset in a live situation. If a game is going to use a particular email address, then the creative powers behind the game must secure that email address well in advance of the game being launched, and the same goes for web site URLs, phone numbers, addresses, and so on. At ARGFest 07 in San Francisco, Evan Jones commented about this type of situation, recounting a story about how a dot-com email address used in the ReGenesis show had originally been written into the script as a dot-ca address. A well-meaning editor thought “dot-com” sounded better and changed the script without notifying the extended reality creators. Fortunately for the creative team behind the ARG, the dot-com site was registered by someone on their team ahead of time, and everything worked out.

Fast forward to this week, in which a similar situation has unfolded.

“Dark Days” Are Here?

May 11, 2007 / Jonathan Waite

In the past few days, there have been many signs pointing towards Dark Days Are Coming, a mysterious web site that features some haunting music and puzzle, of sorts. While we’re still trying to sort out the mystery for ourselves, here’s what we’ve found out:

the site was discovered after a poem was sent to Rob Purchese, a writer for Eurogamer
each line of the poem, it was found, is an anagram for dark days are coming, which led to the discovery of the web site
WHOIS information reveals a related web forum, The Secret World
the Voodoo Extreme reports that the site is hosted on servers owned by Funcom, a developer and publisher of PC and console games. Funcom’s next release? The Secret World.
A post on the Warcry Network details how each line of the trailhead-leading poem is its own web site URL. Strange images can be found at each location, which help in solving the Flash puzzle at the trailhead site.
Solving the puzzle leads to confirmation of the tie-in with The Secret World, and a link to the aforementioned forum.

It’s too soon to tell where this will go next, if anywhere. That being said, it would be a shame to waste the wonderful art direction outlined at the DDAC web site if this doesn’t end up moving forward into a more interactive experience, such as an ARG. As soon as we know more, we’ll update this story. For up to the minute information, try the Unfiction forums thread.

Come Out And Play…In London!

May 10, 2007 / Jessica Price

For all those UK residents who wished they could have attended New York’s Come Out And Play Festival, now is your chance to have your own weekend of public gaming fun.

Sponsored by a mysterious benefactor named Gideon Reeling (see here if you want a peek behind the curtain), the Hide and Seek festival promises both new games, such as the London Poetry game, and soon-to-be classics such as Cruel 2 B Kind. There’s even a game done in conjunction with the folks from SFZero and a seminar discussion on why pervasive games are “the new punk rock.” (Full schedule here.)

Alex Fleetwood, one of the festival’s organizers, describes the New York festival as one of the inspirations for the event:

“I attended the Come Out and Play festival in New York and came back inspired. I love ARGs but I’m very attracted to the more user-friendly aspects of pervasive games – you can pick them up for an afternoon and really get something out of them. I wanted to run a game that got people talking to strangers as that was my favourite element of the games at COAP. I’m also hopeful that the open-source translation that the players and the people of London collectively create will be a beautiful thing in itself.”

As for the mysterious Mr. Reeling, Alex can’t tell us much:

“Little is known about Mr Reeling. He describes himself as an adventure capitalist and only communicates via email. We have asked that he tell us more about himself and that he attend the festival in person; watch this space for more news…”

The festival runs Friday through Sunday evening, and all games will begin at the Delegates Centre, BFI South Bank Centre. Readers, if you’re able to attend, please send us your thoughts afterwards!

Perplex City Season 2 “Preview Episode” Goes Live

May 2, 2007 / Jessica Price

The ARGNet tipline has garnered some exciting news about an upcoming development in the world of popular ARG Perplex City:

This Friday, a live “preview episode” for Perplex City will launch, providing the first opportunity in two years for newcomers to join a Perplex City game as it starts. While not the full replayable episode expected in June, no prior experience is required for the mini-game, making it an ideal opportunity to jump in.

Game Alert: Frozen Indigo Angel

May 2, 2007 / Jonathan Waite

There’s a new alternate reality game in the wild, and it goes by the name of “Frozen Indigo Angel.” It’s a promotion put on by BBC Radio 1, and is promoting Radio 1’s Big Weekend music festival. The event is the largest free music festival in Europe, and the game has a number of tie-ins to real world entities — the BBC web site, radio, podcasts and many popular web sites are where you can find information leading to the game.

The trailhead for the game can be found at www.pauldenchfield.com, which details the life of Paul Denchfield, who obviously loves the conveniences of Web 2.0, as he uses Twitter, Flickr, Imeem and YouTube to tell his story. Recently, there was a live event involving Paul as he protested at the BBC, and our sources tell us that there are more live events in the near future.

The blogosphere has taken interest in the game, as Matt Deegan, Wonderland and The Guardian Blog have all featured the game in recent posts. This is yet another example of how the BBC has embraced alternate reality gaming as a content delivery model and buzzmaker, as previous ARGs Jamie Kane and Wannabes have come out of the BBC camp.

One last thing, for you faithful ARGNet readers — watch this game carefully, as we have an inside track on a very interesting development to come very, very soon.

Month: May 2007 (Page 2 of 2)

Crossing Your T’s

“Dark Days” Are Here?

Come Out And Play…In London!

Perplex City Season 2 “Preview Episode” Goes Live

Game Alert: Frozen Indigo Angel

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