streetsweeperIt’s been a whirlwind of activity for us here at ARGNet, and the inbox is overflowing! We haven’t had much of a chance to look into most of these, but every rabbit hole is worth taking a peek into, so here’s what we have from the past few weeks:

April 22nd: A reader named Laura was kind enough to send in this newsworthy item: Kaede writes a monthly column in the Japanese creative magazine “Brain”, and this month’s column is all about ARGs! I (@lauraehall on Twitter) and a few other players (@jasper_su, @cubicgarden, Roberta Romero and @redbanshee) were contacted about using our photos, and they sent me a copy in return. The PDF is available at lauraehall.com/brainmag.pdf. They talk about Find the Lost Ring and Art of the Heist, and Unfiction gets a mention too, so I thought you guys would want to see! Thanks Laura!

April 23rd: We received this game tip from someone calling themselves Reasonableman: A game called “Help Lisa” is now playing. The start point is: http://www.youtube.com/pandoralee999 The game is promotion for The Ennead (enneadseries.com). There is a thread dedicated to this game at the Unfiction forums.

April 28th: A tipster named Greg sent in this mysterious tip: I found this site: http://calvada.chatonka.com/index.html after watching an ad in an episode of the Dick Van Dyke Show that was posted on youtube (I forget where–I think it might have been taken down. Copyright issues?). The header/title of the page is the name of a Dick Van Dyke episode, but not the episode in which I saw on youtube. It doesn’t look like what it’s purporting to be, which I why I thought it might be an ARG. –Greg After looking at the site, which currently discusses the “Giant Woodpeckers of the Northwest,” we’re as confused as Greg is. ARG? If it is, it’s a very unique trailhead.

May 9th: Intrepid blogger Rich A. found the following web site and thought it might be a long lead-in to some sort of ARG experience: I think this site might be a new ARG http://www.itstartswiththeflu.com/ when you hit “select all” you’ll see a “hidden message” that says “Daniel 12; 1-13” not to self-advertise, but i wrote a bit about what i’ve found out on my blog, including the text from that psalm or whatever you’d call it http://thegrayhoodie.blogspot.com/ Good luck! The web site Rich links us to includes a countdown with an end date 472 days away. Not much news on Rich’s blog since then, so take this for what you will.

May 13th: After taking in a Nine Inch Nails concert, Michael sent this in: Saw Nine Inch Nails last night and think that there is a new ARG starting, but I don’t think it’s actually NIN doing it. www.globalfearenterprises.com. Another three game tips about this came in from readers Bob, Diana and godisvoid. We headed over there and found a forum chock full of messages, but without context, we’re at a loss. Oh look, a countdown! Could this be related to a recent post at the Unfiction forums regarding NIN|JA codes?

May 14th: We won’t say who or where this tip came from, but here it is: http://thisisnottom.com Not sure what other information I should provide. I run this site along with New York Times Best-selling author John Green. If you have some questions, feel free to email me. Thanks, . Um, okay. On the site, there is a picture of a man we assume is not Tom, with a note in the source code — “If you are reading this, you are a step ahead of the rest. There is one clue on the homepage.” We haven’t found the clue yet — can you find it for us and send us the deets? K THX.

May 15th: Author A.W. Hill alerted us to the following project he’s involved with: Nowhere-Land. Not a game, but… a book about a game about the story in the book. It’s a Lynchian scavenger hunt across the upside-down topography of L.A., Taos, and Eastern Turkey to a place called Na-Koja-Abad (Nowhere-Land) that should be on every ARGamer’s itinerary. Nominally a detective novel, but look closer. I owe Dave Szulborski big-time for this one. The URL is http://www.awhill.net. Fair warning – some of the language on the site may be NSFW, depending on where you work.

May 19th: Another game tip from someone we’ll keep anonymous told us this: http://spider-of-the-web.blogspot.com/ I am starting this game now.It is somewhat of a scavenger hunt.The overall point will uncover things that are real and exist.It will be somewhat cryptic.It is based around ufos and strange artifacts. When arriving at the blog, we were asked to sign up to play, so we closed the window and moved on with life. Sorry, Spider of the Web, we don’t sign up for just anything.

So, that takes us up to the beginning of this week, and more tips are waiting for us to follow up on, so check back in the next few days to see what other trailheads await you.