Month: March 2010 (Page 2 of 2)

Salt Your Unfolding History with Hope or Doom on an Expedition with Mr Mirrors: An Adventure at This Month’s Victoria & Albert Museum Friday Late

AEWMM An Expedition With Mr Mirrors is a collaboration between Failbetter Games and A Door In A Wall (ADIAW), designed for Hide&Seek’s Sandpit Night on Friday, March 26, at the storied and majestic Victoria & Albert Museum. Expedition will be one of several games in this month’s V&A Friday Late, themed “Playgrounds,” where possibly thousands of participants will invade the museum’s halls for an evening of games and revelry.

Expedition will bring to life some of the dark yet droll inhabitants of Fallen London, the Victorian-inspired universe of Echo Bazaar, a browser-based RPG with strong social and narrative dimensions. Well-received since opening for beta late last year, Echo Bazaar has been nominated for The Escapist‘s Best Browser Game of 2009.

In Expedition, amnesiac players have been drawn to the V&A at the behest of Mr Mirrors, enigmatic Master of the Bazaar and “purveyor of the frangible and the fine.” Travelling the halls of the museum, participants will encounter possibly allegorical strangers who can help participants recover their memories after revealing some cryptic secrets. In addition to cards and puzzles, participants will be treated to “glimpses of some new Fallen London back-story and splotches of [contributor] @emilystaubert‘s trademark salacity” as they try to learn who they once were.

Continue reading

Valve Fans Triumphant: Glimmerings of a Portal ARG

portalIn 2007, Valve galvanized the gaming industry when it released the video game Portal. Although ostensibly a first-person shooter built upon Valve’s Source engine, the game’s quirky puzzles, catchy soundtrack, and unreliable narrator GLaDOS quickly captured the hearts and minds of gamers.  Yesterday, Rock Paper Shotgun reported that Valve Software released a special update for Portal, noting that it “[c]hanged radio transmission frequency to comply with federal and state spectrum management regulations.”  The seemingly innocuous update inserted a series of secret messages into the game that have led Valve fans on a merry chase for what may be the launch of an alternate reality game.

As the update’s description suggested, Portal’s radio service has received an upgrade.  Players can now carry the device around the game’s levels, using it as a portable receiver to detect morse code and Slow Scan Television transmissions at specific locations to transmit 26 messages and images, collected here.  One of these images contained the phone number for a BBS located in Kirkland, Washington.  By inputting a username and password provided in one of the morse code transmissions, players gained access to the backup system for GLaDOS v.3.11, the game’s artificial intelligence system. 

Continue reading

Newer posts »