Author: Brooke Thompson (Page 3 of 4)

Staff Writer
Brooke Thompson is currently an overworked and underslept graduate student at Georgia Tech in Atlanta, GA. (a Master's in games?! Mom is so proud.) Although she hopes hopes her focus in Game Design & Broadband Entertainment will lead to her spreading the world of ARG to an entirely new and unsuspecting audience, she is happy to see the genre growing on the works of others.
Brooke was first introduced to Alternate Reality Games in 2001, when her undergraduate advisor naively mentioned that the Beast might make a nice footnote in what would become Brooke's first paper on to the genre. Deciding to spend the summer making a little game, Brooke joined several others in watching their summer, fall, winter, and spring melt away under the power of Lockjaw, one of the first successful grassroots games. Since then, she has watched a number of other seasons pass as she tirelessly developed a number of other ARG and ARG-like experiences.

Lost in the Experience

July 27, 2006 / Brooke Thompson

As many of you ARGN readers know, and for those that don’t… surprise!, there’s an Alternate Reality Game running alongside the hit television show Lost. With the show airing in three different countries on three different schedules, players wondered if they’d be given any juicy story bits. Well, word has it that the juiciest of bits is about to be revealed – the secret of 4 8 15 16 23 42. That’s right, the numbers that have both haunted and puzzled fans throughout the shows run are about to be explained.

If you haven’t been following along with the game, this is the time to get involved. There are thousands of players playing all over the internet, but, of course, you can catch up with all of the happenings at unFiction and feel free to join us in chat at #lostexp and be sure to check out The Lost Experience blog which will give you the scoop on everything that’s happened so far.

Get Lost!

May 4, 2006 / Brooke Thompson

The highly anticipated Lost Experience began last night when a brief commercial for the Hanso Foundation appeared during the television broadcasts in the UK, US, and Australia. The commercial, which can be viewed on the Hanso Foundation website, ended with a toll-free number available in each of the three countries. Calling the number provides you with several extensions and interesting messages.

UK: 0800 66 66 40
US: 1-877-HANSORG (1-877-426-7674)
Australia: 1800 22 77 17

Transcripts of the messages, including translations for the Dutch radio, can be found on the lostpedia.

While further details about the game are hard to come by, there is certainly much hope that this will provide the rich narrative experience typical of Alternate Reality Games. And, as always, unfiction is digging in joined by a number of other Lost websites and forums.

:: Discussion at unfiction ::
:: Live IRC Chat in #lost and #lostexp ::

Pherotones

February 3, 2006 / Brooke Thompson

Pherotones have the potential to transform a friend into something more.

Several weeks ago, Dr. Myra Vanderhood was interviewed by Bruce Stewart for Oâ€™Reilly Emerging Telephony blog about the potential of using ring tones to attract members of the opposite sex. Pherotones are the audio equivalent of pheromones, in which people and animals are attracted or repulsed by upon receiving a fragrant whiff of a potential mate. Dr. Myra Vanderhood discovered that sounds can have a similar effect and is testing her discovery on ring tones.

The interview with Stewart linked to Dr. Vanderhoodâ€™s blog as well as to a wikipedia article (since deleted) on Pherotones and it didnâ€™t take long for the blogosphere to weigh in with fascination and controversy. Once it was discovered that the wikipedia article had been written by McKinney + Silver (the Ad Agency behind Art of the Heist), there was a justifiable frustration over the manipulation of one of the internet’s best resources for commercial and advertising purposes. And, despite their best efforts of hiding their involvement (going as far as to obscure the registration information for the pherotones.com website), it brought McKinney Silver into the fold. When confronted by this, Dr. Vanderhood explained that someone on the board hired them for promotional purposes (great thinking on your feet!) and added a new â€œIs this a marketing campaign” question to the website FAQ.

There is still no word on the actual client, though rumors have it ranging from Qwest (a client of McKinney Silvers) to Stephen Kingâ€™s latest novel, Cell. We do know that the website will be updating (and a wiki of sorts will appear at some point), though the depth of the campaign is still to be determined. However, with the possible interaction (Dr. Vanderhood will chat on AIM and has replied to emails) and the great quick thinking weâ€™ve seen so far, if it goes very deep it should be a fun and well thought out ride.

ARGN verdict: pherotones have the potential to transform the spring gaming season into something more.

Playing Games, Playing Music

December 8, 2005 / Brooke Thompson

The Playground, featuring underground music and game talk, premieres tonight (December 8, 2005) on Arizona State’s radio station – The Blaze 1260 AM. Beyond the music, the show will be led by UnFiction’s own Sam Gavin (some may know him by G3K & his sign from I Love Bees) who will discuss games & the gaming world with a particular emphasis on community gaming such as ARGs. With many different possibilities — interviews with game makers and players, player-created music, soundtracks from past ARGs — the show is sure to be filled with a ton of fun. Do the right thing and show it the support that it deserves! You can will listen online 10 EST/7PST from the the station’s website.

Good luck Sam! We can’t wait to tune in!

Last Call for Last Call Poker

November 30, 2005 / Brooke Thompson

LCP LA 01 As many faithful readers of ARGN know, the game to play this fall was Last Call Poker, a promotion for Activisionâ€™s GUN. Created by 4orty2wo Entertainment, the innovative game provided players with 9 weeks of exciting storytelling and game play, both on- and off-line. The story was the final wish of Lionel â€œLuckyâ€ Brown, a fictional character who passed away earlier this year, and a portion of his estate was used to celebrate his life with wakes held at six of his favorite cemeteries throughout the United Sates. The final wake was held on November 19th at Hollywood Forever Cemetery in Hollywood, California. Dozens of players from throughout the United States and Canada came together to celebrate his life and play one last round of poker… Tombstone style.

Wikipedia & Jamie Kane

August 15, 2005 / Brooke Thompson

Yesterday, the BBC Alternate Reality Game, Jamie Kane and the presumed viral marketing use of Wikipedia, the online encyclopedia that anyone can edit, hit several popular weblogs including BoingBoing and Slashdot. Two entries were found, one for Jamie Kane and the other for the fictional band Boy^d Upp. Both entries presented the fictional characters as real entities and made no mention of the Alternate Reality Game. It was later discovered that the entry for Boy^d Upp originated from within the BBC.