Author: Jane Doh (Page 5 of 9)

Staff Writer

Jane Doh is the online gaming persona of an otherwise ordinary person. Jane has a particular love for grassroots and independent projects, especially those run out of basements and breakfast nooks, and is working on several creative projects of her own.

The Smithsonian and the Boy Scouts of America Team Up for ScoutQuest This Weekend

July 21, 2010 / Jane Doh

This year, the Boy Scouts of America celebrates its 100th anniversary and has teamed up with the Smithsonian Insitution to create ScoutQuest, an “interactive citywide hunt” this Saturday and Sunday, July 24-25, in Washington, DC. Uncovering “links between Scouting and some of our greatest national treasures,” participants will seek out QR codes in eleven locations on or near the National Mall. By collecting codes, players increase their chances of winning a mountain bike.

Sponsored by AT&T and the smartphone company HTC, ScoutQuest involves six US government locations, including the National Air and Space Museum, the Museum of American History, and the relatively new Museum of the American Indian. Two of DC’s private museumsâ€”the National Museum of Crime and Punishment and the (highly interactive) International Spy Museumâ€”are also included in the itinerary, as are two Boy Scout landmarks. The two private museums may or may not be charging their usual admission fees, but all the government-run museums are free, and the Boy Scout locations are public spaces.

The Smithsonian Institution has been something of a vanguard in weaving interactive, collaborative, and transmedia elements into the museum-going experience. The highly regarded alternate reality gameÂ Ghosts of a Chance from 2008 involved puzzles and ciphers integrated with exhibits at the American Art Museum and used text messages for game play. More than a scavenger hunt, a half-naked trailhead for Ghosts of a Chance dropped at ARGFest 2008 in Boston. Players from around the world were asked to create and photograph their own artifacts, which were then integrated into the narrative. Even now, two years after the full alternate reality game, a module version of the scavenger hunt is run at the museum occasionally, or at the request of groups. The American Art Museum is also participating in ScoutQuest this weekend.

A map of all theÂ ScoutQuest locations is available here, but interested players should probably start at “Adventure Base 100,” which will be located just north of the Washington Monument. The event will be playable on July 24th and 25th during museum hours (generally 9am to 5pm, but some museums may have extended summer hours).

The Pixel Market Is Open: Compete for the Â£6,000 ARTE Pixel Pitch Prize

July 17, 2010 / Jane Doh

This October, after the 2010 London Cross-Media Forum, Power to the Pixel will be holding The Pixel Market, a chance for producers to pitch transmedia projects to industry heavyweights and to compete for the Â£6,000 ARTE Pixel Pitch Prize. The application deadline is August 6, 2010, and extensive instructions are available at the Power to the Pixel site.

Taking place after the October 12 Cross-Media Forum this year, The Pixel Market is a brand new two-day showcase for cross-media projects and is supported by the Media Programme of the European Union, ARTE, and the BFI London Film Festival. On October 13, Power to the Pixel will hold The Pixel Pitch, a public event at BFT Southbank. At The Pixel Pitch, twenty qualifying international teams will present their projects to the public and to a roundtable jury of financiers, decision makers, and judges. Ten of these producer-led teams will qualify to present “in competition” for the Â£6,000 ARTE Pixel Pitch Prize.

Gentrification: The Game! Comes to Toronto Next Week

July 16, 2010 / Jane Doh

Image by Alex Raynes-Goldie

On July 25, Atmosphere Industries will bring Gentrification: The Game! to life at the Pedestrian Sundays event at the Kensington Market in Toronto, Canada. This critically acclaimed public space game has already been hosted in New York and at the Hide & Seek Festival in London and has won multiple awards, including Best in Fest and Best Use of Technology at this summer’s 2010 Come Out and Play in Brooklyn, New York.

Gentrification: The Game! will give participants the chance to explore their cities and think about issues of urban renewal, local politics, and urban growth. According to their press release, players will be divided into teams of real estate developers and local residents, as they:

fight to collect real-life properties, build chain coffee shops, form BIAs, and bend the neighbourhood to their will. They’ll craft slick advertising campaigns, deliver impassioned speeches, and probably run around a bit. One part real-world Monopoly, one part public-space hacking, and one part pure spectacle, Gentrification helps players and the public think about and enjoy their public space in a new and unexpected way.

Play takes place in rounds, providing each side with different tactics such as “Slightly Creepy But Wise Neighbourhood Guy Gives Impassioned, Poetic Speech” for local residents or my favorite, “Hired Goons” (for developers, of course). Progress during gameplay is monitored both through use of sidewalk chalk and a mobile app. AnÂ article in the Toronto Star gives an interesting perspective about why the Kensington Market neighborhood is the right fit for Gentrification: The Game!

Life on the Lawn Got You Down? Join the IFILR

July 13, 2010 / Jane Doh

They’re everywhere: garden gnomes, pink flamingos, andÂ “yard art” of people bending over.Â But think of how horrible it is to stand there, day after day in all kinds of weather. Well, the gnomes aren’t going to stand there any more, and they’re fighting back. Headed by General Secretary Gnome Choamsky, the IFILR (the International Front for Inanimate Liberties and Rights) is preparing for revolution. Earlier this month, the IFILR began a recruitment drive, targetting prominent alternate reality gamers with a direct mail campaign leading to the IFILR’s website, which contains audio messages and a recruitment blog. As part of the revolution, the IFILR has solicited user-generated recruitment materials, including one crossover submission that has brought sock puppets (from the upcoming Socks, Inc., game) into the mix.

Although couched in mystery, Choamsky’s master plan, Operation Mobilize, seems to promise real victories for the long-oppressed lawn ornaments. In Operation Mobilize, the gnomes plan to create an army of self-aware gnomes to fight for inanimate rights. The IFILR has also kidnapped Richard Dzubinski, an executive from EnviroCorps, the leading manufacturer of lawn ornaments, and imprisoned him in one of his warehouses. Trapped inside, Richard phones in updates to the What the Warehouse blog and interacts with players through SMS texts. With assistance, Richard has managed to uncover many details about Operation Mobilize. But Richard is not alone: there’s a gnome (possibly a dangerous one) locked in there with him.

Coming Soon: New Online Experience from JC Hutchins

July 9, 2010 / Jane Doh

This week science fiction thriller writer and transmedia novelist JC Hutchins announced on his blog the start of a “groundbreaking fiction experience” that will be free and completely online. The project has been couched in secrets, but Hutchins has confirmed that it is a spin-off of an undisclosed show that airs on a major cable television network frequented by science fiction fans and other “geeks.” Fans will have to be on the lookout, but according to Hutchins, the experience opens in a few days. Updates will be available from Hutchins’ Twitter stream and through the #NewHutchFiction hashtag.

What can fans expect from this project? In his teaser, Hutchins admits “It’s about the end of the world” but doesn’t go into much specific detail, although he provides a few images that suggest some kind of catastrophic disease is on the horizon. Hutchins hopes that this will be “an authentic and emotionally resonant experience” and briefly discusses the work behind the mysterious project, including collaboration with filmmakers and model makers.

JC Hutchins is probably most widely known for his popular podcast trilogy 7th Son and for his work on the transmedia thriller with Jordan Weisman, Personal Effects: Dark Art, published by Smith & Tinker. Hutchins has also contributed to Smith & Tinker’s online collectibles game for kids,Â Nanovor.

Click here for ARGNet’s interview with JC Hutchins.
Click here for our previous coverage of Personal Effects: Dark Art.

We Lost Our Gold: 3 Pirates, 1 Ninja, 10,000 Dollars

July 5, 2010 / Jane Doh

A poor, adorable pirate-and-ninja crew have misplaced their pirate booty somewhere in the five boroughs of New York City, and if you can find it, you might walk away with a chest filled with 10,000 gold-colored dollar coins. We Lost Our Gold is an eight-part web series that will contain clues to the location of the loot. To prevent complete chaos in the city, the organizers have asked that people not dig randomly, and instead watch the videos for clues because the spot will be marked. The We Lost Our Gold website itself will be the “treasure map” as the hunt begins in earnest on August 1.

Who has 10,000 dollars to drop somewhere in New York? The creators of We Lost Our Gold are keeping this kind of out-of-game information very close to the chest, and very little can be found about them despite mainstream coverage of the project on the Huffington Post. The pirates themselves have issued what might very well be the best press release ever written.

We Lost Our Gold will be aÂ true, modern-day treasure hunt: according to the creators, “We’ve always wanted to experience the excitement of searching for pirate treasure, so we decided to give that feeling to everyone else.” That the pirates (and ninja) have made an appearance on a Times Square billboard suggests some serious resources, and at least one social media blogger has suggested that We Lost Our Gold might be a promotion for New York City tourism.

Although We Lost Our Gold doesn’t start until next month, two trailers have been released, with another trailer scheduled for July 18. The three pirates and ninja can be reached over email, and two of them, the Captain and first mate Mulligan, have active Twitter accounts. The Captain is sharing his piratical wisdom in a series of useful “pirate tips,” and Mulligan has learned to navigate the city by subway. We Lost Our Gold also has a Facebook fan page for updates, and there’s some speculating over at the Unfiction forums.

While waiting for the madness to begin, I decided to email the Captain a few innocent questions. The Captain wasn’t too thrilled about it, but still I got quite the response, edited below as an interview for ease of reading.
Continue reading