Author: Jonathan Waite (Page 11 of 37)

Jonathan Waite was an innocent lurker when The Beast hit the Internet in 2001. From his temporary residence in Jeon Ju, South Korea, he was immediately captivated by the lush environment that had been laid out before his feet. Moving back to his hometown (Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada) in July of the same year, Jonathan continued to be involved in the burdgeoning genre of Alternate Reality Gaming, getting into Plexata and finding a voice on the forums dedicated to the game. Once Lockjaw hit in 2002, there was no looking back. Jonathan adopted the alias 'jamesi', started a fansite called GuysGuise, and the rest is history.
Jonathan can currently be found as an administrator on Unfiction's forums, as well as co-hosting the ARG Netcast audio show. In the past, he has been involved with Smirkbox, a humor site that focuses on the realm of ARGs, as well as actively creating and maintaining JMX, a puzzle trail website that is currently working (yes, still) on a second run.

As a freelance developer and consultant, Jonathan has worked on such games as Ocular Effect (for Fallen on ABC family), Reach the Future (aka Holomove, for Microsoft), Enitech Labs (for Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles on FOX) and Monster Hunter Club (for The Host by Magnolia Films). He is happily married and has two wonderful daughters.

Eldritch Errors Launches Book Three, Officially

January 25, 2008 / Jonathan Waite

Let the speculation end! After last week’s article from Michelle Senderhauf and mention on episodes 46 and 47 of the ARG Netcast series, we turn to Schmeldritch for definitive word regarding the launch of Book Three of Eldritch Errors, the long-running Lovecraftian alternate reality game. In the January 23rd entry on the developer’s blog, Brian Clark points to a post on the Unfiction forums (as well as back to here, thankyouverymuch) as a clear indication that festivities have begun for the third installment of the experience.

Clark also notes that he is setting the bar even higher for this new stage of game play, stating, “My expectations for ‘Red Moon Rising’ are obviously higher than they were even for ‘Scream in the Mountains’,” adding, “May I recommend that experienced participants change their tin foil hats daily during Book Three and leave it at that?” If this tickles your fancy and you wish to get caught up with everything that has happened thus far, head over to EldritchErrors.com. Clark acknowledges the new people who may want to jump on board by promising, “Don’t worry that Eldritch Errors has been going since last April, Book Three was developed with you in mind. It was also developed with Book One participants in mind, as well, so you’ll have lots to discover together.”

Cloverfield is Out — What Now?

January 20, 2008 / Jonathan Waite

Editor’s Note: This article is spoiler-free, for those who haven’t see the movie yet. However, outgoing links may contain spoiler information.

Who was to know that when J.J. Abrams launched the first trailer for what we now know as Cloverfield that the buzz surrounding the movie would be so powerful that the famous Mann Chinese Theater in Los Angeles would have a special midnight showing of the film? Well, we won’t say “told you so!” — in fact, we didn’t tell you much, except that there were curious web sites to be found in July of last year, and that the Ethan Haas viral web site was officially unconnected to the 1-18-08 mystery. Thankfully, there are many resources out there for fans of the movie to get caught up on what’s happened in the web campaign so far, in case (like me) you decide that today is the day you finally take a look at some of this stuff.

I began this morning by taking a look through the Cloverfield forum section at Unfiction. I thanked my lucky stars when I came across this post by TheRabbit, which summarizes the story so far, chronologically, and links to all of the relevant sites. It’s easy to follow and helps to connect some of the dots that Abrams and his crew have left along the trail. Essentially, the experience seems to be a tale of the effect of environmental misdoings, which may or may not be connected to a secret ingredient in a popular beverage. I highly recommend reading the post, which looks to be a work in progress.

From there, I surfed over to cloverfieldclues.com which has been an ongoing archive of news regarding the movie and the online experience. The owner of the site, Dennis Acevedo, was recently interviewed on the NPR show “All Things Considered” as part of a feature on the movie and the buzz that was built along the way — our own Sean C. Stacey was also interviewed, but his contribution never made it to the final edit. The Cloverfield Clues web site offers readers a chance to view archives of the in-game web sites as well, which was handy to see today, as many of the sites are “under construction” after the U.S. release of the film.

Onward I went, to the Cloverfield wiki at Despoiler, which is another great source of information and archived items. Wikis seem to be the easiest way to compile info into a trail, and this one is as comprehensive as one would hope. User contributions help to keep facts organized, while discussion is relegated to tabbed Talk pages. The latest news page has documented the recent changes to the game’s web sites, and updates are ongoing.

So now that we’re all caught up, what now? Will the experience keep going, now that the movie is out? Will we see an extended reality that further explains events as they happened in the film? Or is this it for the Cloverfield web presence? While no one knows for sure — except Abrams and his creative team, of course — it seems to be a shame if all of this goes fades into the ether.

UPDATE: Sneak Peek at Heroes 360, Now Heroes Evolution

January 14, 2008 / Jonathan Waite

There’s something to be said about major broadcasters who go out of their way to bring interactive content to their dedicated viewership, so when we were tipped off about the continuation of “Heroes Evolution”, the official Heroes ARG, we were quite pleased. This is the same game we began talking about almost a year ago, which we previously knew as the Heroes 360 Experience, so those of you familiar with web sites such as primatechpaper.com and YamagatoFellowship.org are going to be happy to know that the campaign will most likely continue to use these resources.

The announcement of the next stage of the game is part of a press release we dug up at The Futon Critic in which the message is clear — NBC is big on transmedia experiences. On top of announcing expansive digital experiences for new series “Lipstick Jungle” and “Knight Rider,” the release contained this:

The next chapter in the highly anticipated “Heroes” online mythology continues with “Heroes Evolution.” Fans will discover intriguing new back-story and plot twists through the “Heroes” online and mobile micro-sites. The popular graphic novel continues in originals all winter long as well.

So, we mentioned an sneak peek, right? Well, it’s waiting for you, just after the jump, so click on to bask in the glory of exclusive, unreleased content!

UPDATE: Oceanic Air Flies Again

January 1, 2008 / Jonathan Waite

SPOILER ALERT — This article reveals information that may nor may not have meant to be found by now. Read at your own risk.

As we reported yesterday, there’s a new alternate reality game starting up for acclaimed television series Lost, known as Find 815. According to the Lostpedia, the action revolves around Sam Thomas, a former employee of fictional Oceanic Airlines who is discouraged by the lack of progress in the search for Oceanic flight 815. For those unaware of what this all means, the simplest explanation is that many of the castaways on the TV show were on the doomed flight, which has driven the plot and mythology of the series, soon entering its fourth season.

Players of the game have discovered a wide range of content connected to the game, including web sites, email, a voicemail number, various videos and even a few hidden secrets. As with any new ARG, players are dissecting every aspect of the game, and in the process, discoveries have been made in the last 24 hours that indicate that certain game elements aren’t as secure or hidden as the game designers might have hoped for. In the instance of a guest post on the Unfiction forums, a directory was apparently left unprotected, allowing a player to gain access to game assets. Another issue that defies explanation, for now, is why the mysterious login form at the front of the Maxwell Group web site is actually hosted on find815.com.

The game is expected to run until late January, when season four of Lost kicks off. We’ll keep an eye on things as this new experience marches on.

Various Links:
Find 815 – Trailhead
The Maxwell Group web site
Recording of outgoing voicemail (link leads to recording, not official site)
NetNinja archive of game videos

Comments not working? Our bad…

December 31, 2007 / Jonathan Waite

So, if you are the type of person to comment on articles here at ARGNet, thank you. If you are the type of person who tries to comment and then notices that their comment fails to show up, we apologize. Some of the comments from the last month (or, in some cases, two months) slipped by us and landed in the junk comments bin. We were able to go back through the queue and publish some of those comments tonight, so if you were one of those people who thought we were censoring your point of view, we apologize (again). The way our comments are approved and published is something we have to explore in the next few weeks, so hopefully this sort of thing doesn’t happen again.

Have a happy new year — see you in 2008!

Book Two of Eldritch Errors comes and goes, PM chat tonight!

November 7, 2007 / Jonathan Waite

Now that Book Two of Eldritch Errors has wrapped up, the people behind the curtain are eager to get together with ARG players to talk about things, and so tonight at 9 pm ET, you can join Brian Clark, Brooke Thompson and a few other distinguished guests in the #stfeline room on the Chat-Solutions IRC network (irc.chat-solutions.org). If you’ve never accessed IRC chat before, you can use our handy-dandy chat applet here at the web site — simply pick the room from the drop-down list and give yourself a nickname, and join in the fun!

In case you’re not up to speed on all things EE, the puppetmasters have their own behind-the-scenes blog at Schmeldritch.com, where they have commented on a very interesting (and somewhat creeptastic) three-day live event that occurred late in October. While we missed the boat on live coverage (sorry!) you can read all about it at Sentry Outpost, the in-game forums for EE, through Biff’s summary post, as well as Mapmaker’s four-part detailed recap (part 1, 2, 3 and 4). From all accounts, it was a nerve-wracking, intense, unforgettable experience.