Author: Jonathan Waite (Page 18 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.

ARG Netcast, Episode 13: You Can’t Handle The Truth

February 18, 2007 / Jonathan Waite

In our last episode before migrating the netcasts to a shiny new web site, we reflect on the many, many emails we received in response to Episode 12. Episode 13 assembles the same panel as last week, which (in case you missed it) includes Jessica Price, Nicko Demeter, Jackie Kerr, Sean C. Stacey, Brooke Thompson and Jonathan Waite. Subscribe to the ARG Netcast feed through FeedBurner or via iTunes.

A Disclaimer, A Discussion
The views expressed in the ARG Netcast do not necessarily represent the views of ARGNet. The opinions offered in the ARG Netcast are those of the panelists, and should not be assumed to be factual reporting for the ARGNet web site. We discuss this for a bit, just to make sure we leave no stone unturned.

Game News

A new Nine Inch Nails game is out in the wild (starting at www.iamtryingtobelieve.com). It may or may not be a 42 Entertainment game. Nicko has been playing and talks about what’s in the water. Head over to the Unfiction forums for discussion.
The Monster Hunter Club summary from molecularr has been published! Also, The Host movie screening was last Monday and included in-game character yumminess!
The Gumshoe interactive radio play has been postponed until Wednesday the 21st of February, due to inclement weather.
There’s a new game called The Wyoming Incident making waves at the UF forums. With 32 pages of threads so far, we’ll need some help from helpful listeners in sorting out the details for the next netcast.
The Vanishing Point post-game chat finally happened yesterday (Saturday), and Jessica was a moderator. She talks about the chat, and Rob from Neowin sends in a special message for the ARG community.
Lost Envelope is a new marketing campaign that Nicko has started… and finished playing, with less-than-awesome results.
MeiGeist had a live event in Bristol. At airtime there wasn’t much to report, but Russell_k at Unfiction sent us a link to his summary post. Thanks Russell_k!

ARG Netcast, Episode 12

February 13, 2007 / Jonathan Waite

Episode 12 of the ARG Netcast series is supersized! Why, you might ask? The answer lies within the netcast itself, with three monster discussions on ginormous topics that found their way into this week’s agenda. So, if you don’t want to hear about how the Receda Cube was found in Perplex City, or how the Deus City creative team has responded to one of their players, or about the true meaning of This Is Not A Game, then stay away! However, for those interested, listen in as the panel consisting of Jackie Kerr, Jessica Price Brooke Thompson, Sean C. Stacey and Jonathan Waite and first-time panelist Nicko Demeter discuss these topics, and more. Note: we’re having substantial problems with audio lately, so we’re sorry for the quality of this netcast, which is not the best. Subscribe to the ARG Netcast feed through FeedBurner or via iTunes.

Game News

Oh joyous day, the Receda Cube has been found! Of course, we talk about the center of attention in the Perplex City game, which officially ended (Season One, anyway) with the discovery of the Cube by Andy Darley, an admired and loved Unfiction forums member (Rand0m). Darley writes about his adventure here, and here. Also, here and here. Finally, here is the end of his tale. He’s a great storyteller. Aside from Darley’s discovery, we dish on how clues might have been given to one particular group and not the overall player base, and wonder why Violet was Combed Thunderclap, and how she knew about quirkyacuity.com months in advance of the site being registered.
Deus City has responded to a player who offered suggestions, help and bug reports by asking her to leave the game, citing Terms of Service violations. We’ve got the details! We also discuss how players might become confused by the gameplay, given that two of the characters in the game are real people.

Yay for Player Summaries! An Update on “Meigeist”

February 7, 2007 / Jonathan Waite

After weeks of our pleading in the ARG Netcast series for player input on games, given the fact that we just don’t have the time, resources or energy to be actively participating in all 173 (seemingly) alternate reality games going on at any given time, Karl “Thunderwolf” Smith was kind enough to step up to the plate and offer up an abbreviated summary of the Meigeist ARG that is currently turning heads and creating buzz. Here’s Karl with the latest:

Hi guys, I’ve just listened to your latest podcast, and so I’m writing in on behalf of all of us currently playing Meigeist. I’m really impressed with the game so far – the puzzles have been coming in steadily, we’ve had 10 already and the game’s not even been up and running a month. They’ve started off fairly easy and have gradually been picking up… a nice learning curve for new ARGonauts. The level of interaction has been very high; many people have received letters and phone calls, voice mail messages, picture-texts, the works. It’s shaping up to be very action packed, and we’ve all got our fingers crossed for live events too. Obviously as it’s being run here in the UK a lot of the events are in a GMT time frame, but people outside the UK have received letters and phone calls too, so it’s certainly not limited to UK players only.

As far as the storyline goes, it’s certainly starting to heat up now. What started as a search for a missing cat has started delving into the realms of hypnotism and mind control. There’s some great characters too. We all care about Eva, and so now we’re all worried after her latest video blog… has she disappeared for good? Add to that Bryan Wilson, the professor with a heart of gold who may well have a sinister hidden agenda, and the enigmatic Keir Jones, who is now apparently being surveilled by the very people he was keeping tabs on… but can we really trust him?

ARG Netcast, Episode 11

February 6, 2007 / Jonathan Waite

So, after hours of post-recording edits for Episode 11 of the ARG Netcast series, the audio quality for one side of the conversation is terrible at best. Don’t let that dissuade you from listening though, as this week’s roundtable is as entertaining as it is informative. Regular panelists Brooke Thompson, Jackie Kerr, Sean C. Stacey and Jonathan Waite are joined this week by Jessica Price, ARGNet writer and Unfiction forums moderator. Subscribe to the ARG Netcast feed through FeedBurner or via iTunes.

Game News

The Heroes 360 experience moves along, albeit very slowly. There is a lovely player wiki (yarr, there be spoilers) that has been created, so hopefully the game gains a bit more momentum, soon. Also, see this Blogspot page for more (spoilers ahoy!) information.
Meigeist is getting love from afar. They also have a nifty player wiki which will get you caught up in less time than you can say “Save the cat, save the world.” Although, you’d sound silly saying that.
Perplex City players are pretty darn close to finding that cube, we hear. Something about a rock, and a Jurassic… something. They also have some pretty cool plans for the reward money.
Monster Hunter Club explains away some advertising, and characters show up at the Today show.
Puzzle of the week: A grid puzzle needs reconstruction (and deconstruction) for Monster Hunter Club. See this thread at the Unfiction forums for more details.
The VirtuQuest people send us a response to our questions about Township Heights. Jackie weighs in on the “mildly insulting” situation. Then the rest of the panel piles on.
Check out this beautiful mock-up (totally unofficial, we understand) of the Neowin-Unfiction branded AMD chip. This will apparently be possible thanks to the winner of the meta puzzle of the Vanishing Point game. Neowin/Unfiction for the win! We also report on the now-postponed VP post-game chat with 42 Entertainment, so ignore that part when you get to it.
Studio Cypher will be releasing the fourth chapter in their Multiplayer Novel soon, called High Stakes.
Jessica talks about her experiences with Ravenchase, which you can also read about in her outstanding ARGNet article.
Jane McGonical is going to be the first ever female keynote speaker at the Game Developer’s Conference in March. We couldn’t be happier for Jane and wish her the best!
ARGFest is less than a month away.
We let the cat out of the bag about ARGNet’s partnership with SXSW for the Screenburn festival. Details will be released in the coming weeks. Brooke will be speaking at the conference, for those who can make it.

Vanishing Point Post-Game Chat Postponed

February 6, 2007 / Jonathan Waite

A quick but important update about the post-game chat announcement we published late yesterday — the post-game chat with members of 42 Entertainment that was scheduled for later today has been postponed indefinitely. According to Neowin, the sponsors of the Vanishing Point game (Microsoft and AMD) want to wait until the list of winners is announced before chat takes place. As soon as we get word on the date and time of the rescheduled chat, we’ll let you know.

Vanishing Point Post-Game Chat Scheduled for Tomorrow

February 5, 2007 / Jonathan Waite

Sorry for the short notice, but we thought it would be good for us to mention that the Vanishing Point post-game chat will take place tomorrow (February 6) at 4 pm EST (3 pm CST, 1 pm PST, 9:00pm GMT) through the magic of SkypeCasting. The chat will be co-moderated by people representing two of the largest communities who actively played the game — Unfiction and Neowin. According to the Neowin announcement, the chat will be organized into six sections — Game design, Puzzles, Community response, Behind the scenes, Media response/Live events and Miscellaneous. For those of you without the Skype software, you can download it for free at their web site.