Author: Jonathan Waite (Page 31 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.

ARGN Moves To New Home

December 17, 2005 / Jonathan Waite

The Alternate Reality Gaming Network has a new home on the World Wide Web. We do not anticipate any disruptions in service, but if you happen to come across any problems with the site, please use our Contact page to let us know about the oversight.

One of the features of our new host is a locally-controlled ARGN Announcement List. If you were already on the list, you should be receiving an email in the next few hours with a verification link. If you were not already on the list, you can subscribe here.

Omnifam Wraps Up

December 4, 2005 / Jonathan Waite

Players of the Omnifam ARG found themselves at the end of the road today with the addition of a credits page on one of the in-game websites. The grassroots endeavor had been playing since May of this year, and was tied to the US television series ALIAS. Scanning through the list, it shows that the team of Puppetmasters includes people who have been on the other side of the curtain for previous ARGs, such as Acheron and ARGTalk.

ALIAS-themed ARGs have had a long history, with two previous “seasons” of games. The series started as a web puzzle in its first season, and morphed into an online adventure for the sequel, both of which were created and sponsored by ABC television. While this third season was a grassroots effort, it was much more interactive and contained more elements of a traditional ARG. Sadly, with the recent news of ABC’s decision to recently cancel ALIAS, the possibility of a fourth season is very much up in the air.

Reminder: Last Call Poker PM Chat

November 30, 2005 / Jonathan Waite

A reminder to all interested parties that the post-game Puppetmaster chat for Last Call Poker is happening tonight at 7:00 pm PST. As we announced last week, the chat will be happening in the #lastcall chat room on the Chat-Solutions network.

The members of 42 Entertainment that are scheduled to be in attendance are:

Elan Lee: Lead Design
Sean Stewart: Lead Writer
Maureen McHugh: Writer
Steve Peters: Design
Patricia Pizer: Design
Jane McGonigal: Live Events Lead
Jim Stewartson: Technical Lead

We will see you in #lastcall tonight — it’s going to be a full house of fun!

Menace Media

November 27, 2005 / Jonathan Waite

About a month ago, a mysterious Instant Message appeared on the screens of at least five UnFiction forum members, asking for help. Well versed in the way of the ARG, the membership found the trail to Menace Media, which has kept a dedicated force of ARGonauts busy with IM conversations, puzzles, and emails, all wrapped around an interesting story involving the misplaced Matzai people. Looks like it’s not too late to jump on board, so get in on this one before it’s too late.

Discussion at UnForums

Wiki hosted at Patmo

IRC Chat in #menacemedia hosted by Chat Solutions

ReGenesis: A Contest and Season Two

November 26, 2005 / Jonathan Waite

ReGenesis, a well-received series being shown in Canada, has some exciting news for many, and some really exciting news for one person in particular. The big news for the masses is that the second season of ReGenesis is currently being filmed and will be ready for public consumption in 2006. With the sophomore season comes a brand new “extended reality” to compliment the story that takes place on-screen. While this is definitely great news for fans of the show, there’s more — one lucky Canadian is going to win the chance to have a walk-on role on the series! The folks at Xenophile Media have given players registered with the extended reality a chance to be flown in to Toronto and put on the set of the series. To enter, (1) be Canadian, and (2) go to the official contest website.

It seems that the fun just never stops with the hit Canadian television series. First, they debut the series on a prominent movie network and get people involved through its own ARG-style “extended reality”. Then, they re-run the series on a national network (and reset the extended reality for replay) during this fall TV season. Tack on the fact that they had one of the 10 most popular websites in a recent award show category, and one might say it was a pretty good year for ReGenesis and the team over at Xenophile. We hope that the second season is just as exciting as the first season was, and that the new extended reality brings in even more people to its wonderful world.

QU13E

November 25, 2005 / Jonathan Waite

At the beginning of the month a trailhead was discovered by UnFiction member draghkar. Quickly, a few things were discovered about the site, including the use of Fibonacci numbers in the WhoIs registration information (a sign that shows that something was definitely afoot). Players who visited the site were quickly thrust into a world of keyword discovery, coded puzzles, email interaction and poetry. While the site is not new (registered in 2004), there has been up-to-date changes and character interaction in the past month. While we’re not quite sure what QU13E is (and even less sure as to how to pronounce it), here’s your heads-up to get involved with this sooner rather than later.