Author: Steve Peters (Page 11 of 25)

Original Owner, Godfather of ARG
Steve was the creator and original owner of argn.com. After three years of authoring articles, Steve moved on to bigger and better things at No Mimes Media. During his time here, Steve was also one of the puppetmasters for the popular ARG Project MU. He is affectionately known as the Godfather of ARG.

Biding Time With Immersive Fiction

January 24, 2005 / Steve Peters

What’s becoming known as Immersive Fiction seems to be gaining popularity of late. While not really ARGs per se, works of immersive fiction often have enough ARG-ish elements to them to merit a second look, as they might definitely feed the need for those of you waiting around for the “next big game,” (and you know who you are!).

Web-based episodic entertainment is nothing new. There are websites and communities such as EpiGuide dedicated to the genre, and while websoaps and the like have been around for quite a while, some of these episodics have made an effort to become more interactive/immersive.

Past examples of this include Online Caroline, in which you ‘make friends’ with Caroline, a Bridget Jones-ish character who gets caught up in a humorous nefarious plot. The narrative takes the form of emails and pre-recorded webcam vignettes that utilize information you’ve provided about yourself or opinions you’ve given Caroline. She’ll even bug you if you don’t stop by the site for a few days. This database driven personalization made Online Caroline very unique, and resulted in the reader feeling intricately involved in the story. As far as we know, you can still experience Online Caroline for yourself, which takes a minimum of 24 days to play out, and is free.

Looking for something new? A few current examples of Immersive Fiction include Gaelph and The Daughters of Freya. Gaelph is the story of a little girl who, by consequence of some ancient prophesies and circumstance, is exiled from her childhood home. So far, the story has provided some ARG-ish puzzles for the readers to solve in order to continue the story. Gaelph takes place in real time over the next few weeks/months, and is free. (discussion at Unfiction)

The Daughters of Freya by Michael Betcherman and David Diamond is a unique new mystery novel told through emails exchanged between characters in the story delivered straight to your inbox, just as if the they had copied you on the emails they’re sending to each other. The story revolves around Samantha Dempsey, an investigative journalist who gets an assignment to do an article on a Silicon Valley sex-cult, and as with any good mystery, includes sex, murder and intrigue.

Readers receive a few emails at random times every day over the three weeks that it takes for the mystery to unfold. The Daughters of Freya is $7.49, but you can receive the first 3 emails for free.

Sharp’s Urns ARG Announces Winner

January 22, 2005 / Steve Peters

Sharp’s promotional ARG, Legend of the Sacred Urns, announced a winner tonight in their alternate reality treasure hunt. As posted on the Steinitz Puzzlers Forum, the Contest Grand Prize Winner was Ohio’s Ken Floss. Ken was the first to submit a correct answer identifying the location of the third sacred urn back on Dec. 1st. There were also six sweepstakes winners drawn at random from those who submitted entries.

Beginning back on September 15th, a series of Sharp TV ads featuring an orange Karmann Ghia crashing into a swimming pool directed observant viewers to moretosee.com, which led to the Steinitz Puzzlers site. There, players learned about fictional eccentric treasure hunter Dagobert Steinitz and the three urns he’d hidden for other adventurers to find. The game led to various blogs and websites where players were able to find clues pointing them to the final urn’s location.

For being the first to submit the correct location, Ken will receive a Sharp Home Entertainment System, consisting of a Sharp 45-inch Aquos LCD TV, a Sharp digital video player and Surround Sound amplification system.

Urns was produced by Mike Monello (the producer of â€œThe Blair Witch Projectâ€) and Brian Clark of GMD Studios in Orlando.

Lenny

January 20, 2005 / Steve Peters

Lenn James is a student in Sacramento. Lenn likes DDR, anime, Kevin Smith flicks, X-Box, films, and alternative music. Lenn is 21-ish years old. Lenn finally jumped on the bandwagon and started a blog.

Oh, and Lenn just received a crazy email. Something about a lost sister, type-C7.6 FW0553 communication hardware and foreign port probes. Hmmmm.

Neurocam

January 18, 2005 / Steve Peters

After almost a month of digging around by ARGN staffers and players alike, the mystery of what exactly is going on at neurocam.com is no closer to being revealed than it was a month ago.

Despite replies to curious players in various countries besides Australia, our best guess is that Neurocam is some sort of art student project. Plus, to confirm our suspicions about what Neurocam is not, their site was recently updated with the following:

“…
neurocam is not a psychology experiment
neurocam is not a terrorist training organisation
neurocam is not a corporate team-building exercise
neurocam is not a security company
neurocam is not a joke
neurocam is not an ARG…”

So, there you have it.

Regenesis Post-Game Puppetmaster Chat: January 31, 2005

January 11, 2005 / Steve Peters

The Production team behind the Alternate Reality Game for the recent Canadian TV series Regenesis will be featured in an upcoming moderated IRC chat on Monday, January 31st, 2005 at 5:00pm Pacific/8:00pm Eastern. They will be fielding questions and giving a behind the scenes look at the world that’s been consuming them for the past 15 weeks.

Regenesis’ final episode will air January 23rd, bringing the accompanying ARG portion to a conclusion as well. The Regenesis Extended Reality, as it was called, was developed by a team at Xenophile Media, and was groundbreaking in that it was the most extensive Alternate Reality Game that has been officially tied to a television series to date.

Regenesis was a biotech thriller produced for Canada’s The Movie Network/Movie Central that premiered on October 24th. Players of the Extended Reality received emails from the game during the show’s airings, and gathered together on ingame boards at ScienceSucks.com to figure out the nefarious goings on at the North American Biotechnology Advisory Commision (NORBAC).

The chat will be moderated (attendees will only be able to speak while asking questions) and is scheduled to last about an hour and a half.

When: January 31st, 2005 at 5:00pm Pacific/8:00pm Eastern
Where: #regenesis on irc.chat-solutions.org (browser-based access here)

Book Release: “This Is Not A Game: A Guide to Alternate Reality Gaming”

January 10, 2005 / Steve Peters

A new book is scheduled to hit the shelves that will really have a big impact on Alternate Reality Gaming. This Is Not A Game: A Guide to Alternate Reality Gaming by Dave Szulborski will be available in e-book and print-on-demand format in mid-January 2005 and in a traditional print version in February 2005. An MP3 book “on tape” will also be available. For a limited time, the first 2 chapters of this book are available to download for free!

Dave is the creator of several successful and critically acclaimed Alternate Reality Games including Chasing The Wish and Urban Hunt. From the book’s website:

Some of the founders and leading lights of the newest and hottest trend in entertainment announced today that they have joined forces to produce the first ever how-to book on the subject. Titled This is Not a Game, the new book promises to be a how-to resource for the casual game developer and media strategists alike who wish to explore the genre of Alternate Reality Gaming also called immersive gaming….

…While Alternate Reality Gaming has been around for several years, the recent phenomenal success of the online game “I Love Bees“, produced by Microsoft and Bungie to promote the release of the much anticipated video game Halo 2, has brought thousands of new participants into the genre and launched Immersive Gaming into the mainstream consciousness once and for all. ARG/immersive gaming has been featured in media venues such as CNN, Trendcentral, BBC, New York Times and countless other sources as of late.

This is Not a Game provides a concise and easy-to-understand explanation of the alternate reality game and why so many major marketing and entertainment companies are now turning to immersive gaming and marketing efforts to promote their biggest product releases. Tracing the roots of the genre back to the earliest days of online interactive fiction up through the most recent alternate reality games, This is Not a Game allows anyone, regardless of their level of knowledge and experience with the Internet or online gaming, to jump right in and become fully immersed in this exciting and engaging new form of entertainment.

The new book will also contain contributions from author and media theorist Joseph Matheny, ARGN founder Steve Peters, professional stage illusionist Ben Mack with website and cover design by cutting edge gaming artist Denny Unger of Worldworks Games.

Keep an eye on immersivegaming.com for future announcements and details as they become available.