Category: Features (Page 1 of 36)

The Immersive Side of Hawkins: From Scoops Ahoy to WSQK Radio

January 4, 2026 / Michael Andersen / 0 Comments

A photo-op at the Stranger Things Experience in NYC: an immersive activation by Fever

The final episode of Stranger Things dropped on Netflix on December 31st, allowing fans of the series to say goodbye to one of the platform’s biggest hits before ringing in the new year. But that wasn’t the final transmission from the franchise: for the past six weeks, the UK company Global had been operating the in-universe radio station WSQK: The Squawk as a live broadcast, and the station had one final broadcast to get through before going dark due to “transmission problems”.

Stranger Things leaned in to the story’s 80s nostalgia to engage in an aggressive list of brand partnerships over the years, and many of those partnerships took a decidedly immersive turn. So while it’s worth exploring what six weeks of radio broadcasting looked like for Stranger Things fans, this also marks an opportunity to reflect at the show’s immersive history.

WSQK The Squawk: Radio Hawkins with “Global” Reach

Partners in workplace crime Steve Harrington and Robin Buckley worked at quite a few jobs over the course of Stranger Things: they became friends at the mall ice cream shop Scoops Ahoy for season 3 before switching over to Family Video to enter the video rental business in season 4. The premiere of season 5 saw the pair taking over programming at Hawkins’ local radio station WSQK, completing the nostalgic career trifecta.

Leaning in on that nostalgia, the UK broadcaster Global partnered with Netflix to produce six weeks of content broadcast to coincide with the show’s release. Every few hours a radio bumper does remind listeners that WSQK was presented by Stranger Things, but for the most part the programming is presented as authentically as possible.

In an interview about the project, Global stressed to Rolling Stone how seriously they took getting the sound right, noting:

“Most music and sound-design elements came from genuine pre-Nineties libraries like Bruton; anything newly created was shaped to avoid anachronism. ReelWorld dissected classic American jingle packages and rebuilt them to sound as though they’d aired on a Midwestern station for decades. Modern analog-emulating plugins were used sparingly and intentionally, then remastered through a final signal chain before broadcast.

For true period accuracy, the on-air signal passes through a vintage Inovonics FM250 processor — the same model found in thousands of U.S. stations in the mid-Eighties.”

And while the focus of the broadcasts are solidly fixed on playing classic tunes, a number of interactive segments help the show come alive like Mindy Flare’s “Rewind at 9” segment that tested listeners with song identification challenges. “Talk With Tammy” invited listeners to ask for advice, while “Dial A Dedication” allowed listeners to send in messages to the show’s request line.

A Light Narrative, From an Alternate Version of Hawkins

There’s even a loose narrative that ties together the broadcasts of on air disc jockeys Vance Goodman and Mindy Flare, leading to the station’s eventual shuttering. In the lead-up to New Year’s Eve, news segments start mentioning the radio tower’s signal has started to cut out, providing updates on the station engineers’ efforts to fix it. On January 1st, realizing the station would be going offline for good, the pair offer a heartfelt farewell that manages to namecheck a frightening number of 80s hits.

Because of those engineering troubles the station is canonically offline now, but a fan archived the broadcasts, allowing for segment-by-segment replays on their website.

The King in Yellow as Found Footage Minecraft ARG

November 17, 2025 / Michael Andersen / 6 Comments

The yellow doors at the end of the “Searching For a World That Doesn’t Exist” ARG

“Whatever you do, at the crossroads, don’t turn left. Don’t be fooled. It’s listening.” This is the strange message that a Minecrafter named AVeryLargeMayo (“Avery”) discovered inside a book in his Minecraft instance. At the end of the book, there’s a cryptic cipher that Avery doesn’t know how to solve. So, he makes a video asking the internet to help solve the mystery for him. All told, the video is less than four minutes long. Which makes the 40 minute long video the YouTuber the Minecraft YouTuber Wifies makes unpacking his discoveries exploring the Searching For a World That Doesn’t Exist ARG all the more impressive…even if he is secretly the game’s creator. And it’s that clever incorporation of the “ARG Explainer” video format as part of the ARG’s content that makes this Minecraft ARG so fascinating.

At least on the surface, this alternate reality game is handed to viewers as a fully-solved and crisply edited package, explaining (almost) everything and leaving little to the imagination. And yet, there is still considerable value in going to the “source material”, as none of the game’s three narrators are fully reliable.

Unlocking the First Layer: An Introduction to D3rlord3
The puzzle that Avery presents as the initial call to action in his video remains unsolved, at least at the beginning of the video: it doesn’t quite work as alphanumeric cipher, and similar attempts to treat it like a book cipher are quickly thwarted. Instead, Wifies falls down the rabbit hole by examining an inventory menu that flashes briefly onscreen during Avery’s video…a glitch in the system.

Wifies discovers that taking the first letter of each inventory item (and capitalizing the letters if there’s more than one of the item in the stack) spells out the location of a Google Drive link. So, the first image of a light block would be the number “1”, the three zombie heads in the second slot would become a capital “Z”, and the vine in the third slot would become the letter “v”.

When Wifies checks the URL, he finds the Google Drive link contains three files: two of these files are ~100 minutes of “raw” footage of someone playing Minecraft, and the final file is a PDF of an info doc from an anonymous Minecraft player, noting that the videos represent their “exploration into a strange tunnel I found in my minecraft world.” The rest of the video is Wifies’ account of what he uncovers through those video files from a user we’d later learn goes by the username D3rlord3.

Translating a Minecraft inventory into a website URL is infinitely easier when you made the puzzle

Notably, this is only a puzzle that works when explained in retrospect: the numbers could have just as easily represented indices into the words, and interpreting the blank space as underscore presumes that the solution will be a Google Drive link. But since this is a puzzle constructed to be presented as solved, none of that matters. The link wouldn’t even need to exist, since Wifies helpfully explains everything you’d need to know about its contents.

And yet, the Google Drive link does exist. You can watch the full 100 minutes of D3rlord3’s exploration. AveryLargeMayo’s channel also exists, so you can confirm the secret message is present, and watch him win at a game of SkyWars.

Stephen Sondheim Loved Puzzles More Than You

November 3, 2025 / Michael Andersen / 1 Comment

Image of the custom Ouija board from Midnight Madness 2025, photo by Chase Anderson

It’s Saturday evening. A team of six puzzlers have spent the past five hours traveling across New York City for a hunt, and just decoded a sequence of responses from a custom Ouija board: the answers to the thirteen questions they had just asked spelled out GPS coordinates to a nearby office complex. Upon arriving at their destination, they rush past the Alamo Drafthouse to reach their next destination: a non-profit filled with vibrantly decorated pianos, arranged in rings of four. Multicolored stickers adorn several keys on each piano, practically begging to be played. And identifying the songs they’re about to perform is only the first step.

This experiential snapshot was from the charity puzzle event Midnight Madness. Famed composer and playwright Stephen Sondheim was not directly involved in the creation of this hunt, and none of his songs were featured in the puzzle that unfurled as teams tickled the ivory. And yet, as Barry Joseph argues in his new book Matching Minds with Sondheim, that event (and many more like it) might never have happened had it not been for Sondheim’s passion for puzzling.

Joseph makes an incredibly compelling case, tracing Sondheim’s influence through everything from puzzle hunts and cryptic crosswords to escape rooms and even board games. The book highlights how the puzzles and games that Sondheim created as intimate gifts for friends, family, and colleagues shaped the modern puzzling landscape.

A copy of Matching Minds with Sondheim, along a puzzle bookmark mirroring a Sondheim puzzle

In Good Company: Sondheim’s Surprising Puzzling Cameos

Much of the thrill of Matching Minds with Sondheim comes from learning how deeply embedded Sondheim was across early puzzling communities. Fans of Sondheim’s musicals might be surprised to learn that he moonlit as New York magazine’s first puzzle editor, starting with the magazine’s launch in 1968. During that tenure, he helped popularize the cryptic crossword format to American audiences, simplifying elements to be more approachable. And while Broadway fans may have been familiar with his longtime friendship with fellow composer Leonard Bernstein, the fact that he created a series of three narratively linked board games known as The Great Conductor Hunt to celebrate the man’s 50th birthday is less publicized.

Even Sondheim’s Broadway casts were enlisted into his puzzling fun. For decades up until his death in 2021, cast members would receive puzzles as elaborate opening night gifts…from custom engraved beans bearing a message of thanks for Into the Woods, to jigsaw puzzles with the recipient’s initials etched into the pattern.

Whether your puzzling passion leads you into the realm of video games (he was an avid fan of games like Myst), puzzle boxes (he had an extensive collection) or game shows (Sondheim spent years trying to hunt down a clip from his highly successful appearance on the game show Password), Matching Minds showcases Sondheim’s deep and abiding love for play.

Each of these forays into puzzles and games showcases a man infatuated with the many ways puzzles and games can spark creativity and inspire passion. In terms of puzzling tomes, I turn to AJ Jacobs’ The Puzzler as a tour of passionate puzzling communities. But Matching Minds with Sondheim may be my new reference book for showcasing why someone might fall in love with puzzles in the first place. And that celebration shines brightest (especially for ARGNet readers) in Barry Joseph’s section on treasure hunts, and The Murder Game.

Masquerade: NYC’s New Immersive Musical Launched With a Secret ARG

September 29, 2025 / Michael Andersen

Free cherry dipped ice cream from Masquerade was only the start of this particular adventure…

It’s the second night of Previews for Masquerade, and I’ve just finished seeing Andrew Lloyd Webber’s newest immersive musical take on Phantom of the Opera. While comparing notes with a friend from the NYC immersive community, a man dressed in black approaches. Leaning in conspiratorially, he quietly tells me: “You see? Everything I told you was true.”

The man who approached me was a ghost hunter named Sean Hunter, who was at the center of a months-long alternate reality game teasing the release of Masquerade. The musical just finished Previews with a gala event, last night. To celebrate, here’s an overview of how we got to the Masquerade.

The Masquerade ARG: A Popup Homage to New York City
At its core, Masquerade teased the show’s existence with a series of popup experiences, celebrating New York City. As ARGNet previously reported, it started with the immersive show’s historic venue itself: to prepare for the show’s transformation, the windows of Lee’s Art Shop were liberally covered with newspapers. Upon closer inspection, however, many of these papers were referencing the history of Phantom of the Opera in New York City. And scattered in between the real papers from the city were a few in-universe papers about L’Opera Populaire.

Shortly after fans noticed this detail, a series of masks started popping up at locations across the city, with luggage tags bearing MasqueradeNYC.com on one side, and the message “if found please call 212-505-5666”. Calling the number (now Masquerade‘s business line) would trigger a voicemail message featuring a music box playing the song Masquerade, slowly winding down before an ominous voice states “he’s back”. The following day, a series of mirrors with the Masquerade logo appeared across the city. Each time, the MasqueradeNYC Instagram would post a story with a picture of where to go, for those curious enough (and quick enough) to find it. A full accounting of these events is listed below.

KFC Launches Special Blend of 11 Secret Codes and Puzzles

July 22, 2025 / Michael Andersen

KFC’s newest commercial, starring a secret QR code puzzle on celebrity chef Matty Matheson’s arm

Colonel Harlan Sanders was obsessed with fried chicken, even before he convinced a cafe owner to sell fried chicken with his special blend of 11 herbs and spices. Enough so, that KFC’s newest commercial is a 75 second homage to the obsession that gave birth to the Kentucky Fried Chicken brand.

With this focus on obsession front and center, it’s no wonder the commercial snuck a QR code on Matty Matheson’s tattoed arm, kicking off a deviously challenging series of 11 secret codes and puzzles to celebrate the herbs and spices that built an empire. The first person to solve each of the puzzles? They’re rewarded with 11 months of free KFC for their efforts.

The “(one of the) first to solve” message presented to prospective winners

KFC gets extremely creative with their advertising. Celebrity casting for commercials is fairly standard for major brands, but starting in 2015 KFC went out of its way to surprise fans by cycling through a full roster of celebrity Colonel impersonators. Darrell Hammond was the first to take over the finger-lickin’ mantle, but was quickly supplemented by everyone from beloved comedians like Norm MacDonald and Jason Alexander to more surprising picks like Reba McEntire and RoboCop. But it’s the company’s stunt marketing that truly shines: it’s been almost a decade since the release of the free romance novella Tender Wings of Desire to celebrate Mother’s Day, but I still keep a copy on my Kindle. The company doubled down on their thirst trap branding by releasing a free dating sim that’s still available on Steam.

The commonality between Tender Wings of Desire and I Love You Colonel Sanders! A Finger Lickin’ Good Dating Sim? They’re highly enjoyable experiences that recognize what makes the source materials work so well, and pay homage to it. And I am happy to announce that KFC’s puzzle hunt for the overly obsessive continues that tradition with a series of challenging yet creative puzzles. So, we’re going to do this article a little different. If you’d like to give the puzzles a try yourself, go to The11Secrets.com, and see what you can uncover. Keep on reading to be spoiled on a selection of those 11 puzzles and to learn why I’m so effusive in praise for them.

Again: what follows will be absolutely riddled with spoilers.

MIT Mystery Hunt and the Case of the Shadow Diamond

May 30, 2025 / Michael Andersen

The custom-built radio was one of many centerpieces of the MIT Mystery Hunt in 2025

It’s late on a Friday night, and our team of investigators have tracked down a lead while investigating the theft of the Shadow Diamond. We’re instructed to send a core group of aspiring detectives to the gala to try and track down the thief. Once our group assembles at the gala event, a helpful bartender tunes our radio to the proper channel, and set us off on a narrative scavenger hunt that weaved across over a dozen buildings on the MIT campus, tracking down the locations of eleven blue paw prints. The twist: since this was a noir detective adventure, our audio helper only saw things in black and white, so many of the colorful signposts along the way were described in shades of gray – fifty, to be exact.

Eventually, our team realized that the film noir world of MITropolis we traced layered perfectly over a map of the MIT campus itself, and that cross-referencing the clues we discovered along the way paired with the locations of those Blue Clues spelled out the identity of the thief.

A map of Downtown MITropolis, used in conjunction with the results of a real world audio adventure

Armed with a name, our full team went up to the gala to confront the thief…only to discover that the culprit was murdered, and the diamond near the body was a fake, covered in scuff marks. Luckily, we were recognized for our efforts and upgraded to trainee detective status.

The MIT Mystery Hunt Means Something Different Every Year
At this point, the MIT Mystery Hunt might be the most covered immersive experience on ARGNet, with articles discussing the hunts in 2011, 2012, 2016, 2018, 2021, 2022, and 2023. And while the site skipped coverage of the annual event in 2024, that was because I was part of the team running that year’s hunt.

Some things have been constant about the MIT Mystery Hunt over that time. Hundreds of extremely smart puzzlers gather at MIT (either in person or virtually) over MLK Day weekend to push the boundaries of what a puzzle can be – both as puzzle constructors, and as solvers. There’s a narrative tying that experience together, structured around “feeder” puzzles, and meta-puzzles that use the answers of those feeder puzzles as inputs into a broader puzzle challenge. Teams have a long weekend in January to make it through the puzzles. And the reward for finishing the hunt first is a coin-like object, paired with the responsibility for running the next year’s Mystery Hunt.

Beyond that, the Mystery Hunt becomes an aspirational exercise in what the event can be, presented by teams that are excited about the event for very different reasons. And one of the most compelling questions asked by Death & Mayhem with their 2025 Mystery Hunt The Case of the Shadow Diamond was what it means to be a puzzle hunt community, in the first place.