Category: Features (Page 22 of 37)

PICNIC ’09: A Preview

September 22, 2009 / DaniÃ«l van Gool

PICNIC 2009 Wednesday September 23^rd is a day a lot of people in the creative industry have been looking forward to, as tomorrow the fourth installment of PICNIC will kick off in sunny Amsterdam.Â Previous incarnations of this intangibly sparkly conference were self-defined as a â€œcrossmedia conferenceâ€ but this year, the organization of PICNIC didnâ€™t even try to put a tagline on the event.

And I can understand why they didnâ€™t: itâ€™s hard enough to describe what PICNIC is really about, let alone catch its essence in a one-liner. The past three installments were a melting pot of creativity, attended by major and minor names from everywhere in media, art , the digital world and several other industries.

Iâ€™m really looking forward to attending again this year and reporting on the event for ARGNet. I just received notice from the people at PICNIC that the conference event is completely sold out, and the lineup of speakers is probably one of the reasons for that. I wanted to give you a short preview ofÂ things Iâ€™m looking forward to at PICNIC this year:

Accomplice Hollywood: “Legendary” ARG Experience with Neil Patrick Harris

September 15, 2009 / Michelle Senderhauf

This article is the second in a series on â€œsecret tourismâ€ spots: cities that provide immersive experiences to residents and tourists alike, as long as you know where and what to look for.

He’s played a genius child doctor and a likable womanizer. He’s hosted the Tony’s and will do the same for the Emmy Awards this year. He’s become an internet sing-along sensation as Dr. Horrible. Now, Neil Patrick Harris can add Puppetmaster to his list of credentials, as he is co-producing an ARG experience in California called Accomplice: Hollywood.

Accomplice: Hollywood is a third in a series of live theatrical experiences that send participants out into the city to find clues and interact with characters in public places. Harris describes it as, “[p]art walking tour, part murder mystery, part scavenger hunt”. After playing Accomplice: New York himself a few years ago, Harris collaborated with the original creators, Tom Salamon and Betsy Sufott, to bring the experience to the West Coast.

This third installment involves a missing starlet named Nikki Desmond. Participants purchase tickets in advance, but have no information other than the date and time of the event and a video, starring Harris himself, with some background information on Desmond. A few days before the event, participants will receive a phone call from a character with the meeting location and other details. When they arrive, they suddenly find themselves immersed in the world of Nikki Desmond. They help solve the mystery behind Desmond’s disappearance while exploring Hollywood.

The customer reviews for all three Accomplice experiences are outstanding, with an average of 4.7 out of 5 stars. This definitely looks to be a fun experience for anyone living in Hollywood or New York. Tickets can be purchased through the Accomplice website.

ROCHESTER, NEW YORK: Picture the Impossible

September 5, 2009 / Michael Andersen

This article is the first in a series on “secret tourism” spots: cities that provide immersive experiences to residents and tourists alike, as long as you know where and what to look for.

The Rochester Institute of Technology and the Rochester Democrat and Chronicle newspaper are teaming up with Microsoft Bing to transform Rochester, New York into an urban playground between September 12th and October 31st with “Picture the Impossible“. The alternate reality game plans to showcase the city of Rochester through a series of online puzzles, live events, and clues hidden within the daily newspaper. Mobile-enabled participants can even test their wits against geo-locative puzzles designed by SCVNGR. Participants are encouraged to join one of three factions, each supporting a different local charity. Players in the Tree, Forge, and Watch factions raise money for Golisano Children’s Hospital, Foodlink, and Wilson Commencement Park, respectively. The experience culminates with an invite-only Halloween ball for the top 300 contestants. Players also have the chance to win prizes from Kodak, a company originally founded in Rochester.

“Picture the Impossible” provides an excellent opportunity to develop community bonds through play, while promoting local charities at the same time. If you live in the Rochester area, give “Picture the Impossible” a try, and see if it makes you look at the city in a different light. If you don’t live in the area, maybe now is the time to visit. While the game doesn’t start for another week, registration opens today at PicturetheImpossible.com. You can also follow along by becoming a fan of the game on Facebook.

Alternate reality games are often touted for their ability to capture attention on a global platform. For example, last year McDonalds sponsored The Lost Ring, a massive alternate reality game that reportedly attracted millions of players across the world, from Beijing to Buenos Aires. The same techniques that lead to the formation of massive global communities can also serve to foster closer connections within local communities, while providing unique ways for tourists to experience cities. With hope, we’ll be seeing and writing moreÂ about these experiences in the near future.

Click Here to learn more about the game at the Bing community blog.
Click Here to learn more about the game at the Rochester Democrat & Chronicle.

PICNIC ’09: Not Your Ordinary Picnic

September 4, 2009 / Jonathan Waite

PICNIC 2009 Question: What do you get when you combine interesting speakers, special events, hands-on labs, two contests, networking opportunities, an Ignite event, and dinner? Answer: The PICNIC event in Amsterdam, which kicks off its fourth annual festival in just under three weeks!

Once again, ARGNet is proud to be a Network Sponsor of the event, which has been an annual must-see for those interested in the fields of cross-media, transmedia and social networking for the past three years. This year’s festival is the biggest yet, and it’s going to be a test of endurance for our man-on-the-scene Daniel van Gool, who will be at the conference again.

The line-up for the week is formidable and wonderful, starting with keynote speeches from such people as Peter Molyneaux (Lionhead Studios), Niklas ZennstrÃ¶m (Skype) and Ed Ulbrich (Digital Domain). Of the other speakers and presenters, Daniel will be paying close attention to Alice Taylor (Channel4), Dan Hon (Six to Start), Kevin Slavin (Area/Code), Matt Adams (Blast Theory) and Kati London (Area/Code) as they convene for the panel “Games That People Play” on September 24th. Daniel may also want to check out some of the special events scheduled for the festival — “Reality Continuum” is a really cool and interesting title which sounds like it could be fun to take in. Or maybe he’ll make his way over to the PICNIC ’09 Labs for some hands-on experiences at the Augmented City Lab. Any way you slice it, PICNIC ’09 is going to be magical and unforgettable, and we know Daniel is already counting down the days until it starts.

Of course, some of you out there are probably thinking of attending PICNIC ’09, and if you haven’t gotten your tickets yet, we’ve got great news for you. As sponsors of the event we have a special discount code for our readers, which we will tell you…. after the jump.

Is There Something in the Sea?

August 26, 2009 / Robbie Smith

In March of this year posters began showing up on the east coast warning of an undersea threat. The posters ended with a URL that led the curious to Something in the Sea: and for the past six months, the rabbit hole has wound deeper and deeper.

While the website originally only displayed a map detailing an unseen researcher’s efforts to track seemingly random kidnapping cases from around the world, the site has since evolved. Players have found themselves silent observers to Mark Meltzerâ€™s search for his missing daughter Cindy.Â Mark’s very research into the missing girls led to his own daughterâ€™s kidnapping and the collapse of his marriage, causing his obsession to take on a more personal nature as he searches frantically for any information that might lead him to his daughter.

As time has gone on and Markâ€™s search has become more desperate, he has even reached out to players for help. Those who have been willing to write to Mark and offer their assistance have found themselves receiving strange packages in the mail containing childrenâ€™s drawings or vinyl records that hint at strange monsters and unknown cities. Earlier this month, players around the world who ventured out to specific beaches that Mark indicated would hold a clue to his search discovered champagne bottles full of propaganda from that same mysterious city, buried in the sand as the sun rose on the adventurers who attended the event.

A Second Chance With Maddison Atkins

August 25, 2009 / Michael Andersen

maddisonatkins Second chances are hard to come by. But Jeromy Barber’s media design company 12th Street House decided to give his audience a second chance to saveÂ the characters Maddison Atkins and Adam Wilmott fromÂ their grisly deaths with theÂ launch of Maddison Atkins 2.0, a reboot of the alternate reality game Maddison Atkins 1.0. Barber explained at ARGFest that he “tried to recreate the plot [of Maddison Atkins 1.0] so there are a lot of things that the players didn’t know but there are a lot of overarching story [elements] that are very similar.”

In April 2007, Maddison Atkins and Adam Wilmott were brutally murdered in the small town of Nacogdoches, Texas. Fifteen days prior to their grisly murders, Maddison received a pigeon with a note tied to its leg at her doorstep. Over two years later, many of the same players who watched Maddison and Adam die returned with equal parts anticipation and trepidation to witness five pigeons delivered to the house of one Ms. Maddison Atkins. The story, which played out over forty-nine YouTube videos and nearly as many video responses, focused on Maddison and Adam’s efforts to trust a community of players attempting to help them while chasing down letters scattered across the globe, from Tucson, Arizona to Sydney, Australia. Indeed, one of the main “puzzles” of the gameplay was winning over its two main characters. As Barber unapologetically explains, “My two main characters are really stupid, and don’t know anything. But they’re very attractive…part of the game is cracking Maddison, getting to know this girl.”