Category: Announcements (Page 12 of 16)

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.

Last Call Poker PM Chat

November 24, 2005 / Jonathan Waite

This weekend marked the end of the highly successful Last Call Poker ARG, which culminated in a large real-world event taking place in Hollywood, California. ARGN, along with UnFiction, are pleased to announce that the LCP Puppetmaster team from 42 Entertainment will be stopping by for a live post-game chat on Wednesday, November 30, 2005 at 7:00 PM PST (10:00 pm EST, 03:00 GMT) on the Chat-Solutions IRC network.

The moderated chat will be taking place in the #lastcall chat room. Attendees will only be able to speak when asking questions. If you have a question and cannot attend the event, please feel free to post your question to the UnFiction forums or email it to ARGN using our Contact page.

Minor Site Updates

October 8, 2005 / Jonathan Waite

Phew. We’ve been so busy here, playing all of these wonderful and exciting ARGs, that’s it’s been quite a long time since we’ve had the chance to update our information here. So, sit back, grab your popcorn, and enjoy the show!

As you can see, we have added some of the hot new games to come onto the scene in the last month or so to our “What’s Hot” list. Grassroots efforts 13 Books | Triskabiblios, Project Gateway II and VaporLofts have burst onto the scene, while Omnifam continues to impress.

We’ve also added Last Call Poker to our listing of the hottest ARGs — players have been arriving to the game from all over the world, many of them new to the ARG scene, and they have been treated to an exceptionally well-designed game so far.

While we wait for Orbital Colony to officially take off (November 16th is the rumored launch date), we have taken it off of our “Hot” list. As well, Conspiracy of B has seemingly become another addition to the growing list of prematurely-ending ARGs. The game started June 21 and has been inactive since the middle of September.

Hurricane Katrina Relief Fund

September 3, 2005 / Steve Peters

The images are awful. The reality is worse. Hundreds of thousands of individuals and families have been displaced or otherwise impacted by the devastation that Hurrican Katrina wrought early this week. Thousands are still stranded in downtown New Orleans. Families have lost everything they owned, and far too many have even lost loved ones.

ARGN has set up a relief fund for these victims of Hurrican Katrina. All net proceeds will go directly to the American Red Cross. Our goal is to raise $100,000 as a community for this effort. The victims of this tragedy will need help for months to come, and we’ve been told by relief agencies that the best thing we can do is to donate funds.

Please consider scraping together whatever you can, and together we can reach and exceed this goal. To donate, follow this link. Our thoughts and prayers go out to all who have been affected.

[EDIT: Due to recent complications involving PayPal and online fundraising efforts for Katrina victims, the links above will now take you directly to the Red Cross donation page. We will no longer be able to track progress of our monetary goal, but this will bypass the problems many sites have been having with PayPal. All previous donations made through our PayPal link will be immediately forwarded to the Red Cross.]

City of Domes Suspended

July 27, 2005 / Jonathan Waite

Earlier today, players involved with the City of Domes ARG (featured previously on ARGN) received an email from Jacob Trasky at Virtuquest detailing the necessity for the immediate suspension of gameplay as a response to a breakdown in the contract between VQC and its unnamed client. While the announcement was troubling and dissapointing, it was not altogether unexpected, as the game had ground to a halt weeks ago.

With the announcement, it looks as though players who had followed the game will have to wait for further developments between VQC and its client. Trasky made clear in his letter that the company has “great respect for the ARG community, players, and entities such as ARGN.COM and Unfiction.com.” He concluded by apologizing for this “unconcluded effort”. It was unclear whether or not the game would be able to continue if the compensation issues were resolved.

Email Mystery Announces “Group Read”

July 17, 2005 / Steve Peters

The publishers of the highly praised email mystery The Daughters of Freya (review) have announced a unique “Group Read” for readers of ARGN, where everyone will read the mystery at the same time, and discuss it in an online forum as it happens. The idea is to create a shared interactive experience out of what is normally a solitary activity. The story itself – about a journalist investigating a Marin County sex cult – is told through emails exchanged among the characters. But instead of reading them in a book, readers get them as part of their regular email – 4 or 5 a day over the three weeks it takes for the mystery to unfold. The mystery introduces a new and innovative way to use the Internet as a storytelling tool, and has been getting a great response from readers and reviewers alike.

In some ways, these email mysteries are much like ARGs, only without the puzzles. So, we thought it would be fun to offer ARGN readers an opportunity to experience the story collectively in real-time, much like a typical alternate reality game. The folks at Email Mystery have been kind enough to extend a special promotional price of $3.99 for those who wish to take part. The Group Read will begin on August 1st, when the first installment of the mystery will be emailed to readers.

A forum will be set up for discussion of this Group Read as it happens , so watch ARGN for details on that. If you’d like to participate, you can register here. In addition, there is a free preview with the first three emails from the mystery available here.

EDIT: The discussion forum for Daughters of Freya has been set up here.