Category: Announcements (Page 3 of 16)

Capture the Pheon: The Smithsonian’s Latest Alternate Reality Game Debuts September 18

Smithsonian Pheon logoTwo warring factions, the Staves and the Knaves, try to restore balance after intruders from the “real world” (the Seers) have upset their virtual world called Terra Tectus. From the makers of Ghosts of a Chance, the Smithsonian’s new game Pheon will debut this month with a live event at the Smithsonian American Art Museum, in Washington, DC, on September 18, from 12pm to 6pm. In addition to creative activities, the live event will feature clues somehow encoded into a belly-dancing performance.

A modified version of Capture the Flag, Pheon will divide participants into one of the two factions, and an online questionnaire will determine if you are a Stave or a Knave. Individual players and teams will complete various missions and tasks related to the museum’s art collections to earn points and advance the game’s plot. Players will go through three levels of play (Neophyte, Acolyte, and Lamplight Council) before they reach the final stage and are able to “write” missions to challenge lower-level players. Gameplay will be enhanced by character interactions, with the ultimate goal of capturing the Pheon, a virtual talisman that will restore balance to Terra Tectus.

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The Earthly Frames’ Debut Album Invites Remixing and Chaotic Fiction-Making

The Earthly Frames is a one-man band from Maryland spawned from the mind of web game developer Gabriel Walsh. Combining live guitar and vocals with samples from country, folk, and pop music, Walsh’s sound is a thick, heavy, and brooding experience pierced with beautifully melodic moments. Earthly Frames, Volume 1, is an album only available on custom USB drives through Perhaps Transparent Records. More than an album, though, the limited-edition custom USB drive contains the elements of a true piece of chaotic fiction in the making. In an interview with music blogger Lightning Fay, Walsh admits that this debut release from The Earthly Frames is a first attempt at exploring “ways a band and fiction or concept art could interesect.”

Each custom USB drive contains the five songs in The Earthly Frames, Volume 1, as well as samples (loop AIF files and RX2s) free to use in your own music. In addition, each drive contains a unique “fragment” file, which could range from images to PowerPoint Presentations to text files and more. Together, the files form some kind of chaotic uber-narrative, bringing together real and unreal elements of the somewhat autobiographical, certainly mysterious story of the origin of The Earthly Frames. Participants are encouraged to share the fragment files at a forum at Perhaps Transparent Records. There are already a few fragments posted for viewing and use.

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PICNIC 2010: A Preview of Things to Come

PICNIC will be holding its fifth annual conference at the Westergasfabriek in Amsterdam from September 22-24 this year. PICNIC is a conference/festival in beautiful Amsterdam that started out as the “Cross Media Week Festival.” And while it is becoming harder to define every year, PICNIC describes itself as “a festival that blurs the lines between creativity, science, technology and business to explore new solutions in the spirit of co-creation.” ARGNet is pleased to announce that we will be a partner of PICNIC 2010, and are able to offer our readers a discount towards registration. Details on applying the discount can be found at the end of this article.

This year’s conference theme is Redesign the World, focusing on innovation in Life, Cities, Media and Design. Speakers include PICNIC veteran Charles Leadbeater (author and former advisor to Tony Blair), Cory Doctorow (co-editor of BoingBoing and author of the novel Little Brother), Jeff Jarvis (journalist and former creator and founder of Entertainment Weekly), and YouTube phenomenon Moldover (the “Godfather of Controllerism”). For further information on the program, check the conference’s Speakers or Program Highlights to learn more about this year’s PICNIC.

The conference attracts attendees from a wide variety of backgrounds, including “creative agencies, artists, scientists, designers, marketers, brand managers, content producers, (new) media experts, government leaders, programmers, investors, lawyers, entrepreneurs, freelancers, inventors, technology providers, games developers, services providers, students and teachers.” If you are looking for an idea of what to expect, take a look at ARGNet’s previous coverage of PICNIC.

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Help New England Patriot Vince Wilfork Recover His Stolen Super Bowl Ring!

Be sad for New England Patriots nose tackle Vince Wilfork (#75). Someone has stolen his precious Super Bowl XXXIX ring, and now Big Vince needs your help to get it back.

Help Vince is an local interactive marketing game for the New England Patriots that integrates SCVNGR, a location-based, check-in style smartphone app. A few weeks ago, Patriots sports bloggers received simple shirts to start the buzz, but the Help Vince game officially opened last week.

According to the official press conference, Vince brought his Super Bowl ring to his 7th annual draft day fundraiser benefiting diabetes charities. While showing the ultimate prize in American football to a lady Patriots fan, a man in a New York Jets helmet grabbed it and sped away in a vintage Pinto. In the ransom video filmed in his mother’s house, the Ultimate Jets Fan owns up to the crime and claims he just wants “the satisfaction of knowing that [he’s] smarter than the average Patriots fan.”

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The Smithsonian and the Boy Scouts of America Team Up for ScoutQuest This Weekend

This year, the Boy Scouts of America celebrates its 100th anniversary and has teamed up with the Smithsonian Insitution to create ScoutQuest, an “interactive citywide hunt” this Saturday and Sunday, July 24-25, in Washington, DC. Uncovering “links between Scouting and some of our greatest national treasures,” participants will seek out QR codes in eleven locations on or near the National Mall. By collecting codes, players increase their chances of winning a mountain bike.

Sponsored by AT&T and the smartphone company HTC, ScoutQuest involves six US government locations, including the National Air and Space Museum, the Museum of American History, and the relatively new Museum of the American Indian. Two of DC’s private museums—the National Museum of Crime and Punishment and the (highly interactive) International Spy Museum—are also included in the itinerary, as are two Boy Scout landmarks. The two private museums may or may not be charging their usual admission fees, but all the government-run museums are free, and the Boy Scout locations are public spaces.

The Smithsonian Institution has been something of a vanguard in weaving interactive, collaborative, and transmedia elements into the museum-going experience. The highly regarded alternate reality game Ghosts of a Chance from 2008 involved puzzles and ciphers integrated with exhibits at the American Art Museum and used text messages for game play. More than a scavenger hunt, a half-naked trailhead for Ghosts of a Chance dropped at ARGFest 2008 in Boston. Players from around the world were asked to create and photograph their own artifacts, which were then integrated into the narrative. Even now, two years after the full alternate reality game, a module version of the scavenger hunt is run at the museum occasionally, or at the request of groups. The American Art Museum is also participating in ScoutQuest this weekend.

A map of all the ScoutQuest locations is available here, but interested players should probably start at “Adventure Base 100,” which will be located just north of the Washington Monument. The event will be playable on July 24th and 25th during museum hours (generally 9am to 5pm, but some museums may have extended summer hours).

The Pixel Market Is Open: Compete for the £6,000 ARTE Pixel Pitch Prize

This October, after the 2010 London Cross-Media Forum, Power to the Pixel will be holding The Pixel Market, a chance for producers to pitch transmedia projects to industry heavyweights and to compete for the £6,000 ARTE Pixel Pitch Prize. The application deadline is August 6, 2010, and extensive instructions are available at the Power to the Pixel site.

Taking place after the October 12 Cross-Media Forum this year, The Pixel Market is a brand new two-day showcase for cross-media projects and is supported by the Media Programme of the European Union, ARTE, and the BFI London Film Festival. On October 13, Power to the Pixel will hold The Pixel Pitch, a public event at BFT Southbank. At The Pixel Pitch, twenty qualifying international teams will present their projects to the public and to a roundtable jury of financiers, decision makers, and judges. Ten of these producer-led teams will qualify to present “in competition” for the £6,000 ARTE Pixel Pitch Prize.

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