Category: Announcements (Page 8 of 16)

A Call for Help: Folding the Wish

April 18, 2008 / Michelle Senderhauf

Folding the Wish crane As ARG players, we often receive cries of help from mysterious strangers. Over the years, people in this community have banded together to help these strangers no matter what the task. We’ve found missing loved ones. We’ve defeated dangerous cults. We’ve saved the world countless number of times.

This time it isn’t a mysterious stranger who needs our help, but one of our very own community members. Dave Szulborski, puppetmaster of countless ARGs over the years including Chasing the Wish and Urban Hunt, has recently fallen ill and will be undergoing treatment for the next several weeks.

So what can you do? Fold him a wish.

There is an ancient Japanese legend that says that anyone who receives one thousand paper cranes will be granted one wish. A few community members have been furiously folding cranes and we need your help.

How to fold a wish:

1. Find a square piece of paper.

2. Write your well wishes for Dave on the paper.

3. Use the paper to make a paper crane.

4. Stick the crane in the mail. Email varin[at]foldingthewish.com for the mailing address.

We will be stringing the cranes together and sending them to Dave by May 2nd. If for some reason you cannot make your own crane or won’t be able to get it to us in time, we will make one for you. Just email us your wish for Dave. We’ll also be compiling a list of the wishes for Dave to read so that he doesn’t have to actually unfold all one thousand cranes to read them. So please be sure to let us know what your wish is if it’s hidden inside the crane.

Check www.foldingthewish.com for updates on the project.

Extra, extra! ARGNet iEdition has arrived!

January 29, 2008 / Jonathan Waite

Hey, we like to think that we’re pretty tech-savvy individuals here at ARGNet, with at least one of us owning one of those sorta-new-fangled iPod Touch device thingies. Well, on a whim this weekend, I decided to adapt a WordPress plugin called iWPhone into our Movable Type installation, which you can see at iphone.argn.com. Heck, that interface might be the preferred view for people who don’t use Apple devices!

We are going to be moving things over to WordPress in 2008, but are having CSS issues, so it’s still a work in progress. Rest assured, we’re constantly looking for ways to improve the site, both visually and with functionality. If you fine, fine readers ever some across a problem with the site, shoot us a message and let us know about it.

Comments not working? Our bad…

December 31, 2007 / Jonathan Waite

So, if you are the type of person to comment on articles here at ARGNet, thank you. If you are the type of person who tries to comment and then notices that their comment fails to show up, we apologize. Some of the comments from the last month (or, in some cases, two months) slipped by us and landed in the junk comments bin. We were able to go back through the queue and publish some of those comments tonight, so if you were one of those people who thought we were censoring your point of view, we apologize (again). The way our comments are approved and published is something we have to explore in the next few weeks, so hopefully this sort of thing doesn’t happen again.

Have a happy new year — see you in 2008!

Changing the game

October 13, 2007 / Marie Lamb

Given $2600 and the resources of a major charity dedicated to cancer research, could you come up with an alternate reality game to help raise funds for a worthy cause? That’s what Six to Start and Cancer Research UK would like to find out. Adrian Hon, formerly with Mind Candy, announced the unusual contest on Unfiction last month.

Let’s Change the Game is a competition for aspiring ARG designers, with the challenge of coming up with the best game to raise money for Cancer Research UK and awareness of cancer in general. The first step for potential puppetmasters (after putting together a team with a minimum of three people) is to submit a 500-word design summary to the competition website by November 16th. The best summaries will be shortlisted and asked to submit full proposals. Complete details along with rules can be found on the Let’s Change the Game website. Judges include ARG illuminaries Sean Stewart, Rhianna Pratchett and ARGNet’s own Jonathan Waite.

It’s Been Five Long Years and I Love You Just the Same

September 26, 2007 / Jonathan Waite

On September 26, 2002, this site was born with the groundbreaking news: Forums Closed. Yes, on that day, the Godfather of alternate reality gaming, Steve Peters, relayed the sad news that the ARGN forums were closing, but this led the way to new forums at Unfiction and a new direction for this site as a news source and, shortly thereafter, a hub for community resources. Along the way, Steve found work at 42 Entertainment, which is when I was fortunate enough to be asked to take the site under my wing. The site shifted from a community hub to a full-time ARG news resource in 2006, which is what you see today on our fifth anniversary.

While we don’t have any cake to share on this wonderful day, I do have some bouquets to pass along:

First and foremost, I’d like to thank all of the current and former staff who have made this site a wonderful place to be a part of. The tireless work of these hard-working volunteers has always impressed and amazed me, so they deserve their due.

Secondly, I will thank those leaders out there who continue to dedicate their individual efforts in making sure the ARG community is a warm, welcoming place to be a part of. While we are no longer an official ‘network’ of resources, the camaraderie of the community members proves that we are as much a family as a group of puzzle-solving instant-messaging story-loving people can be.

And last, but mostly, I want to thank all of you readers who continue to make us a part of your day and your life. As cliche as it may sound, without you we’re nothing. We continue to work for this genre because we love and care for this genre, and it’s not only because of the great games, it’s also because of the great people playing them.

So, with all of that said, help us to blow out the candles and celebrate another birthday as we look forward to many more celebrations in the future.

ARGNet <3 PICNIC'07

September 4, 2007 / Jonathan Waite

For the second year in a row, ARGNet is pleased to be partnered with the PICNIC cross-media conference! PICNIC’07 takes place at the Westergasfabriek in Amsterdam from September 25th through the 29th, during which a wide variety of events and discussion will take place. This year’s festivities also include a Come Out and Play event — London and New York have also been COaP sites. Last year, Sean C. Stacey and Brooke Thompson represented ARGNet at the conference, and provided a number of articles outlining the presentations and events that took place at PICNIC’06, and Sean will be returning this year, so expect more of the same top-notch reporting as last year!

PICNIC at Night, one of the festival’s special features, is a series of concerts and exhibitions that include various aspects of cross-media entertainment, from live music by worldwide artists to virtual worlds and groundbreaking animation. These special evening events are sponsored by companies such as Red Bull and Heineken, as well as the Creative Commons organization, and should deliver enjoyable, entertaining experiences to attendees.