Category: News (Page 163 of 183)

Zoe’s World, Aware Sequel Teaser

May 2, 2005 / Steve Peters

From the “Something May Be Going On Here” file:

Out of the numerous, shall we say, interesting emails ARGN received this week came the following:

â€œThe residents of â€œ3rdâ€ live along side us, and watch our every move but also keep their distance. The populous of â€œ3rdâ€ are there to protect us and watch over our interests. Occasionally holes (or leaks) are found in the boundary between dimensions and sometimes â€œ3rdâ€ is seen by us, but normally mistaken as paranormal activity.

The 5th dimension is a dangerous place, and houses the demons and evils in our lives. 5th is usually safely contained, however some problems are occurring and holes are appearing.

Time is limited, and the residents of our secret neighbour need our help.

PROVE YOUR WORTH.â€

Perplex City Explodes into Play: Introduces New Concept, Controversy

May 1, 2005 / Larry Eisner

If youâ€™ve been living in a cave for the last year, and donâ€™t know about Perplex City, now is the time to get up to speed. Sente Kiteway, the headmaster of the Perplex City Academy, has informed us of a missing priceless cultural artifact: The Cube. Itâ€™s here on Earth, and up to us to find, for a large monetary reward. Until recently, things have been slow in the coming:

First, just over a year ago, was Project Syzygy, apparently a site designed to gather players and build hype for the gameâ€™s start, which ended up soft-launching nearly a year later. The next site to show up was PerplexCity.com, which contained some cryptic pictures and an email sign-up, allowing those who wanted to play an avenue to register. Quite some time later, a video that started yet more pre-game, albeit with more hunting around for newspapers around the world, and ended with a real-life interaction at Abbey Road in London, UK.

Art Of The Heist: Bi-Coastal

April 28, 2005 / Jonathan Waite

Indio, CA / New York, NY The ARG phenomenon, The Art Of The Heist, continues to immerse players in its storyline with another event planned for the night of April 29th in New York City. The following day, another game tie-in will occur in Indio, California at the world famous Coachella Valley Music Festival. This real world interaction is quite impressive, as it’s been a few years since an ARG has successfully held events on opposite sides of the continent within such a short timespan of each other.

Location33 – A Trip Through Time and Space

April 28, 2005 / Jackie Kerr

For anyone wishing to explore their city through their ears and the voice of the future, Will Carver, a student with the Interactive Media Division at the University of Southern California, has created a “location-based sci-fi folk album” that unravels as the player pieces together musical clues streaming from locations in Culver City, California. By connecting to the game network in Culver City via cell phone or PDA, the player is able to unlock a musical story while moving between the 20 nodes as they walk the path of the composition from day to day, turning Carverâ€™s location33 into a week-long, interactive aural experience for the player.

Cows With Guns

April 25, 2005 / Steve Peters

Like something out of The Far Side, pedestrians in Maryland were recently startled to see a trio of cows (ok, not real cows, but humans in cow suits) leap from a van and begin accosting passersby, handing out cowbells and other swag that seemed to be promoting a Cow Revolution website, www.bovineunite.com. If you haven’t visited this site yet, you need to go there. Now.

Prepare yourself for the upcoming cow revolution. Seems our bovine friends have had quite enough of our milking them for all they’re worth, among other indignities. But they’re not just mad, they’re planning on getting even, and claiming their right to greener pastures in the process. Bovine Unite includes links to a cow blog, cow forum, and numerous media files including videos of cows pumping iron and the Bovine National Anthem. All of this is in preparation for “C-Day” on May 5th, when their nefarious bovine plan will go into effect.

Speculation abounds, but whoever’s behind all this had done a good job hiding their tracks. Web denizens are pointing to everyone from Chick-Fil-A to PETA, but the fact that events seem to be localized solely to Maryland seem to indicate otherwise.

So, keep a close eye on any cows that live near you, and be sure to stop by www.bovineunite.com on May 5th and tune in to the Cow News Networks between 8:45 and 9:00 PM (yeah, no timezone) for “further instructions.” We biped milkers are going to have to stick together to make it through this.

No, not an ARG. But pretty dang funny.

Discussion at Unfiction

More Awards for Alternate Reality Games

April 24, 2005 / Steve Peters

Recognition for Alternate Reality Games is continuing to build with yet more media-related awards and nominations announced this week.

Regenesis Extended Reality won the FITC Design & Technology Award for Convergence. The FITC is one of Canada’s largest annual new media festivals. You can check out all of the winners at the FITC 2005 Awards website. In addition, ReGenesis Extended Reality was nominated for a Canada New Media Award for a Cross-Platform Project, which is arguably one of the top awards in Canada. The Canadian New Media Awards will honour individuals and companies in 19 categories on May 30th in Toronto. Congratulations, Xenophile Media!

If you missed Regenesis when it originally aired, it’s been announced that Season I will be shown on Canada’s Global Television Network this fall, effectively exposing the series to a much bigger Canadian audience. Additionally, Regenesis is scheduled to air on the Sci-Fi Channel in the UK this summer. Whether or not a replay of the extended reality game will occur in conjuntion remains a mystery at this point, however.

As we previously reported, I Love Bees is up for a 2005 Webby Award, although its run for a People’s Voice Award seems to be undeservedly out of reach at this point. The Webby Award winners will be announced at a gala celebration on June 6th at Gotham Hall in New York City, while the People’s Voice Award winners will be announced on May 3rd.

With all the mainstream recognition ARGs have been getting lately, we can surely look forward to seeing more and more of them in the very near future.