Category: News (Page 66 of 183)

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.”

A Tribute to Dave Szulborski

August 24, 2009 / Michael Andersen

heart After a long fight with Leukemia, our dear friend and alternate reality game developer, Dave Szulborski, Â lost the battle. In honor of his memory, Michelle Senderhauf and Dee Cook collaborated with the ARG community to create a tribute video to Dave.

From the beginning, Dave was a pivotal force in the community. In addition to authoring This Is Not A Game: A Guide to Alternate Reality Gaming, Szulborski worked on a number of successful alternate reality games including The Art of the Heist, Chasing the Wish, Urban Hunt, and Holomove. He had a knack for creating compelling puzzles that captured the interest and imagination of his players.

The ARG community sent over one thousand wish-filled paper cranes to Dave while he was hospitalized in the spring of 2008 as part of Folding the Wish. Dave Szulborski recovered enough to attend ARGFest 2008 as the keynote speaker. Sadly, he had a relapse, and his condition worsened until he passed away in April.Â At ARGFest 2009, Dave’s wife and son attended for a memorial in Dave’s honor, where the community presented them with a Memory Book of letters recounting their experiences with Dave. They also aired a tribute video, which is now available online.

Purity Towers: Funnel Productions’ Crown Jewel

August 24, 2009 / Robbie Smith

Purity Towers Logo Have you ever wanted to be Luke Skywalker, a rebel fighting for the cause of the oppressed? How about a master spy, the kind who prefers his martinis shaken, not stirred? If either of these roles tempts you, Funnel Productions has an ARG with your name on it.

Purity Towers offers players a chance to enter a world once tormented by dragons. The Peopleâ€™s Proscript Party and the Grotians, enemies who were brought together by the dragon wars, find themselves suddenly at odds again after decades of peace: and a rebellion ofÂ epic proportions is brewing. Add to this interesting plot the fact that players are given the opportunity to pick their role and which side they wish to play for, acting as everything from rebel saboteurs to party reconnoiters, and you will find a rare jewel of a game.

Head to Purity Towers and help the players shape the revolution…but keep an eye out for dragons!

A Modern Day Lobby Lud: Wired’s Manhunt for Evan Ratliff

August 19, 2009 / Michael Andersen

Find Evan Ratliff On August 13, 2009, Evan Ratliff wrote a feature article for Wired entitled Gone Forever: What Does It Take to Really Disappear? In the article, Ratliff profiles the disappearance and subsequent hunt for family man Matthew Alan Sheppard as well as the stories of other infamous missing people including Marcus Schrenker, the money manager who attempted to fake his death by crashing his plane in Florida. The article goes on to note that every year, thousands of adults decide to abandon their lives: according to a British study, two-thirds of missing adults make a conscious decision to leave.

The article inspired Evan Ratliff and Wired editor Nicholas Thompson to stage a manhunt of their own. Starting on August 15th, Evan Ratliff disappeared and challenged Wired’s readers to find him. The first person to find Ratliff, pass on the codeword “Fluke”, the name of Matthew Alan Sheppard’s black labrador, and email Ratliff’s response to [email protected] will receive $5,000. The contest will either come to a close when someone successfully locates Ratliff, or when he emerges from hiding victorious on September 15th. As Grant Hamilton at AbsurdIntellectual.com notes, this is reminiscent of newspaper contests dating as far back as 1927, when the Westminster Gazette challenged its readers to locate the fictional “Lobby Lud” based on his description printed in the daily newspaper.

ComicCon Wrapup Part 2 – The IHC

August 13, 2009 / Celina Beach

IHC As reported earlier, The Institute for Human Continuity (or IHC), a promotion for the movie “2012”,Â went live in November of last year, and visitors to their website were offered the ability to enter a Global Survival Lottery for a spot in one of their “initiatives” to save at least a portion of humanity from the global cataclysm occurring December 21, 2012. Here is a brief run-down of game activity leading up to the event at ComicCon:

– December 21, 2009: lottery ticket holders were sent an email from Dr. SorÃ«n Ulfert, PhD, the Communications Director for the IHC, announcing the launch of the full IHC website in a few weeks and an upcoming discussion with Dr. Ulfert in February. Questions for this discussion could be submitted through Dr. Ulfert’s Twitter or email. Also launched was a wiki page for The IHC.

– January 2009: The full IHC site launched and contained a lot more information – disaster scenarios, news and press info, and details regarding the IHC’s “initiatives” to help preserve mankind after the 12/21/2012 disaster. Also around this time, a new site was discovered – This Is The End, a rebuttal site to the IHC’s, written by a character named Charlie Frost (portrayed by actor Woody Harrelson). Charlie’s opinion is that NO ONE is going to survive The End, and that the IHC, while mostly harmless, are just fooling people. Along with amusing blog posts are very funny videos explaining the nature of the disaster and why no one will survive. Charlie also hosts a “radio show” from his Winnebego where he takes phone calls and answers questions.

The End… is the Beginning?

August 10, 2009 / Jonathan Waite

theihc You know when you get that feeling that you should have done something last week but you forget what it was? Today was one of those days for me, but luckily a little birdie reminded me about The Institute for Human Continuity, an ARG that launched (gasp!) in November 2008 in connection with the movie 2012. While this campaign has been going for ten months now, activity has been ramping up in recent weeks, with a letter making its way into ARGFest-o-Con 2009 swag bags, as detailed on the Unfiction forums by our own Celina Beach.

We have it on good authority that things are about to get very, very interesting in the next few HOURS, so head on over to theIHC.com (currently redirecting to instituteforhumancontinuity.org) and get your ticket for the survival lottery before it’s too late!