Category: Previews (Page 7 of 19)

Will Wright’s Bar Karma: One Step Closer to Collaborative Entertainment?

October 22, 2010 / Brandie Minchew

How often have you thought to yourselfÂ I could have written that better after watching an episode of your favorite television show that fell below your expectations? Game designer Will Wright‘s new television series may give you the chance to do just that.

Earlier this month, Current TV announced its new tv series, Bar Karma, scheduled to debut in the first quarter of 2011. Created by game designer Will Wright, known for his popular video games includingÂ The Sims andÂ SimCity, Â Bar Karma‘s production model promises to provide a high level of audience involvement with the show, giving viewers direct control of the plot as the story evolves in 30-minute episodes.

Wright has designed interactive technology for Current TV’s audience-produced material that will be adapted to the production of Bar Karma. Current TV’s press release for the show lists four steps in the episode development process:

Step 1: Joining â€“ viewers register and log on to the Bar Karma website.
Step 2: Creating â€“ participants submit their own storyboards based on a basic outline provided by the producers, which all participants can then comment on, discuss, merge ideas, and hammer out a final plot.
Step 3: Voting â€“ participants will vote on the finalized story proposals.
Step 4: Producing â€“ Once voting is closed, the studio will produce the winning storyline, and the episode will then air. Episodes will be 30 minutes in length.

Open Source Convention Planning: ARGFest 2011 General Meeting This Sunday

October 6, 2010 / Michael Andersen

Every year, alternate reality game developers and players assemble at ARGFest to talk shop, discuss recent innovations in the field, and find exciting new locations to discuss future plans while partaking of drinks sporting umbrellas. This year, ARGFest’s planning committee is aiming for transparency throughout the process, and will be holding a General Meeting this Sunday, October 10, online at 1PM EST.

ARGFest has pulled off some impressive activities since its humble beginnings in Las Vegas. At ARGFest 2008 in Boston, attendees watched The Dark Knight alongside creators of the film’s viral experience, took part in The Lost Sport as part of an alternate reality game for the Olympics, and witnessed a bodybuilder clad only in a banana hammock flex for the crowd. The following year in Portland, attendees donned cardboard and tinfoil robot costumes for an invigorating round of Robot Speed Dating, experienced the premiere of the 10-minute alternate reality game Mime Academy, and learned of the early days of the genre at the feet of Jordan Weisman. Â This past summer in Atlanta, the Transmedia Artist Guild officially announced its formation, Jim Babb trained attendees in the delicate art of sockpuppetcraft, and Ian Pottmeyer led a rousing game of No Talent Required, a quickfire artistic showdown.

Clearly, ARGFest has a strong history of bringing together strong panelists and engaging events, but according to Unfiction creator Sean Stacey, it’s “the impromptu discussions between sessions and events that make ARGFest all double rainbows and shit. Â It’s a good place for ARG and transmedia enthusiasts of all stripes to get together and concoct crazy ideas, such as she-crab.” Based on anecdotal evidence, a number of alternate reality games and partnerships have spawned out of casual conversations in hotel rooms and hallways across the country.

Creating the perfect world for ARGFest’s fruity bounty is a daunting task for the ARGFest staff, and they need your help to make ARGFest 2011 more delicious than the cocktails at a tiki bar.Â Think you have an idea for a great location, panel, or event? Interested in adding your voice to the discussion on how to make ARGFest 2011 a resounding success? Log on to IRC on Sunday at 1PM EST to join the conversation. Â The discussion will take place in the #argfest channel on chat-solutions. If you’re less accustomed to IRC, you can get there by clicking on ARGNet’s chat link, selecting a username, and then typing /join #argfest.

We Lost Our Gold: 3 Pirates, 1 Ninja, 10,000 Dollars

July 5, 2010 / Jane Doh

A poor, adorable pirate-and-ninja crew have misplaced their pirate booty somewhere in the five boroughs of New York City, and if you can find it, you might walk away with a chest filled with 10,000 gold-colored dollar coins. We Lost Our Gold is an eight-part web series that will contain clues to the location of the loot. To prevent complete chaos in the city, the organizers have asked that people not dig randomly, and instead watch the videos for clues because the spot will be marked. The We Lost Our Gold website itself will be the “treasure map” as the hunt begins in earnest on August 1.

Who has 10,000 dollars to drop somewhere in New York? The creators of We Lost Our Gold are keeping this kind of out-of-game information very close to the chest, and very little can be found about them despite mainstream coverage of the project on the Huffington Post. The pirates themselves have issued what might very well be the best press release ever written.

We Lost Our Gold will be aÂ true, modern-day treasure hunt: according to the creators, “We’ve always wanted to experience the excitement of searching for pirate treasure, so we decided to give that feeling to everyone else.” That the pirates (and ninja) have made an appearance on a Times Square billboard suggests some serious resources, and at least one social media blogger has suggested that We Lost Our Gold might be a promotion for New York City tourism.

Although We Lost Our Gold doesn’t start until next month, two trailers have been released, with another trailer scheduled for July 18. The three pirates and ninja can be reached over email, and two of them, the Captain and first mate Mulligan, have active Twitter accounts. The Captain is sharing his piratical wisdom in a series of useful “pirate tips,” and Mulligan has learned to navigate the city by subway. We Lost Our Gold also has a Facebook fan page for updates, and there’s some speculating over at the Unfiction forums.

While waiting for the madness to begin, I decided to email the Captain a few innocent questions. The Captain wasn’t too thrilled about it, but still I got quite the response, edited below as an interview for ease of reading.
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Breathe Revived as Recurring Event

June 8, 2010 / Lewis Murphy

Yomi Ayeni’s Breathe was an interactive experience taking place over 3 weeks in October 2009, resulting in the creation of a movie released in 3 parts. At its height, it included immersive live events such as a club night following an initiation ceremony for a secretive, clandestine society. The game attracted a dedicated core following as well as a more general audience attending events such as the club night. Now,Â Expanding Universe has plans to transform the experience into a recurring event either later in 2010 or in early 2011.

The events should hover in between the full experience and a normal movie screening. While the film will still be shown in its original three parts, attendees will be encouraged to visit websites and explore the story in various ways between showings of the filmed episodes. Participants will have access to a portal specifically created for the event, where various sections of the wider story will be unlocked in a calendar format as the movie progresses. These may include websites, phone numbers, extra video content and more, some of which will be exclusive to the events. The live events of Breathe’s initial run were fully filmed in anticipation of such redistribution, and with the permission from those involved, may also be used as part of the storytelling platform.

Attendees will be encouraged to discuss their findings in groups; Yomi believes that this will further understanding of the story as a whole, as individuals can bring their different perspectives and findings to the discussion. Much as participants of the original experience were able to act as “beacons” to bring the experiential parts of the story to the wider audience, it is hoped that people discovering different story areas and content can come together to discuss these as a whole. These exploration and discussion sessions will help to preserve the wider and richer experience of the story to supplement the absence of real-time events. At the end of the full screening, there will be a wider talk and Q&A session with the audience to cement understanding of the story.

66 Letters: A German Psychothriller ARG

April 25, 2010 / Jane Doh

66letters
An online literary puzzle, 66 Letters,Â is a psychothriller alternate reality game opening in May. Players will collaborate and test their detective skills to investigate a cold case, and clues will offer a previewÂ for a new book that will soon be published by German publisher Bastei Lubbei.

66 Letters is the latest project of viral marketing experts, vm-people, whose most recent project was Die Zeit wird knapp [Time Is Running Out], promoting Rachel Wardâ€™s book Numbers. Vm-people is also behind the German-based Pirate Society as well asÂ Charlotte Is Becoming Real, which brought two American players to Germany for its grand finale.

Currently, visitors to the 66 Letters homepage are rerouted to the Folge dem Kaninchen [Follow the Rabbit] website, where they can register for updates for this game and for other projects from vm-people. All this activity has been well-met by the vibrant and active German ARG community, which has gelled around the German-language news blog ARG-Reporter and meets socially every month in Berlin. In the future, the Folge dem Kaninchen website will open up for a more international audience, but for now, the site is only in German.

Come Out and Play in Brooklyn this June

March 26, 2010 / Marie Lamb

Get ready for another exciting edition of Come Out and Play!Â This New York-based public games festival is gearing up for its 2010 edition, which will be headquartered at the Lyceum in Brooklyn’s Park Slope neighborhood June 4-6.Â The Festival has extended its deadline for submitting games to April 19th, so if you have an idea for a fun game, there’s still time to get involved. The Festival planners are working with game designers to refine their ideas and make sure they fit the location and scope of the event. Past games presented/debuted at COAP include Cruel 2B Kind by Jane McGonigal and Ian Bogost, as well as Jane’s Cryptozoo and the Lost Sport of Olympia, Ken Eklund’s Spy School, and TAH II, which was an extension of TAH, an alternate reality game produced by Cultural Oil.

I spoke recently with Greg Trefry, Festival Co-Founder and the author of “Casual Game Design: Designing Play for the Gamer in ALL of Us,” to get some details on what to expect this year.Â Greg says there will be a mix of games requiring tech and not, and is very enthusiastic about location-based games that leverage tech like smartphones and apps for play.Â Festival sponsor SCVNGR, known for their smartphone based geo-gaming tech platform, will be presenting their own game, but CEO/Chief Ninja Seth Priebatsch was not forthcoming with details. “Well, I can’t tell you too much about what we’re going to be showing off (it’s some sweet new features) but in general it’s in the same vein as what SCVNGR’s all about; making building and playing location-based mobile games fun, quick and easy.”

Greg says that while no games have been officially accepted and announced yet, the popular “Circle Rules Football” from last year’s event will be returning, and he expects a great mix of games, including “weird new sports.” He would love to see submissions for ARGs and games that include ARG elements, as he feels location-based games and ARGs dovetail nicely by using the content of the real world and blurring the lines to enrich the experience of gameplay so you’re “not sure if you’re looking at the game any more.” The real world “is the highest resolution thing you’re gonna play,” he notes.