Category: Rumors (Page 17 of 18)

“Our Colony” An ARG-ish Viral for the Next-Gen Xbox?

April 7, 2005 / Steve Peters

Rumors are flying this morning that the team-based puzzling site Our Colony is in fact a stealth campaign for the upcoming Xbox 2. Some are even going so far as to speculate that 4orty2wo Entertainment of I Love Bees fame is behind it all.

So far, Our Colony has been flying below the radar to a point. A cryptic email was received by an Unfiction member almost a month ago, and a small cadre of folks from there have been playing along in a team-based puzzly mission-style game. Some of the “rewards” have come in the form of screenshots of what can only be described as a sneak peek at new Xbox hardware.

The very first mission involved sending in pictures of the OurColony ant symbol in various locales. In addition, there’s a countdown timer on the site that will reach zero at 8pm PDT on Thursday, May 12. We’ll keep you posted on this, as it may not be too late to jump in and catch up.

Discussion at Unfiction
Lounge at OurColony (link fixed)
Chat in #ourcolony (irc.chat-solutions.org)

[ED. NOTE – 4:30pm PDT]: Despite the rampant speculation to the contrary, ARGN has confirmed that 4orty2wo Entertainment is not behind “Our Colony.”

Rumors: Virgil, King of Code

March 29, 2005 / Steve Peters

Our intrepid researchers at the Alternate Reality Gaming Network have turned up something interesting. Virgil is an erstwhile artist/game designer, as his website, www.virgilkingofcode.com, attests. He’s had quite an interesting history, along with some tragedy that caused him to take a break from games for a while.

But it seems Virgil is finally designing games again, and has begun with a project based on the life of a friend of his, Nisha Roberts. Nisha runs Last Resort Retrieval, a company that tracks down and recovers stolen artwork.

Some further investigation leads us to believe that this is indeed a rabbithole for a new ARG, unrelated to any currently running games. We’ll post updates as further details become available.

EDIT: Some more digging has revealed that this ARG is going by the name “The Art of the Heist.”

Dare to Look up to God

March 7, 2005 / Steve Peters

Well, it seems there’s never any shortage of strange things received in the mail around here at the ARGN ultralounge. Today, we received a cryptic greeting card, which is not unusual, being the popular folks we are. At first we thought it was just another birthday card, but the greeting was a little……odd:

“Dare to look up to God,” it advised. Erm, OK. Either someone was very concerned about my eternal well being, or it was….A CLUE! Looking closer, the background revealed faint text and a series of tables with number on them. Inside, it was simply an unsigned page with the text, “Do You Dare?”

Well, yes we do, as a matter of fact, so the ARGN staff leapt into action and promptly went off to the internet anagram server, which led us to Good Polkadot Route, which of course led us to goodpolkadotroute.com, which led to……….nothing.

OK, seeing as we’re getting ready to head out to the Game Developers Conference, things were promptly turned over to the fine folks at Unfiction to chew on. So far, nobody’s solved anything, but there’s no telling where these things may lead. After all, we didn’t think much of that bear full of honey last summer, and look where it took us.

So, chalk this up as another mystery ARGN delivery, for what it’s worth. YMMV.

Discussion at Unfiction.

In other news, stayed tuned throughout the week for reports from the Game Developers Conference 2005 in San Francisco. Folks are about to take major notice of Alternate Reality Gaming, and we will be there to report on all the fun!

The End of the World, Rumors, and Grassroots Startups

March 2, 2005 / Steve Peters

Seems there’s lots of stuff simmering right now in the ARG world. The problem is, nothing seems to be quite breaking the surface yet. While some point to major mainstream projects, there are numerous instances of grassroots efforts struggling to launch and get attention.

Perplex City seems to be in its final stages of development, as well as getting a good amount of press. No hint yet on when the official launch will be, but a recent email and video indicate that it’s got to be getting close. Meanwhile, players are still waiting and watching for the announced Still Life Extended Reality Game to show further signs of life.

On the rumor front, there are reports cropping up about strange sightings of graffiti, posters and television bumpers all with the same slogan in Latin: “Omnium Finis Imminet,” which loosely translates to “The end of all things is near.” Popular wisdom is that this is a viral effort leading into the upcoming Spielberg adaptation of War of the Worlds or some SciFi miniseries. The photos of the graffiti do seem to be photoshopped, and are better in quality and composition than your average amateur would take, so there does seem to be something going on here.

Meanwhile, there are quite a few grassroots projects attempting to gain momentum. These include Project Ashcroft, Synagoga, Entrapment, and Albrecht Wasser. As with any indie game, play at your own risk, as your mileage may vary.

Slumberil: Matrix Online ARG?

January 5, 2005 / Steve Peters

The highly anticipated game The Matrix Online is scheduled to be released this spring. Beta testers of the game noticed a billboard advertising a sleep-aid product called Slumberil, and subsequently discovered slumberil.com.

Call us jaded, but we’ve gotten our hopes up before, hoping that a game-related site is an ARG trailhead, but then being disappointed to find out that it’s merely an atmospheric site, nothing more (as in recent game-related sites for the Myst and Grand Theft Auto series’). Nevertheless, a little digging reveals a juicy login page, a mailing list signup, and mysterious emails from someone named pandora.

The fact that there’s a spring release of Matrix Online increases the likelihood that this will turn into ARG goodness, but we’ll have to wait and see for now.

Discussion at Unfiction.
Chat in #slumberil

Neurocam: Australia’s Latest Mystery

December 20, 2004 / Steve Peters

If you’ve been driving around Melbourne Australia lately, you may have noticed billboards telling you to “get out of your mind,” and pointing to Neurocam.com. Apparently, those who sign up on the website have been given missions of varying degrees of complexity to complete, such as delivering a locked briefcase to a complete stranger. Failure to complete their mission will ostensibly result in serious consequences. Nobody seems to know who’s behind it, or what it’s promoting, if anything. Metafilter denizens are already comparing it with Fight Club, The Game, Mayday Mystery and The Beast.

A little poking around the Neurocam website reveals very little, but that in and of itself seems a little ARGish to us. Checking the site registration reveals that neurocam.com is the only site hosted on its server, and is registered to what appears to be a bogus address in Beverly Hills. In addition, an unprotected directory on the site reveals some rather interesting images. [EDIT: Seems someone’s been watching us. The images in question were removed soon after this article was published. You can now find them here.]

So, is it an ARG? Marketing tool? Cult recruitment technique? Drug running front? Hoax? We’ll keep an eye on this, but for now will file it under Undetermined.

Discussion at Unfiction