Category: Update (Page 11 of 41)

DARPA Network Challenge: Seeing Red?

December 4, 2009 / Michael Andersen

darpa_challenge If you see an 8-foot wide red weather balloon floating on the horizon during your commute tomorrow, don’t worry. You haven’t been transported into a Nena music video shoot. As we previously reported, DARPA will be deploying ten weather balloons across theÂ United StatesÂ as part of its Network Challenge, with $40,000 at stake.

A number of organizations have expressed an interest in putting up fake balloons tomorrow. So if you see a red balloon, here are a few tips to make sure you’ve identified a verified balloon. First, approach the balloon, making note of its number: authentic DARPA balloons will be accompanied by DARPA officials carrying appropriate credentials. Take photographs of the balloon, DARPA official, and the credentials if you can manage it: by providing proof of authenticity, your information is more likely to be trustworthy. Plus, if your camera includes GPS coordinates in its metadata, you can provide an additional form of locative verification if the team needs to double-check the coordinates.

If you have a GPS device, copy down the coordinates. Otherwise, write down the nearest cross streets and then follow the simple instructions at Lifehacker to display GPS coordinates using Google Maps. Coordinates within a mile of the balloon’s location will be accepted, so you don’t need to be exact, just close. Now, you’ll probably need to convert the coordinates into degree-minute-second (DD-MM-SS) format, which can be accomplished using this java applet.

Finally, send your information to some of the many groups engaged in the hunt. As DARPA Director Regina Dugan explained at UCLA’s celebration of the 40th Anniversary of the Internet, this task is much simpler today than it would have been in 1969. But that doesn’t make it easy by any stretch of the imagination.

Happy hunting to all the teams involved in the challenge.

GO FORTH, O PIONEERS! A Reflection on Levi’s Go Forth Campaign

December 3, 2009 / Michael Andersen

goforth “You have built a community in Grayson’s name and created cameraderie in his image. That this continues to be his legacy so many years after his vanishing is all he ever hoped for.” After digging a hole 27 paces away from a rock in Zion National Park (located at N 27’10.043″ W 113’10.650″), Laura Hall unearthed a letter bearing those words, along with a check for $100,000. This marked the conclusion of Levi Strauss’ cross-country treasure hunt that spanned the American countryside over six weeks.

It all began with a package asking the question “Who was Grayson Ozias IV and where is his fortune?” Over the next few weeks, players learned about the mysterious Grayson Ozias through a series of recordings left on wax cylinders. The messages allowed players to retrace Grayson Ozias’ journey to thirteen destinations across the country. At each location, they picked up artifacts from Grayson’s travels and met with a variety of challenges, including puzzlesolving in a county jail, strumming on a washboard while singing “When the Saints Go Marching In”, and telling tales by a campfire. After retracing Grayson’s steps, the first 100 players to correctly complete a quiz received the final clue to $100,000 in buried treasure. As the first to unravel the clue, Laura Hall received the honors of digging up Grayson Ozias IV’s fortune.

Out of Breath: A Night at Pleasure Principled

October 19, 2009 / Lewis Murphy

breathe

Lewis Murphy agreed to share his spine-tingling experiences at Pleasure Principled: A Night of Xcess in this guest post. So sit back and listen to his harrowing tale…if you dare.

On October 14th, the first part of Yomi Ayeni and Expanding Universe’s Breathe was shown for the first time at the Power to the Pixel party, at London’s County Hall. However, that was not the only thing happening that evening – previously, players who had joined the mysterious secret society Clamamus Pro Aeris received a message to be there holding a copy of TimeOut magazine. Amongst the mingling and drinking at the party, one or two suspicious waiters approached people holding the magazine and offered them a free drink. Upon receiving their free drink, they were given a VIP invitation to the Pleasure Principled Night for Xcess party… and told to arrive at 9pm, one hour before the stated opening time of the party, for free entry. A message was posted to the Clanamus group, requesting players to arrive at the venue by 9pm for “challenges.” I attended the event along with several players.

Once the shutters of the front entrance to the club opened, our group entered the empty club with trepidation. We were soon greeted by a man covered head to toe in a white bodysuit that covered his face. He silently beckoned us into the club, where we were guided by many more people in white bodysuits, including one filming us throughout with a small video camera. This was our first hint of exactly how creepy the evening would become; the people wearing bodysuits were breathing very heavily and audibly, but not saying a single word. Instinctively we followed suit, remaining silent as we approached a series of chairs in one corner of the room. There, printed sheets on a clipboard informed us the reason we were there. We would take part in a test of our strength to see if we were able to join the Clamamus Pro Aeris sect fully. Failure was a distinct possibility.

Breathe With Me

October 7, 2009 / Robbie Smith

breathe Last December, ARGNet announced plans for an upcoming game courtesy of Expanding Universe that promised to draw players into the underground club scene. The idea of a London-based murder mystery spanning several nightclubs piqued the interest of the ARG community,Â while the way Expanding Universe planned to incorporate and immerse players into that mystery drew national and international attention.

The game is set toÂ run for two weeks with multiple live events in London and three 15 minute videos. Breathe offers players the chance to not only interact with characters in real time, but also to help shape the narrative itself. Those brave enough to attend the live dance events will get the chance to socialize with the in-game characters and in all likelihood become characters themselves: possibly even accomplices to the unsolved crime.Â

This past August, players who signed up for the game at the Breathe homepageÂ learned thatÂ the months of waiting were almost at an end when theyÂ received e-mail invitations to a masked ball, â€œA Night of Xcess,â€Â a live event set to kick off the first episode ofÂ Breathe. Intrepid players next discovered Pleasure Principled, which included the dress code for the event, a list ofÂ performers attending, and instructions onÂ how to buy tickets to the ball.

Special Delivery

October 7, 2009 / Robbie Smith

Fans of 2K Games’ viral campaign, Something in the Sea had a strange encounter this past Saturday. Several players reported that they had received a mysterious telegram from the game’s hero, Mark Meltzer, advising them to be on the lookout for a package from him within the next day. The telegram itself was more than enough to excite the fans of the game, but what stood out the most to all the recipients was the deliveryman who knocked upon their door.

Mark avoided such popular delivery services as UPS, Fedex or even USPS and instead sent his parcels via Speedy Brothers. An apparent transplant from the sixties, the Speedy Brothers deliverymen made their deliveries on vintage bicycles and in full costume. One thoughtful player had the presence of mind to capture a picture of one of the rare and elusive deliverymen dropping off his telegram.

Players fortunate enough to receive the telegrams soon found themselves in possession of a splicer mask–one of the decorative masks seen in Bioshock 1 adorning the maddened splicers who attacked and harassed players throughout the game. Mark has continued his investigation into the disappearance of his daughter, Cindy, and he recently uncovered a warehouse full of Rapture artifacts. Players admired his find from afar until, unexpectedly, they found themselves in possession of the very same artifacts with a request for help from Mark.

While Bioshock 2 looms on the horizon, 2K Games is still pulling players in with an ever-evolving story and continued real world interaction. The success of Bioshock 2 remains to be seen, but the buzz and excitement 2K Games is building up around their product is readily apparent. Several video games have used viral marketing in the past but Something in the Sea continues to distance and set itself apart from those previous campaigns. The weekend deliveries made by the Speedy Brothers widen that gap and raise the bar for future campaigns.

A special thank you to Precarious from the 2K Games message boards for allowing the use of her photographs.

Evelyn Offscreen: A Brief Clarification

October 6, 2009 / Carie Ward

EvelynOffscreen Halloween makes everything weird. At any other time, a substantial number of overlapping clues would mean that two campaigns were linked in some sort of way. But throw Halloween into the mix, and what appeared to be a logical conclusion to a group of facts turns out to be nothing more than a set of bizarre coincidences.

ARGNet has been informed that the “Evelyn Offscreen” campaign is, in fact, not at all related to the Universal Orlando’s Halloween Horror Nights. While there was never direct confirmation in the game that the two were related, there were several coincidences that made it appear that they were.

1. A newspaper clipping posted in a comment to Evelyn’s blog mentions the Palace Theater. The Universal Palace Theater is a centerpiece of the Halloween Horror Nights experience.

2. Newspaper clippings shown in the videos about the Palace Theater talk about Evelyn Crane going into reclusion after a box office flop. This event is talked about in great detail on the Evelyn Crane blog.

3. The Evelyn Offscreen website talks about how live events will be playing in Orlando, FL. The Halloween Horror Nights with the Universal Palace Theater attraction is also taking place in Orlando. (The Universal Hollywood HHN has a different set of attractions.)

We apologize for any inconvenience this may have caused players.