As we reported a few days ago, Book Three of Eldritch Errors has officially launched. The ARG has started off with plans for three nearly concurrent live events in Sacramento, New York City and Austin. Several players had a clandestine meeting with an in-game contact last night at the first event in Sacramento. The remaining two events are scheduled to happen tonight at 8pm.
Check out the Sentry Outpost or Unfiction to follow the action!
Let the speculation end! After last week’s article from Michelle Senderhauf and mention on episodes 46 and 47 of the ARG Netcast series, we turn to Schmeldritch for definitive word regarding the launch of Book Three of Eldritch Errors, the long-running Lovecraftian alternate reality game. In the January 23rd entry on the developer’s blog, Brian Clark points to a post on the Unfiction forums (as well as back to here, thankyouverymuch) as a clear indication that festivities have begun for the third installment of the experience.
Clark also notes that he is setting the bar even higher for this new stage of game play, stating, “My expectations for ‘Red Moon Rising’ are obviously higher than they were even for ‘Scream in the Mountains’,” adding, “May I recommend that experienced participants change their tin foil hats daily during Book Three and leave it at that?” If this tickles your fancy and you wish to get caught up with everything that has happened thus far, head over to EldritchErrors.com. Clark acknowledges the new people who may want to jump on board by promising, “Don’t worry that Eldritch Errors has been going since last April, Book Three was developed with you in mind. It was also developed with Book One participants in mind, as well, so you’ll have lots to discover together.”
Editor’s Note: This article is spoiler-free, for those who haven’t see the movie yet. However, outgoing links may contain spoiler information.
Who was to know that when J.J. Abrams launched the first trailer for what we now know as Cloverfield that the buzz surrounding the movie would be so powerful that the famous Mann Chinese Theater in Los Angeles would have a special midnight showing of the film? Well, we won’t say “told you so!” — in fact, we didn’t tell you much, except that there were curious web sites to be found in July of last year, and that the Ethan Haas viral web site was officially unconnected to the 1-18-08 mystery. Thankfully, there are many resources out there for fans of the movie to get caught up on what’s happened in the web campaign so far, in case (like me) you decide that today is the day you finally take a look at some of this stuff.
I began this morning by taking a look through the Cloverfield forum section at Unfiction. I thanked my lucky stars when I came across this post by TheRabbit, which summarizes the story so far, chronologically, and links to all of the relevant sites. It’s easy to follow and helps to connect some of the dots that Abrams and his crew have left along the trail. Essentially, the experience seems to be a tale of the effect of environmental misdoings, which may or may not be connected to a secret ingredient in a popular beverage. I highly recommend reading the post, which looks to be a work in progress.
From there, I surfed over to cloverfieldclues.com which has been an ongoing archive of news regarding the movie and the online experience. The owner of the site, Dennis Acevedo, was recently interviewed on the NPR show “All Things Considered” as part of a feature on the movie and the buzz that was built along the way — our own Sean C. Stacey was also interviewed, but his contribution never made it to the final edit. The Cloverfield Clues web site offers readers a chance to view archives of the in-game web sites as well, which was handy to see today, as many of the sites are “under construction” after the U.S. release of the film.
Onward I went, to the Cloverfield wiki at Despoiler, which is another great source of information and archived items. Wikis seem to be the easiest way to compile info into a trail, and this one is as comprehensive as one would hope. User contributions help to keep facts organized, while discussion is relegated to tabbed Talk pages. The latest news page has documented the recent changes to the game’s web sites, and updates are ongoing.
So now that we’re all caught up, what now? Will the experience keep going, now that the movie is out? Will we see an extended reality that further explains events as they happened in the film? Or is this it for the Cloverfield web presence? While no one knows for sure — except Abrams and his creative team, of course — it seems to be a shame if all of this goes fades into the ether.
There’s something to be said about major broadcasters who go out of their way to bring interactive content to their dedicated viewership, so when we were tipped off about the continuation of “Heroes Evolution”, the official Heroes ARG, we were quite pleased. This is the same game we began talking about almost a year ago, which we previously knew as the Heroes 360 Experience, so those of you familiar with web sites such as primatechpaper.com and YamagatoFellowship.org are going to be happy to know that the campaign will most likely continue to use these resources.
The announcement of the next stage of the game is part of a press release we dug up at The Futon Critic in which the message is clear — NBC is big on transmedia experiences. On top of announcing expansive digital experiences for new series “Lipstick Jungle” and “Knight Rider,” the release contained this:
The next chapter in the highly anticipated “Heroes” online mythology continues with “Heroes Evolution.” Fans will discover intriguing new back-story and plot twists through the “Heroes” online and mobile micro-sites. The popular graphic novel continues in originals all winter long as well.
So, we mentioned an sneak peek, right? Well, it’s waiting for you, just after the jump, so click on to bask in the glory of exclusive, unreleased content!
Much to the excitement and delight of Eldritch Errors players across the globe, it looks as if the launch of the ARG’s third book, titled Red Moon Rising, may be imminent. Book two ended with a live event chock-full of Lovecraftian horror goodness. Players and in-game characters spent the weekend together in a rustic cabin on top of Bald Knob in West Virginia. The weekend was full of good-hearted fun, camaraderie, mediocre chili and terrified screaming.
ARGers who are looking for a new game can easily jump in and play without having participated in the previous two books. Players can catch up quickly by reading the detailed Story Thus Far on the game’s meta site. Also, the puppetmasters’ behind-the-scenes blog at www.schmeldritch.com gives a sneak peak behind the curtain (for those who are into that sort of thing).
Join in on the discussion at Unfiction or the in-game forums at sentryoutpost.com.
Back in August when I wrote about 401WTF, the extended experience for Ashton Kutcher’s new reality television show “Room 401”, I predicted the rather simplistic game might expand into something more. It turns out my prediction was correct, as the Wonderland blog reports the impending launch of Nowheremen.net, “a new community-based social entertainment experience that utilizes the full Web 2.0 medium of platforms to reveal the story behind the mysterious disappearance of a brilliant computer science student, Derek Border.” Apparently, the final clue from the Room 401 experience led players to itkeepsgoing.com. The first 300 players to send their contact information to the website received the next clue in the mail which led to the Nowheremen website, an article about Derek Francis Border’s disappearance.
One of the complaints I had with the game was its general lack of purpose, as the puzzle trail lacked a cohesive plot to tie the various puzzles together. It looks like I’ll have to eat those words, as Derek Francis Border (derekfb) was the creator of the wiki and responsible for posting the show’s episodes on YouTube. Both the ARG and web series revolve around tracking him down.
The timing of this game is rather fortuitous, as an extended experience designed to compliment and coexist with a cable reality televison show guides participants directly to an online web series with relatively high production values, premiering during the WGA strike. It remains to be seen whether this is one of the first of many collaborative efforts by workers displaced in the industry shakeup, or a network-based effort to expand into new media. Whatever the case, the first episode goes live January 22nd, so catch up on the plot and keep your eyes peeled.
Click Here for the discussion at UnFiction
Click Here for the wiki
Image courtesy of CSchmitt7166
© 2026 ARGNet: Alternate Reality Gaming Network
Theme by Anders Noren — Up ↑
postcurious
simulacra
undertone
masquerade nyc
curators request
giggleland