Category: Update (Page 22 of 42)

UPDATE: Clowning Around Pays Off at Comic-Con

July 27, 2007 / Jonathan Waite

When Stephen Sondheim wrote Send in the Clowns, chances are good that he didn’t expect anyone to take him at his word. However, for 140 lucky participants, Friday morning at Comic-Con included a chance to become one of the Joker’s gang. If you haven’t met the Joker, perhaps it’d be best if you brushed up on your vigilante hero folklore. As it turns out, the Caped Crusader wasn’t around to stop the mob from taking over the streets of San Diego, moving effortlessly from location to location, many being aided by associates with Internet access, in an audition to fill one of the coveted slots in the Joker’s army. As it turns out, however, the luckiest of the lucky became real unlucky, real quick. Okay, not really — but it makes for a good comic book ending.

Now that I’ve thoroughly confused those of you that haven’t been following along with the happenings at whysoserious.com, let’s backtrack a bit. First, there were a number of uncommon dollar bills making the rounds at the Con last night, leading to the discovery of a creepy looking web site and a countdown. Next came the end of the countdown earlier today (10 am PDT) and a clue for the throngs of people ready for something big to happen. Once the game was on, it was a race that required a coordinated effort between those on the ground and people on the ‘net (unless you carried a Wifi-enabled device with you along the way) that took players to eight different checkpoints over 100 minutes of game play.

UPDATE: Comic-Con and whysoserious.com

July 27, 2007 / Jonathan Waite

A quick update, for those following along at home: The countdown on whysoserious.com has ended, and a large group of participants have begun to play along with what appears to be a treasure hunt/puzzle trail. Those active on the ground need to either have Internet access, or help from friends that are able to solve online clues. A toll-free number (1-800-395-9646) was given to players at the Con, which leads to the next step in the trail (audio can be heard here). You can watch progress and play along at the following web sites:

Trailhead (you need the code from the audio delivered through the 800 number)
Surveillance
Wannabes (not sure what this is for yet, although chances are it will be a leaderboard of some kind)

Stay tuned — there will be more to come, including a summary of the day’s events, later on ARGNet.

Why So Serious?

July 26, 2007 / Celina Beach

Hey everyone! I have BREAKING NEWS here from Comic-Com!

Purchasing some overpriced “Stargate Atlantis Collector Edition” bottled water, I received a VERY unusual dollar bill in change.

George’s face has been obscured and replaced with a… can it be… somewhat JOKER-like face, and the caption below reads “WHYSOSERIOUS”.

This, of course, leads us to www.whysoserious.com – could the Joker be looking for recruits?

Join the puzzly goodness at http://forums.unfiction.com/forums/ or online IRC in #unfiction!

Odina Nova Event Scheduled for Today

July 17, 2007 / Jonathan Waite

It’s been a while since we’ve heard anything about Odina Nova, but thanks to a tip we received last week, we can report that the game is still on, and there is a major event scheduled to happen today. This comes as good news to the players still hanging on, as activity over the last month has been sporadic at best.

Esteed at the Unfiction forums has found a new web site at which some of the game’s mysteries are revealed. According to the tip we received, this is the path towards the “final push” of the game, and that new players can catch up with the game’s story quickly with the information on this new site. There has been progress during the course of the day, so check in with the Unfiction thread for updates as well.

Click here (or here) for our previous coverage of Odina Nova.

World Without Oil: The Post-Game Press Release

July 13, 2007 / Jonathan Waite

Editor’s Note: Thanks to Voleine Amilcar at ITVS for this update!

(San Franciscoâ€”July 12, 2007)â€”At the end of the 32nd week of the global oil shock, things were looking up. Gasoline prices stabilized in the U.S. â€“ at around $5.60 a gallon, down from a high over $7. Companies were starting to hire again â€“ but more than 2 million people had lost their jobs. Cities were beginning to address more than $1 billion in damage from riots and civil disorder. And in some of the FEMA camps set up outside metro areas, handfuls of people were leaving agricultural work to return home. But among the citizen-journalists chronicling the crisis at www.worldwithoutoil.org, the watchword was caution. â€œIt should be clear of all of us,â€ warned Blueski, a blogger in Americaâ€™s heartland, â€œthat this is just a taste of what is to come.â€

Produced by the design team at Writerguy, WORLD WITHOUT OIL leveraged the power of people connected by the Internet to imagine the actual events of an oil shortage, document them and innovate solutions. As the event concluded, the grassroots website at www.worldwithoutoil.org had captured a vivid and visceral picture of what our next oil shock might look like, in the form of 1,500 blog pages, videos, images and audio clips documenting the crisis. â€œWe provided the narrative skeleton,â€ WWO Creative Director Ken Eklund said. â€œThe players fleshed out the story of this alternate reality game.â€

Live from Ludium II

June 26, 2007 / Michelle Senderhauf

Editor’s Note: ARGNet’s Michelle Senderhauf is attending and reporting from the Ludium II conference, put on by Indiana University’s Synthetic Worlds Initiative.

This is Michelle Senderhauf reporting live from the Ludium II conference at Indiana University in Bloomington, Indiana. The conference is being run in game format which is interesting since the conference itself is about developing principles for sensible video game policy.

The Ludium game has two goals –

1. to develop a set of policies regarding synthetic worlds that will be sent to real world governments and
2. vote a single person as our de facto spokesperson for the ideas in the platform.

We’re in the second day of the Ludium conference and the group has reached a point where we 33 nominated policy statements and 3 nominees for the Speaker.

Of interest to ARG players, the conference has had its share of intrigue. Several “spies” are playing the game and are trying to derail the process. Also “reporters” are roaming the hall trying to get a scoop. Also, several of the conference attendees or players have thrown a wrench into the puppetmasters’ plans. Overnight, several players tried to merge members from their opposing groups into one large group. A response for this was not written in the game rules that were originally laid out so the puppetmasters were sent scrambling.

These events have brought up many interesting questions. If you’re using a serious game to solve a real world problem at some point or at what point do you abandon the game framework? Is there a point where the game becomes unimportant? Or even a hindrance? Many of the conference attendees agree that the game has definitely had a positive effect. It has successfully facilitated discussions in an organized fashion and allowed for a democratic decision-making process.

What will be the result? We won’t know until the end of the conference. Stay tuned!