Category: Update (Page 30 of 41)

Review: The Lost Experience

May 13, 2006 / Jonathan Waite

** Editor’s Note: The original publication of this article had an incorrect hyperlink to The Hanso Foundation web site. The link has been corrected and we apologize for any inconvenience this may have caused.

hansofoundation.org It’s been a little over a week since the launch of The Lost Experience, a launch in the form of prominent television advertisements for The Hanso Foundation. Since the first commercial spot reached television sets across the globe, the trailhead site has undergone a few plot-advancing changes, and two new sites (Gary Troup’s site and subLYMONal) have been connected to the game. As well, an official insider’s blog has popped up on the ABC Television web space. So far, the game has performed well, and updates to the Hanso site give players the sense that the game is something they should be watching every day. This is one Alternate Reality Game a lot of people have been waiting for, and it has opened the door to ARGs for an entirely new audience.

The game has become very popular in a relatively short amount of time, mostly because of the exposure it has been given. However, finding the site and calling the Hanso company hotline are only the first steps into the game, and so the game designers have had to focus on how to keep the player base interested enough to keep coming back. Their answer? Make the Experience easily accessible, but with enough content to satisfy even the most voracious fan. So far, so good — the sites are fairly easy to digest but offer underlying layers of complex material giving the die-hard fanatics material to theorize about. By feeding the plot elements to the masses bit by bit, the information is hardly overwhelming, even to the casual watcher. In the end, regardless of a player’s commitment level, the game delivers a rich, interwoven back-story that is starting to answer some of the questions about the show.

Assault on 13th Labour

May 4, 2006 / Jonathan Waite

This came in three weeks ago from the fine folks at Assault on 13th Labour, a movement dedicated to solving Perplex City card #251 :

Perplex City, an Alternate Reality Game based around puzzle cards and storytelling, features one card that has yet to be cracked: an RC-64 encrypted plaintext. We’ve created a distributed client and are looking for people with spare cycles to lend a hand. The program requires .NET or Mono (it works on Linux and OS X, as well as XP). Prizes are on offer for the first solve!

Word on the street is that this looks to be as tough a puzzle as the Alternate Reality Gaming community has come across, and hopefully, with a few more volunteers, the card can finally be solved. Perhaps a little history will be made along the way.

Perplex City Video Contest Announced

May 4, 2006 / Larry Eisner

As announced last Thursday at PerplexCity.com, Mind Candy and You Tube of, well, you know, Earth, as well as the Perplex City Academy and the Open Design Agency of Perplex City, are beginning a video contest to promote Perplex City, as well as the game with its namesake. This marks the first time an Alternate Reality Game will incorporate user-generated video into the realm of the game, and has inspired many of the PXC player base to pick up their cameras and start shooting.

According to the Perplex City official contest page, videos will be accepted for a four week period which started April 27th. The video submissions should illustrate “the Joys of Perplex City” — whether that means the city itself, or the game, is likely intentionally unclear. As well, videos must be 30-90 seconds long and family-friendly, and everything contained in the video must be either entirely original, or free from copyright restriction (read: Creative Commons). Beyond that, apparently, the sky is the limit.

Building Fences: Your Response

April 25, 2006 / Larry Eisner

It’s been a long time since ARGN.com posted my article entitled Building Fences: An Editorial, the subject of which was the topic of adversarial play within Alternate Reality Games, in theory and in history. We invited you, the reader, to tell us what you thought about the subject, and we were nearly immediately inundated with responses, spanning the entire gamut of opinion. We read every letter, rant, and lesson. Here are some highlights from the responses we received:

“…The problem with past approaches to the player v. player tactic in ARGing is that it almost always has come across as either a minor, player induced (i.e. not meant by the PM to happen) event, or has been quickly toned down by PMs who did mean to do it in the first place. The outcry from the community is always rather dramatic when a PM attempts to purposely divide players.

What I think needs to happen is for a PM team to make a quality ARG that incorporates this tactic, and run with it – to not give in to the community’s cries, and to just go with what they planned. Nothing against the community – I count myself as a member of it in most aspects – but sometimes everyone gets worked up about small things, while forgetting the bigger picture.” – Dave

“Eisner comes down in favor of splitting the player base, arguing that this makes for a more powerful approach to mysteries (think open source), and richer plot developments (think restaurant menu). I would add that increasing the number of player parties, from one to many, could increase the amount of player creativity (i.e., more wikis, more fiction, etc).

As Web 2.0 storytelling emerges, this is precisely the sort of thing we’ll see.” – Infocult

Who Is Benjamin Stove? Wrap Up & PM Chat

April 11, 2006 / Carie Ward

The question of “Who Is Benjamin Stove?” has finally been answered after four months of intense speculation. Depending on who you ask, Ben Stove is: a tinfoil hat nut job; a teacher; a research; a shaman; an alien; hot-headed; a great guy; a man of vision; enigmatic; a scientist; a friend. In other words, just your average internet personality.

Players were first introduced to the mystery of Ben Stove in the form of a painting of a crop circle. From there, they found Ben Stove’s mentor, Dr. Martinez, and obtained copies of letters written from Ben to Dr. Martinez over the years. The letters were filled with secret codes that led to libraries all over the country at the same time as they caught the eye of some mysterious Men In Black. Eventually, Ben Stove himself was found, along with his website filled with research into crop circles. His research showed players that the crop circles were a warning to the people of earth about the dangers of fossil fuels and that using alternatives, such as ethanol based products, were the way to save humanity.

Third Wave of Perplex City Cards

April 10, 2006 / Jonathan Waite

It’s been nine months since Perplex City opened its doors to the public, asking for assistance in finding the Receda Cube. Now, with the third wave of playing cards available, players have more clues to help them in their search for the cube — and with it, the $200,000 reward that accompanies its safe return. Players were also treated to a visually stunning redesign of the Perplex City web site in the past week, which has added some valuable resources that open the door for people interested in getting involved with PXC for the first time.

“The world of Perplex City is deeper and more complex than anyone imagined,” stated Michael Smith, CEO of Mind Candy Design, in a press statement released this past week. You don’t have to look very hard to get a sense of what Smith is talking about, as one of the hot new features of the newly renovated web site is the new “Story So Far” section. In this part of the site, information is given that allows all players, whether new to the game or not, a chance to catch up on the events that have taken place so far. It is large in scale and loaded with content, showing that Perplex City isn’t just puzzle cards and blogs.