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Doom Skull’s Conclusion Takes CD Burning to a New Level

March 29, 2007 / Michael Andersen

The grassroots alternate reality game 13 Crystal Skulls came to a successful conclusion earlier this week thanks to the successful destruction of thirteen compressed files by players and characters alike. CDs were burnt, shredded, cut up, and even chewed by a dog to prevent their Gathering.

After the events documented in ARGNet’s previous article, the Thirteen Crystal Skulls arranged for Ted Allen’s untimely demise. Players enlisted the aid of The Four Chosen to put a stop to the ancient skulls, and thanks to Tyi Harper’s hacking skills were able to physically destroy the skulls imprisoned in compressed files. Despite a lone skull escaping the confines of its zip file, disaster was averted.

Thirteen Crystal Skull’s puppetmaster Aaron Sampson, who goes by DJSampson on the Unfiction forums, shared a few words with us regarding his project. He related that one of his goals was to aid future grassroots puppetmasters “by showing it is possible to create a good story, run it at no cost, and run it by yourself. Although I don’t recommend running an ARG alone, unless you have countless hours to invest every day and no girlfriend to piss off. But I do recommend preparing an ARG you are creating for such a thing to happen.”

The Thirteen Crystal Skulls homepage contains a game summary including an archive of the puzzles and their solutions. Aaron will also be posting alternative endings in the near future. The page should prove to be a good resource for players and PMs alike as it clearly demonstrates examples of gameplay, puzzles, and free resources frequently encountered in the genre.

The PM chat is scheduled for April 15th at 7PM EST on IRC in #13skullspm at irc.chat-solutions.org (which you can reach through our Java chat applet).

ARGFest 2007 Panel II: Running an ARG

March 28, 2007 / Jessica Price

The second panel discussion at ARGFest focused on Running An ARG, and it had a diverse selection of panelists. Sam LaVigne and Ian Kizu-Blair of SF0, voice actress Kristen Rutherford of I Love Bees fame, and Unfiction administrator Jackie Kerr delivered a multi-perspective approach to the subject which in turn provided a thorough look at player relations. It was moderated by Unfiction moderator Krystyn Wells.

Kerr began the panel by enumerating three design difficulties that can create problems with community relations: badly-defined game boundaries that confuse the players to the point of frustration, games that break down the community’s collective intelligence rather than supporting it, and design decisions that provoke so much meta discussion that it becomes difficult to interact with the game itself in a natural manner.

ARGFest 2007 Panel I: Developing an ARG

March 27, 2007 / Jessica Price

ARGFest attendees were privileged to be able to sit in on — and participate in — dialogues between many of the field’s leading developers during the panel discussions held on March 3rd. The first of these panels, Developing An ARG, consisted of Adam Brackin (Fundi Technologies — Deus City), Brian Clark (GMD Studios — Art of the Heist, Who Is Benjamin Stove), Adrian Hon (Mind Candy Design — Perplex City), Evan Jones (Xenophile Media/Stitch Media — Regenesis, Ocular Effect), Jan Libby (Sammeeeees), and Dave Szulborski (Chasing the Wish, Urban Hunt). Unfiction’s Sean Stacey (a.k.a. SpaceBass) moderated the discussion.

As one might expect from such a gathering of alternate reality gaming’s better-known puppetmasters, the discussion was packed with information and insights from behind the curtain (although Brian Clark’s frequent wryly humorous interjections kept it entertaining as well as informative).

ARG Netcast, Episode 18: Studio Cypher

March 26, 2007 / Jonathan Waite

In the eighteenth installment of the netcast series, we are pleased as punch to have special guests Will Emigh and Nathan Mishler from Studio Cypher joining us for a fantastic discussion. Will, Nathan and I are joined by Brooke Thompson of Giant Mice, Nicko Demeter of ARGNet and Sean C. Stacey of Unfiction.com. Subscribe to the ARG Netcast feed through this link or via iTunes. Contact us at our special netcast email address, [email protected] with your tips, suggestions, concerns and submissions. Call us on the ARGNet voicemail at 630-274-5425.

The Brooke Thompson 2007 Conference Tour, Part One

March 25, 2007 / Brooke Thompson

Editor’s note: Brooke Thompson is back after a whirlwind tour of some of the biggest festivals so far this year. She attended the Game Developer’s Conference and was a speaker at the South By Southwest (SXSW) and ARGFest-o-Con conferences. This article is the first in a series about her experiences.

What happens when you spend 15 days on the road traveling from conference to conference? You get just about nothing done, including writing reports from the road for one of the greatest websites on the internet (that’d be ARGNet, of course). At first this distressed me, but then I realized that most of the conference sessions that I had attended were well documented on blogs and news sites â€“ some nearly word for word! â€“ and that waiting allowed the experiences that I had to sink in and meld together into a bigger picture. It’s that picture that I hope to paint for you over the next few articles.

The thing that I realized as I traveled from ARGfest to GDC to SXSW is that Alternate Reality Gaming is leading the future of entertainment.

We’ve been saying that for a long time. So, what’s different? What’s changed?

The word is out. People hear “Alternate Reality Game” or “ARG” and they understand what you are talking about. I don’t mean to say that everyone that I met understood it, but if I walked into a crowd at least one or two people did and they were able to get the rest of the crowd excited and curious. And explaining it to those that have never heard of ARGs is easier today than it’s ever been. People might not know that Lonelygirl15 has an alternate reality game component, but they’ve heard of it and when you talk about how the story is out there and it’s fiction outside of a book or TV show and, in fact, might send you an email or call you on the phone â€“ they get it. It doesn’t seem strange, it seems cool.

Rand0m Act Of Kindness

March 22, 2007 / Michael Andersen

A press release issued earlier today outlines great news for alternate reality gaming community site Unfiction. The site has received its largest donation to date of $8,000 from Perplex City Season One winner and Unfiction forum member Andy Darley (Rand0m).

Darley, who made news last month after finding the Receda Cube and earning $200,000 (US) as part of the Perplex City ARG, explained his generous donation by saying, “Perplex City is the first ARG to end with a significant sum of money in the hands of one of its players, and it’s only right that some of that money should find its way back to benefit the whole ARG community.”Â Explaining why he chose Unfiction, he added, “While Unfiction certainly isn’t the only place where PXC players gather – indeed it may no longer even be the main place – it’s still the biggest and most important resource for players across the broad spectrum of ARGs”.

With over 13,000 registered members, Unfiction is the largest online community dedicated towards the promotion and discussion of Alternate Reality Games, chaotic fiction, and related puzzles.Â In addition to providing the server space for game discussion and archival, Unfiction is responsible for sponsoringÂ ARGFest-o-Con, a yearly conference that allows players and developers to get together for a weekend of discussions on the genre.

Unfiction founder (and ARGNet staff writer) Sean C. Stacey expressed his gratitude for Darley’s generous donation, and announced plans to use the funds to develop alternative revenue streams and to help defray the site’s operating costs. Past efforts to subsidize operating and hosting costs at Unfiction have included a donation drive and a Perplex City-themed online auction, and similar efforts will continue to take place including another series of online auctions scheduled to occur later this month.