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syst3m, We Hardly Knew Ye

May 20, 2006 / Jonathan Waite

Often, when we report on a game that has started and completed within a two week time period, it’s not great news — it usually indicates some sort of meltdown or premature departure from the Alternate Reality Gaming landscape. Today is different, though, as we learned that syst3m, a game that launched a scant eight days ago, wrapped up earlier today. While we didn’t have a chance to experience the game play first hand, we did see the end-game video, and were thoroughly impressed with the production values. Regardless of whether or not this is a grassroots campaign, as has been speculated at the unfiction forums, the game creators seem to have done their homework in creating a fun gaming experience.

Here’s what we can tell you: The game launched innocently enough through emails sent out by a group calling themselves the Tarot Terrorists. From there, the game introduced GLOBAL (self-described as “the ONLY telecommunications, Networking and media solution in the world”) and many, many puzzles of varying difficulty. By solving the puzzles and interacting with characters in the story, players were able to maneuver through to today’s ending. We’re not going to spoil it for you, as it appears that all of the original content is still unchanged and available for viewing, so “replaying” the game is an option for those who want to know more.

Where does this all lead? According to the META information page , this is part of a larger ARG called Arcana. As well, the end of the end-game video list another web address that doesn’t reveal too much… yet. We’ll definitely be watching this site for future updates, and will do our best to report on developments as they happen — seeing as how leaving this story alone for a mere eight days turned this article from an introductory news piece to an end-game report.

ReGenesis Featured on Podcast

May 16, 2006 / Jonathan Waite

The ReGenesis extended-reality game found itself back in the mainstream spotlight two weeks ago when Leo Laporte and Amber MacArthur interviewed Evan Jones, creative director of Xenophile Media, the force behind the Alternate Reality Game that runs concurrent with the television series. In the podcast interview, Jones outlined how the game works and talked with the hosts about ARG, the ‘collective effort’ and the interactivity of the game (as previously reported here). You can download the episode through iTunes or at the Inside the Net podcast website.

Inside the Net is part of the popular TWiT.tv network of audio and video podcasts. Laporte and MacArthur are both hosts of Call For Help, a regular television series on G4techTV in Canada and the How-To channel in Australia.

Takin’ it to the Streets: Game On in New York City

May 16, 2006 / Marie Lamb

Does playing on a computer cramp your style? Feel restricted by that Monopoly board? Or maybe you’re a Puppetmaster who wants to do more than the usual email and websites with your next ARG. This fall, games will bust out of the screen and the box, and take to the streets in a new, three-day event called the Come Out and Play Festival. Based in Manhattan, the festival “seeks to provide a forum for new types of public games and play. We want to bring together a public eager to rediscover the world around them through play with designers interested in producing innovative new games and experiences. Oh yeah, and we want to have fun.”

Come Out and Play will be held September 22-24, and organizers are currently soliciting applications for games that will be fun and interesting, and make use of public spaces. Organizer Greg Trefry is also interested in submissions related to ARGs, noting that their ability to blur the lines between the screen and the real world fits in nicely with the goals of the festival.

Apply online at the festival website by June 30th.

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.

Alternate Reality Gaming SIG Whitepaper

May 4, 2006 / Jonathan Waite

Adam Martin, who is the chair of the IGDA ARG Special Interest Group mailing list, is looking for a few good writers. Specifically, the task at hand is to create a whitepaper document that would help to “promote and explain the genre to a wide audience, and also to get wide exposure for your own writing on the subject.” Adam explains:

We’re looking for submissions on the following topics. Depending upon the depth of the topic, you should expect to write between 3 and 10 pages. Submissions should be no more than 300 words, and include both a short summary and also a breakdown of the content you intend to write about.

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.