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Get Lost!

May 4, 2006 / Brooke Thompson

The highly anticipated Lost Experience began last night when a brief commercial for the Hanso Foundation appeared during the television broadcasts in the UK, US, and Australia. The commercial, which can be viewed on the Hanso Foundation website, ended with a toll-free number available in each of the three countries. Calling the number provides you with several extensions and interesting messages.

UK: 0800 66 66 40
US: 1-877-HANSORG (1-877-426-7674)
Australia: 1800 22 77 17

Transcripts of the messages, including translations for the Dutch radio, can be found on the lostpedia.

While further details about the game are hard to come by, there is certainly much hope that this will provide the rich narrative experience typical of Alternate Reality Games. And, as always, unfiction is digging in joined by a number of other Lost websites and forums.

:: Discussion at unfiction ::
:: Live IRC Chat in #lost and #lostexp ::

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

The Lost Experience

April 25, 2006 / Dee Cook

Back in February, glimmers of an upcoming interactive media experience were hinted at by Javier Grillo-Marxauch, a writer for the worldwide hit television show Lost, who said, "I assure you, there will be a lot of official Lost-sanctioned internet action coming up." Ears perked up from all around the ARG community, where speculation about some of the official and unofficial sites springing up around the internet ran rampant.

Then in early April, the Official Lost Podcast echoed the earlier statement, with writers David Lindelof and Carlton Cuse stating, "We're involved in a project which is going to involve the internet that's going to start in May."

Today, ABC has officially announced that The Lost Experience will take place this summer. According to the AP article, "What is known about the challenge is that it includes the introduction of new characters and the mysterious Hanso Foundation. The first clue requires finding a toll-free number that will be released during the show or commercial breaks." There will be different clues depending on the viewers' geographical locations, including the UK, the USA, and Australia.

The Lost Experience is scheduled to kick off in early May during an episode of Lost. Stay alert!

Tweaking ARGN / New Staff

April 16, 2006 / Jonathan Waite

In an ongoing mission to keep this site functional and relevant, we will be making some minor changes to ARGN in the next few weeks. Most of which will go unnoticed by the untrained eye, but some will be evident. The content and focus of the site will remain the same. We have already implemented two changes — the move to a new version of our publishing software, and the addition of comments (time-limited and moderated) to our articles, which started on April 11. We appreciate your ongoing support as we tinker with the way the site operates — feel free to contact us if you have issues with the web site functionality.

We’d also like to take this opportunity to recognize three new staff members who have joined us in the past month — Will Bagby, Marie Lamb, and Michelle Senderhauf. All three are long-time ARG community members with experience behind the curtain as game developers, and we are very fortunate to have them on board.

Studio Cypher To Host IRC Chat

April 16, 2006 / Jonathan Waite

As mentioned last week, a new Alternate Reality Game of sorts is emerging from a company called Studio Cypher. Since the discovery of the game, many members on the Unfiction message boards have been keeping up with ongoing events, so when the web site changed on April 14th, it did not go unnoticed. The site now has two branches — a main section with information on the company itself, including information on previously developed ARGs Ares Station and IDEAS Fest 1906, and a second section on their new game/multi-player novel Cyphers.

The company is taking a slightly different approach with this venture, and has stated that players will be charged a “nominal fee” to become an agent in the game. While the pay-to-play gaming model is hardly a new phenomenon, it is uncommon to find the model applied to Alternate Reality Gaming. However, as the company has been successful with two previous ARG projects, perhaps this is a situation where the players can bank on a quality experience deserving of the fee. In any case, the game creators have announced a pre-game IRC chat which will address “how everything will work,” which will serve as a unique opportunity for players to address out-of-game concerns before the game goes live. The chat will take place on the Chat-solutions IRC network this Tuesday, April 18, at 8 pm Eastern (GMT-5).

Thanks to Magesteff at Unfiction for the information.