ARGN has turned an important corner, recently. For the past six months, the genre of Alternate Reality Gaming has continued to gain mainstream recognition, in no small part due to games like I Love Bees and Regenesis. As a result, traffic here and at affiliate sites like Unfiction has continued to grow swiftly, which is a good problem to have. The proliferation of new and ongoing ARGs, continued media exposure, and becoming widely accepted as a bona-fide news source has suddenly made it pretty obvious that we’re not just a little fan-site any more.
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As reported Thursday, two seperate real world events occured this weekend within the ARG The Art Of The Heist. However, in an interesting turn of events, only one retrieval mission was a success. Players of the game were ecstactic as the New York interaction with DJ Will Star went off without a hitch, and shocked as the mission at the Coachella Music Festival was a complete bust.
Community members bagsbee and rose were front and center at The Scratch DJ Academy on Friday night to meet with Will Star, who teaches at the academy. The package was received and, once opened, another valuable SD card was available for the players to look over.
From the “Something May Be Going On Here” file:
Out of the numerous, shall we say, interesting emails ARGN received this week came the following:
“The residents of “3rd†live along side us, and watch our every move but also keep their distance. The populous of “3rd†are there to protect us and watch over our interests. Occasionally holes (or leaks) are found in the boundary between dimensions and sometimes “3rd†is seen by us, but normally mistaken as paranormal activity.
The 5th dimension is a dangerous place, and houses the demons and evils in our lives. 5th is usually safely contained, however some problems are occurring and holes are appearing.
Time is limited, and the residents of our secret neighbour need our help.
PROVE YOUR WORTH.â€
If you’ve been living in a cave for the last year, and don’t know about Perplex City, now is the time to get up to speed. Sente Kiteway, the headmaster of the Perplex City Academy, has informed us of a missing priceless cultural artifact: The Cube. It’s here on Earth, and up to us to find, for a large monetary reward. Until recently, things have been slow in the coming:
First, just over a year ago, was Project Syzygy, apparently a site designed to gather players and build hype for the game’s start, which ended up soft-launching nearly a year later. The next site to show up was PerplexCity.com, which contained some cryptic pictures and an email sign-up, allowing those who wanted to play an avenue to register. Quite some time later, a video that started yet more pre-game, albeit with more hunting around for newspapers around the world, and ended with a real-life interaction at Abbey Road in London, UK.
The ARG phenomenon, The Art Of The Heist, continues to immerse players in its storyline with another event planned for the night of April 29th in New York City. The following day, another game tie-in will occur in Indio, California at the world famous Coachella Valley Music Festival. This real world interaction is quite impressive, as it’s been a few years since an ARG has successfully held events on opposite sides of the continent within such a short timespan of each other.
For anyone wishing to explore their city through their ears and the voice of the future, Will Carver, a student with the Interactive Media Division at the University of Southern California, has created a “location-based sci-fi folk album” that unravels as the player pieces together musical clues streaming from locations in Culver City, California. By connecting to the game network in Culver City via cell phone or PDA, the player is able to unlock a musical story while moving between the 20 nodes as they walk the path of the composition from day to day, turning Carver’s location33 into a week-long, interactive aural experience for the player.
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