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The Art Of The Heist: Atlanta Update

April 17, 2005 / Jonathan Waite

Yesterday’s real world event in Atlanta, part of the Art of the Heist ARG, turned out to be an adventure of sorts, as three ARG community members played crucial roles in the story and provided more drama and intrigue in the game that continues to blur the lines between reality and Alternate Reality.

The three ‘retrievers’ who play on the Unfiction forums (Valkyros, Meghan, and j5) met with in-game character Nisha at a restaurant early in the day, where they were given a mission: obtain an SD card from the inside of an Audi parked at a nearby dealership. The three players devised a plan:

Excerpt from Valkyros’ account of what happened:
The plan was straightforward, I was to proceed first to eyeball the site and provide security overwatch. Meghan was then to saunter in and corner the salesman posted near the A3. Nisha suggested that Meghan steer him to the $129,000 A8 parked in the northernmost corner of the show room. Once this was accomplished, J5 would enter showroom and get in the relatively untended A3. From there he would rifle the car and hopefully locate the SD card.

The actual retrieval process by j5 was like something from a James Bond movie, while online players watched the scene via webcam:

Excerpt from j5’s account of what happened:
I did a once around and entered the driver’s side door. Once in, I immediately started looking in the obvious places. I opened the armrest, found an accordion panel and slid it open, â€œnothingâ€ I felt around the steering wheel â€œcheck under the floor matsâ€ Nisha suggests in my earpiece. Right about the time I start lifting floor mats, a tall man in a white dealership shirt approached and introduced himself, holding out his arm at full length to shove his hand into the window of the car. I took him to be the GM of the store based on his presence, so I shook his hand and introduced myself. He asked If I had any questions or needed help with anything or if I was interested in a brochure. â€œAs a matter of fact, a brochure would be great, can you locate one for me?â€ Once he was gone, the search began again in earnest; I was sliding seats all the way back in their tracks, removing ashtrays, pulling off panels. Nisha continued offering suggestions and asking where I had looked.

The mission was a success, as J5 found and retrieved the SD card and then met up with Nisha and the other players at their rendezvous point.

With the high profile theft of an Audi A3 from a car show, and this intense mission, this game has quickly become one of the most impressive games in ARG history. We can only hope that Art of the Heist continues to blow our minds as the story unfolds.

Trailhead
Discussion at Unfiction
Trail
Chat in #heist

The Art Of The Heist: Atlanta!

April 15, 2005 / Jonathan Waite

After an interesting real world event in New York City involving a stolen Audi A3 two weeks ago, The Art of the Heist appears set to bring their Alternate Reality into the lives of those players lucky enough to live in Atlanta, Georgia. In-game communication between two characters led perceptive players to ads at Monster.com (which has since been removed) and Craig’s List, where Nisha, one of the protagonists in the story, asks for public assistance.

Once the ads were decoded (what would an in-game announcement be without encryption?), players were prompted to email the character for more details. Those that made the effort were sent this reply:

Thanks for your interest in helping. We are looking for retrievers in Atlanta to help secure an item. You must pass a background check in order to accomplish this task. You will be required to sign a release. You will be trained to operate some electronic equipment and given a task to accomplish, and you will work as a team under the direction of Nisha Roberts.

Applicants were told to be available for Saturday, April 16th, from Noon to 3:00 pm local time if they wanted to participate. The players were also subjected to background checks — three Unfiction forum members have passed these and are going to be on-scene for the event.

Within days of the ads being discovered, information was released in-game about the location of where the event will take place — an Audi dealership. As well, the characters have set up a image webcast for their worldwide audience to tune in as things happen. This means that all players (and not only those who can make it to Atlanta) will be able to take part in this unique opportunity. Community members are extremely excited about this event, and are eager to find out what will happen in this exciting ARG.

So far, this game has been a huge hit with the players, and with the innovations and creativity they’ve seen so far, it’s easy to see why AotH players are hooked. ARGN will bring you the very latest details as this story unfolds.

Trailhead
Discussion at Unfiction
Trail
Chat in #heist

IGDA San Francisco Presents: I Love Bees, 4orty2wo

April 15, 2005 / Steve Peters

On April 26th, the International Game Developers Association will present “THINKING OUTSIDE THE (x)BOX (or “HOW I LEARNED TO STOP WORRYING AND LOVE BEES”) at 7:00 PM at the Metreon’s Action Theater in San Francisco (101 4th Street @ Mission).

Featured speakers will be Jordan Weisman, Sean Stewart and Jim Stewartson of 4orty2wo Entertainment, the team behind the Alternate Reality Game “I Love Bees.”

4orty2wo’s Alternate Reality Game became a phenomenon last year, sending thousands of players running to payphones around the world. The innovative Halo 2 prequel involving a seemingly innocent website of a Napa Valley beekeeper and a shipwrecked AI from the future received a Game Developers Choice Award for Innovation, was featured at GDC’s Experimental Gameplay Workshop, and became the latest and most successful example of the nascent Alternate Reality Games (ARG) genre.

But what place do ARGs have in the world (and future) of video games? What is their relation to one another? Are there lessons to be learned from ARG production that can impact the way video games are made?

Join Jordan Weisman, Sean Stewart, and Jim Stewartson of 4orty2wo Entertainment as they examine I Love Bees to discuss the strengths and weaknesses of ARGs, their intersection with traditional video games, and the future of this exciting new form of digital play.

This event is free and open to the public. For more info: www.igda.org/sf

April ARG Announcements

April 14, 2005 / Steve Peters

ARGN has been receiving an increasing amount of cryptic emails and/or packages, most likely as a result of the increased attention Alternate Reality Gaming has been getting lately. Most of the time, they’re simply spam or perhaps a hint that leads to someone’s stab at a work of interactive fiction, but every so often something will lead to a very worthwhile Alternate Reality Game. The trick is being able to sift through things (especially some of the emails…hmm, a Nigerian ARG??) to figure out what’s worth mentioning. So, without further adieu, submitted for your approval, as they say:

Yesterday morning, ARGN received a zip file (1.26 mb) of what looked like 7 colorful desktop wallpapers from someone calling themselves Your Friend (historyneverdies at gmail.com). Along with coded info along the top and bottom, they all seem to be pointing at a game that will start up in Winter 2005. Subsequent emails to the above address have yielded an additional image. Players have made progress in decoding things, and it seems the lower right characters all decode to the names of characters that were featured in Project Gateway, an ARG we reported on last September. So, it looks like we’re in for a sequel coming this winter. Of course, is that winter in the Northern or Southern Hemisphere??

As if that wasn’t enough fun for one week, ARGN received a package just this morning. It was simply a To Do list, dated April 7, that listing such errands as going to the grocer, dry cleaner, and submitting an ad to the NY Post (see a larger version of the note by clicking the image at right). Apprently, the NY Post advertisement led to a rather extensive blog by an Alesha Periwinkle, whose fiancee has disappeared. If you look closely, you’ll see that all of the photos on the blog have been “deleted for reasons of national security.”

Quite notably, players have already received in-game phonecalls and text messages. Looks like a pretty promising (indie?) ARG is shaping up with this one.

desktops discussion at unfiction
ne1seenjames discussion at unfiction

Alternate Reality Gaming was the subject of a feature article in the May 2005 edition of PC Gamer Magazine in the UK. For those of you without access to the magazine, you can find some scans of the article (along with more comments by the author) over at the unfiction forums.

“I Love Bees” Nominated for Webby Award

April 12, 2005 / Steve Peters

The biggest Alternate Reality Game of the past year, “I Love Bees,” continues to gain major recognition with its just-announced nomination for a Webby Award! Time magazine and the New York Times call the Webbys â€œthe Academy Awards of the Internet.â€

“I Love Bees” is eligible to win two different awards in the â€œGames-relatedâ€ category â€” the official games-related award, and the â€œPeopleâ€™s Voiceâ€ awardâ€¦ which YOU can vote for!

Obviously, we here at ARGN would love to see ILB win this, but to be honest, we’d actually like to see it win the Peopleâ€™s Voice award even more than the official award. We think it’d be really great to show the world that the ARG communityâ€™s voice is loud and strong and bigger and badder than anyone elseâ€™sâ€¦ of course, we already know that because we heard you all singing over those payphones!! So letâ€™s show the rest of the web what we can do.

Voting in the 2005 Peopleâ€™s Voice Awards runs TODAY through April 29. VOTE NOW! Hereâ€™s how:

Go to http://pv.webbyawards.com/ and click on the â€œRegister nowâ€ button.
To ensure integrity of the vote, all voters must register. The process takes about 30 seconds (fill out the form). Then youâ€™ll receive a voting link and password via email.

Note: Voters can choose to vote in just one, or some of, or all of the categories. Itâ€™s fine, for instance, to just vote in the â€œGames-relatedâ€ category, which is the “I Love Bees” category.

Extra fun: There is an â€œinstant pollâ€ in voting that gives you the current standings for each site after you vote. We really need to get OUR votes in ASAP so that ILB looks like a contender, and so that other voters are more likely to spread the word. (Right now, ilovebees is in 3rd place out of 5â€¦ how long will it take ILB players to push it to #1? Hmmmâ€¦ letâ€™s find out!)

So what are you waiting for? Go vote!

“Our Colony” An ARG-ish Viral for the Next-Gen Xbox?

April 7, 2005 / Steve Peters

Rumors are flying this morning that the team-based puzzling site Our Colony is in fact a stealth campaign for the upcoming Xbox 2. Some are even going so far as to speculate that 4orty2wo Entertainment of I Love Bees fame is behind it all.

So far, Our Colony has been flying below the radar to a point. A cryptic email was received by an Unfiction member almost a month ago, and a small cadre of folks from there have been playing along in a team-based puzzly mission-style game. Some of the “rewards” have come in the form of screenshots of what can only be described as a sneak peek at new Xbox hardware.

The very first mission involved sending in pictures of the OurColony ant symbol in various locales. In addition, there’s a countdown timer on the site that will reach zero at 8pm PDT on Thursday, May 12. We’ll keep you posted on this, as it may not be too late to jump in and catch up.

Discussion at Unfiction
Lounge at OurColony (link fixed)
Chat in #ourcolony (irc.chat-solutions.org)

[ED. NOTE – 4:30pm PDT]: Despite the rampant speculation to the contrary, ARGN has confirmed that 4orty2wo Entertainment is not behind “Our Colony.”