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Halo2 ILoveBees Game Ends With a Bang

November 6, 2004 / Steve Peters

November 4th brought the final chapter to the 16-week Alternate Reality Game that became known as I Love Bees. A promotional game for Bungie’s eagerly anticipated game Halo2, Ilovebees caught the attention of thousands of gamers and media alike over the past few months. The journey culminated on November 4th, with a live event in four cities attended by hundreds of players (San Francisco, New York, Chicago and Austin). At this event, referred to in-game as a Combat Training Exercise, players got an exclusive chance to play Halo2 before its release on November 9th, and received a commemorative DVD and Ilovebees lanyard. What’s more, the lucky players in San Francisco got a chance to meet some of the Ilovebees Puppetmasters.

Ilovebees was developed by a team headed by Elan Lee and Sean Stewart, who headed up the first real Alternate Reality Game, The Beast, in 2001. Since then, they teamed up to form 4orty2wo Entertainment, and began production of Ilovebees in February. Ilovebees, which launched on July 16th, told the story of an A.I. from the future named Melissa who crash landed on a website server here in 2004. Over the 16 weeks of the game, players completed a series of web-based puzzles and realworld challenges to reveal a compelling story that formed a prequel to Halo2, following its characters through the weeks leading up to the invasion of Earth by an evil race of aliens known as the Covenant. The story was revealed in over 6 hours of audio drama using some of the best voice talent and post-production in Hollywood.

Ilovebees broke new ground in its innovative use of real world distributed puzzles, stellar writing and sheer numbers of players. At it’s culmination, the ilovebees site received as many as 500,00 unique visitors per day, making it by far the most followed Alternate Reality Game to date.

A post-game chat is scheduled with the Ilovebees Puppetmasters on November 7th at 2:00 pm Pacific Standard Time. You can have a chance to ask questions and get the inside scoop on what went on behind the game by stopping by #apocalypso on irc.chat-solutions.org (browser based access).

A Deal With….Who, Exactly?

November 1, 2004 / Steve Peters

Submitted for your approval: A mysterious Futures Trading Company that seems to provide luxury goods and services in exchange for……your soul!!

Sable & Shuck and it’s associated websites were discovered last month, and a few folks received an email from them yesterday (um, Halloween), reviving interest in figuring out exactly what’s going on here. It seems that S&S deals in providing clients with their every desire in exchange for their soul. If you sign up to receive further info, you’ll get this email reply:

You have elected to begin negotiations with Sable & Shuck, a company that provides commodities of supreme quality and worth, in return for human souls that meet our criteria*.

We will resume contact at midnight. If you do not wish to pursue negotiations for any reason whatsoever, simply click the unsubscribe link at the bottom of this page and you will never hear from us again.

*Transactions can only take place after a contract is signed by both parties.

The email is signed by S&S’s “Director of Acquisitions,” who is also listed on their site as Director of Procurement and Director of Punitive Measures(!) among other things. Well, we’ll see what happens at midnight, then.

Digging around takes you to various sites: Trident Air, Inferno Cargo, Marlowe the Hornchurch Star, and finally to the site of the story’s protagonist (we think), He Walks Among Us.

As far as we can tell, this online world seems to be related to Stella Artois, but beyond that, we really have no idea what this is or how deep it goes. In the meantime, I think I’ll book a trip to Valhalla and see what happens.

Diversion: Virtucube

November 1, 2004 / Steve Peters

Virtuquest, one of our favorite ARG production houses, has launched Virtucube on October 31st. While not an ARG, it bills itself as a “multi-layered/challenging diversion” for those who may be looking for something puzzly to do.

A unique feature to virtucube is that, while it can be solved without any clues, Virtuquest will be randomly giving away one of a set of unique clues with the purchase of any Virtuquest T-shirt. So, you get a shirt and a clue, which you can keep to yourself or share with others.

Why would you keep it to yourself, you may ask. Well, it seems there’s a $500 prize for the first player to solve the Virtucube puzzles. It’s interesting to note that, to guard against flash decompiling or hacking to solve the cube, any potential winner will need to answer 6 virtucube-related questions to verify that the solve was legitimate.

Virtucube
Discussion

New ARG: Anne Fisher is Missing

October 30, 2004 / Steve Peters

ARGN received what at first looked like a typical “Have you seen this person?” flyer in the mail the other day, but a closer look revealed the rabbithole for a new Alternate Reality Game. Smiling at us is the picture of a young woman named Anne Fisher, who went missing on October 1st.

Upon closer inspection, we find links to a few websites (click on the picture for a fullsize version of the entire postcard). Andrew Gray is a private investigator who works in Tranquil Valley. He is apparently actively looking for Anne Fisher, and you can email him with any tips you may have. In addition, the postcard has been printed by American Regional Graphics, which is a very authentic looking graphics company.

So, it looks like we have a pretty straight ahead mystery getting started here, at least so far. Where is Anne Fisher? Who was she? Did she run away, or was something more sinister involved??

Discussion
Wiki
Chat-#mystery on irc.chat-solutions.org (you must have a chat client such as mIRC installed for this link to work)

New ARG: Legend of the Sacred Urns

October 29, 2004 / Steve Peters

Well, it seems we here at ARGN have been asleep at the wheel for the past few weeks. A new Alternate Reality type game has begun and we almost missed it!

Billed as a form of interactive fiction or viral narrative puzzle, The Legend of the Sacred Urns is pretty transparently a marketing tool for Sharp’s Aquos line of LCD TV’s. But once you get past the initial site, you soon forget about that, as you’re immersed in a nice Alternate Reality world of treasure hunters and the mysterious findings of a guy named Dagobert Steinitz.

According to the developers, the game launched on September 15th, and is scheduled to run through the end of the year. The main trailheads are moretosee.com, which you may have seen on the TV commercials (you know, the one where the orange Karmann Ghia crashes into the pool), and steinitzpuzzlers.com. These sites lead to numerous more websites, and the game has included a variety of elements, including the aforementioned television commercials, print, telephone, and even an art gallery. They’ve set up their own forum as a player area, which includes a nice FAQ to get you started.

We haven’t had a chance to delve into this very far, but then again, that’s your job! We have turned up almost a dozen websites and some cool puzzles, though. So, whether you’re new to ARG or finishing one and jonesing for more, the Legend of the Sacred Urns may be just the ticket.

Here are some links to get you going:

Steinitzpuzzlers
Moretosee
Steinitz forums
Unfiction forums
Quickstart FAQ

In addition, since there doesn’t seem to be one yet, we’ve set up an IRC channel for your chat needs:
#steinitz on irc.chat-solutions.org (you must have a chat client installed for this link to work)

Ilovebees Players Get Access to Probable Halo2 Preview

October 27, 2004 / Steve Peters

Players of Ilovebees yesterday were given what looks like a chance to preview Halo2 Multiplayer 5 days before it’s officially released. In a series of dramatic events that led to the “death” of one of the beloved AI characters in the game, players 17 and older earned the right to attend a special “training exercise utilizing squad-oriented combat simulation LIVEware.”

This event is scheduled for Thursday, Nov. 4, from 18:00 â€“ 21:00 Pacific time at the following coordinates:

40.743071 -073.976763 (New York City)
42.040240 -088.035197 (Chicago)
30.266632 -097.744710 (Austin)
37.784568 -122.404169 (San Francisco)

So, after three months, it looks like Halo2 fans are finally being given what they’ve been yearning for: a chance to preview Halo2. In addition to the chance to play the game, many Beekeepers are looking forward to the chance to get to meet each other in person, as many have only interacted with each other on line. Some players have announced that they will be driving as much as 8 hours to take part.

The ARG seems to be winding down, but it still remains to be seen how much fun the PMs have in store for us. Stay tuned.