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2010 Webby Winners Announced: Letters to the Future, District 9, and True Blood Take Home Honors

May 5, 2010 / Michael Andersen

Webby_Logo_small Yesterday, the winners of the 14th Annual Webby Awards were announced, recognizing excellence in “interactive design, creativity, usability and functionality on the Internet.” This year, a trio of alternate reality gaming projects came home with accolades. So congratulations to the teams behind Love Letters to the Future (Xenophile Media), District 9 (Trigger LLC), and True Blood (HBO).

Love Letters to the Future swept the Green category, taking home both the Webby Award and People’s Voice Award for the category. The campaign sought to collect messages from the worldwide community to future generations: the top 100 messages were buried in a time capsule at the UN Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen on December 13, 2009. Providing an interactive undercurrent to the already interactive campaign, Xenophile Media hid a series of clues and messages from the future on the website, culminating a series of augmented reality images hidden at locations across the globe. To read more about the alternate reality game designed for Greenpeace International, you can follow along with the game’s progress at the Love Letters to the Future blog.

8th Wonderland: A Virtual Nation Up in Arms

May 3, 2010 / Jane Doh

8thwonderland How do you fight a country that doesn’t exist? Scattered all over the world, everyday people are sick and tired of political systems and being controlled by the media. They decide to create a virtual state and restore democracy, but “real” states view them as terrorists. An extended experience to accompany the 8th Wonderland film, interested participants can meet the ambassador and register for citizenship on the country’s website. Every week, citizens can propose motions related to the economy, health care, and politics, among other issues, and motions are decided by referendum.

Produced by the French company Mad Films, the mainly English-language 8th Wonderland film will be released in France on May 12th and in Germany on August 12th. There are no immediate plans for a US release, but in 2009, 8th Wonderland won Best International Film at the inaugural Politics on Film Festival in Washington, DC, and Best Screenplay at the Phoenix International Horror & Sci-Fi Film Festival.

Although the 8th Wonderland extended experience may not fully be an alternate reality game, the idea of citizenship in a micronation or a virtual state is not entirely foreign to the ARG genre, as several recent grassroots games, such as West Unfictionopia and Purity Towers, have used politics as an organizing principle in their gameplay. As a storytelling device, the virtual nation seems a simple and effective way to build a community and introduce conflict to drive plots. And then there are countless “real” micronations, of varying degrees of playfulness, that seem to enjoy declaring war on each other. Personally, it is a heuristic device I would like to see more often in the ARG genre.

Currently, the 8th Wonderland website boasts over 1,300 registered citizens who discuss and vote on motions in both English and French. The website also includes some content not otherwise publicly available, including footage of an 8th Wonderland commando projecting subversive messages on cultural and political landmarks in Paris. Check out the 8th Wonderland website to learn more about citizenship and how to participate in this virtual, international democracy.

66 Letters: A German Psychothriller ARG

April 25, 2010 / Jane Doh

66letters
An online literary puzzle, 66 Letters,Â is a psychothriller alternate reality game opening in May. Players will collaborate and test their detective skills to investigate a cold case, and clues will offer a previewÂ for a new book that will soon be published by German publisher Bastei Lubbei.

66 Letters is the latest project of viral marketing experts, vm-people, whose most recent project was Die Zeit wird knapp [Time Is Running Out], promoting Rachel Wardâ€™s book Numbers. Vm-people is also behind the German-based Pirate Society as well asÂ Charlotte Is Becoming Real, which brought two American players to Germany for its grand finale.

Currently, visitors to the 66 Letters homepage are rerouted to the Folge dem Kaninchen [Follow the Rabbit] website, where they can register for updates for this game and for other projects from vm-people. All this activity has been well-met by the vibrant and active German ARG community, which has gelled around the German-language news blog ARG-Reporter and meets socially every month in Berlin. In the future, the Folge dem Kaninchen website will open up for a more international audience, but for now, the site is only in German.

On April 23rd, London Becomes the Game Board for Nike Grid

April 17, 2010 / Brandie Minchew

nikegrid UK runners will take to the streets in less than a week to compete with other runners across London in Nike’s new interactive street game, Nike Grid. TheÂ urban gameÂ will launch on April 23, 2010 at 8pm and will last 24 hours. No more, no less.

Nike is no stranger to developing interactive programs for runners. In 2006, Nike and Apple teamed up to produce Nike+iPod, a sports kit that records data over the course of a walk or run and allows the user to upload that data to the Nike+ website. Unlike Nike+iPod, Nike Grid does not require runners to possess any items of technology to track their run. Instead, the game uses payphones across the city of London as check-in points before and after each run. All runners need to play are their fastest shoes and a free player’s account with Nike Grid.

In order to play, runners must register at the Nike Grid website. Once registered, each runner receives a 4-digit game code that they will use to check in and out of each run at designated phone boxes. Maps will be available on the website to allow runners to prepare their routes and find the location of the phone boxes. Four maps have already been released: North, South, East, and West London. The Grid covers 40 postcodes, and runners can choose to run only in their own postcode, or they can steal others’ postcodes to rack up points.

Rules for running the Grid are posted on the Nike Grid website: no walking; no buses; don’t run through walls or walk on water; andÂ don’t even think about cheating! “The Grid will know,” says a comment on the Facebook page, in response to one question asking how Nike can keep people from claiming points after riding bikes or taking the bus between pay phones. “If we reveal how we know, people will try to get around it. It is never foolproof, but we have ways of monitoring,” states a follow-up comment.

Know Hope: Will Bluebird Lead to Paradise?

April 14, 2010 / Michael Andersen

bluebird When I checked my mail today, I found an envelope from Australia amidst the typical stack of bills, circulars, and coupons to Bed Bath & Beyond. Since I don’t typically receive correspondence from Oz, I snapped a few photographs before opening the letter.

Inside was a letter and an employee badge with an attached USB drive. Both the letter and the badge were emblazoned with the graphic of a blue bird with wings outstreched. On the stationery, I could make out the word “BLUEBIRD” printed underneath the bird. The letter stated,

Hi,
I need you to look after these for me.
Who knows what’s going to happen to Bluebird
over the next little while . . .
One thing I do know is I can’t let this
bird fly. I’ve got to get the word out.

The employee badge was for Kyle Vandercamp, badge #0004584 at Bluebird. Since the letter was signed “K.” and the attached USB Drive was named “KYLE,” I can only assume Mr. Vandercamp was the source of this message. Kyle has a personal blog, a Flickr stream, and assorted other social media pages.

The USB drive contained a single file: BB_KnowHope..mov (sic.), a video file purportedly created on April 7, 2010 at 4:19:46PM, yet somehow modified on April 7, 2010 at 4:05:50PM. You can view the video below.

What is Project Bluebird, and how will it help stop global warming? Why did Kyle Vandercamp want me to have this file? And will we have a chance to “know hope,” or is there truly “no hope?” At the moment, I only have questions. Hopefully, you can help find the answers.

Click Here for the discussion at Unfiction.

UPDATE: According to Kyle Vandecamp’s website, this is an alternate reality drama called Bluebird AR, produced by the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) and supported by Current. More behind-the-scenes information will be available at ABC’s Bluebird AR page shortly.

Whimsical French ARG and Transmedia Experience Supernatural Oddities Redefines Normal in ARGs

April 13, 2010 / Jane Doh

faitsdiversparanormaux In February, freelance graphic designer JC DÃ©nariÃ© started documenting paranormal experiences in France on his videoblog, but heâ€™s been interested in the supernatural for 20 years, ever since his brother Fred disappeared mysteriously. In addition to writing an encyclopedia about aliens, demons, and other strange things, JCâ€™s findings have since been picked up by a production company eager to produce a reality TV mini-series called Faits Divers Paranormaux, or Supernatural Oddities. JCâ€™s findings in 26 short episodes will be broadcast Monday through Thursday evenings at 20:30 on Orangeâ€™s CinÃ©choc.

Encouraged by JCâ€™s investigations, since March, people all over France have been submitting their own experiences of the supernatural, in a kind of â€œparanormal urban hunt.â€ JC continues to delve deeper into the unnatural and the uncanny all around France, â€œassistedâ€ by his wife Muriel and his mother-in-law Simone (who is also on Facebook). By signing on to the Faits Divers Paranormaux site with a Facebook account, players can earn points, badges, and prizes as they take quizzes, submit content, and engage in the online community. Other features, including the â€œparanormal urban hunt,â€ encourage people to capture and share evidence of the supernatural using their mobile devices. Prizes include True Blood and Harry Potter DVDs and a chance to win a trip to a film festival in Deauville, France.