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An ARGNet Update: Same Site, Different Owner

September 1, 2009 / Michael Andersen

argnet As you may aleady know, Jonathan Waite has stepped down as owner and senior editor of ARGNet, after almost four years at the helm. Both Jonathan and ARGNet’s original owner, Steve Peters, have left someÂ dauntinglyÂ bigÂ shoes to fill. Luckily,Â ARGNet still has anÂ incredible staff of volunteers, andÂ Jonathan will continue to run weekly shows at the ARG Netcast.

Many things at ARGNet will remain the same. ARGNet is still committed to reporting on alternate reality games, cross-media experiences, interactive storytelling, and projects that amaze and astound. And while you may notice a fewÂ minor changesÂ to the website’sÂ appearance over the coming months,Â ARGNet will remain largely unchanged. Here’s a preview of some of the changes you might be seeing in the near future.

New Staff
ARGNet is actively looking for new volunteer staff writers. So if you’re enthusiastic about the genre and interested in writing an article for ARGNet once a month, let us know. The submission guidelines are as follows:

Write a blurb-style article on any currently running game.
Write a feature article on any of these topics: 1) a game, current or historical; 2) an interesting story or aspect of the ARG community; 3) a topic of interest to the ARGNet readership; 4) being a puppetmaster or behind-the-scenes game creator.

Articles should be clear and concise: we don’t pay by the word. In fact, we don’t pay at all. On the bright side, that also means that despite hard economic times, we haven’t been forced to cut writer salaries. Email entries to [email protected] by October 1 at 11:59PM EST. If you’re interested in writing a guest post, contact us with your proposal through our contact form.

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Is There Something in the Sea?

August 26, 2009 / Robbie Smith

In March of this year posters began showing up on the east coast warning of an undersea threat. The posters ended with a URL that led the curious to Something in the Sea: and for the past six months, the rabbit hole has wound deeper and deeper.

While the website originally only displayed a map detailing an unseen researcher’s efforts to track seemingly random kidnapping cases from around the world, the site has since evolved. Players have found themselves silent observers to Mark Meltzerâ€™s search for his missing daughter Cindy.Â Mark’s very research into the missing girls led to his own daughterâ€™s kidnapping and the collapse of his marriage, causing his obsession to take on a more personal nature as he searches frantically for any information that might lead him to his daughter.

As time has gone on and Markâ€™s search has become more desperate, he has even reached out to players for help. Those who have been willing to write to Mark and offer their assistance have found themselves receiving strange packages in the mail containing childrenâ€™s drawings or vinyl records that hint at strange monsters and unknown cities. Earlier this month, players around the world who ventured out to specific beaches that Mark indicated would hold a clue to his search discovered champagne bottles full of propaganda from that same mysterious city, buried in the sand as the sun rose on the adventurers who attended the event.

A Second Chance With Maddison Atkins

August 25, 2009 / Michael Andersen

maddisonatkins Second chances are hard to come by. But Jeromy Barber’s media design company 12th Street House decided to give his audience a second chance to saveÂ the characters Maddison Atkins and Adam Wilmott fromÂ their grisly deaths with theÂ launch of Maddison Atkins 2.0, a reboot of the alternate reality game Maddison Atkins 1.0. Barber explained at ARGFest that he “tried to recreate the plot [of Maddison Atkins 1.0] so there are a lot of things that the players didn’t know but there are a lot of overarching story [elements] that are very similar.”

In April 2007, Maddison Atkins and Adam Wilmott were brutally murdered in the small town of Nacogdoches, Texas. Fifteen days prior to their grisly murders, Maddison received a pigeon with a note tied to its leg at her doorstep. Over two years later, many of the same players who watched Maddison and Adam die returned with equal parts anticipation and trepidation to witness five pigeons delivered to the house of one Ms. Maddison Atkins. The story, which played out over forty-nine YouTube videos and nearly as many video responses, focused on Maddison and Adam’s efforts to trust a community of players attempting to help them while chasing down letters scattered across the globe, from Tucson, Arizona to Sydney, Australia. Indeed, one of the main “puzzles” of the gameplay was winning over its two main characters. As Barber unapologetically explains, “My two main characters are really stupid, and don’t know anything. But they’re very attractive…part of the game is cracking Maddison, getting to know this girl.”

A Tribute to Dave Szulborski

August 24, 2009 / Michael Andersen

heart After a long fight with Leukemia, our dear friend and alternate reality game developer, Dave Szulborski, Â lost the battle. In honor of his memory, Michelle Senderhauf and Dee Cook collaborated with the ARG community to create a tribute video to Dave.

From the beginning, Dave was a pivotal force in the community. In addition to authoring This Is Not A Game: A Guide to Alternate Reality Gaming, Szulborski worked on a number of successful alternate reality games including The Art of the Heist, Chasing the Wish, Urban Hunt, and Holomove. He had a knack for creating compelling puzzles that captured the interest and imagination of his players.

The ARG community sent over one thousand wish-filled paper cranes to Dave while he was hospitalized in the spring of 2008 as part of Folding the Wish. Dave Szulborski recovered enough to attend ARGFest 2008 as the keynote speaker. Sadly, he had a relapse, and his condition worsened until he passed away in April.Â At ARGFest 2009, Dave’s wife and son attended for a memorial in Dave’s honor, where the community presented them with a Memory Book of letters recounting their experiences with Dave. They also aired a tribute video, which is now available online.

Purity Towers: Funnel Productions’ Crown Jewel

August 24, 2009 / Robbie Smith

Purity Towers Logo Have you ever wanted to be Luke Skywalker, a rebel fighting for the cause of the oppressed? How about a master spy, the kind who prefers his martinis shaken, not stirred? If either of these roles tempts you, Funnel Productions has an ARG with your name on it.

Purity Towers offers players a chance to enter a world once tormented by dragons. The Peopleâ€™s Proscript Party and the Grotians, enemies who were brought together by the dragon wars, find themselves suddenly at odds again after decades of peace: and a rebellion ofÂ epic proportions is brewing. Add to this interesting plot the fact that players are given the opportunity to pick their role and which side they wish to play for, acting as everything from rebel saboteurs to party reconnoiters, and you will find a rare jewel of a game.

Head to Purity Towers and help the players shape the revolution…but keep an eye out for dragons!

A Modern Day Lobby Lud: Wired’s Manhunt for Evan Ratliff

August 19, 2009 / Michael Andersen

Find Evan Ratliff On August 13, 2009, Evan Ratliff wrote a feature article for Wired entitled Gone Forever: What Does It Take to Really Disappear? In the article, Ratliff profiles the disappearance and subsequent hunt for family man Matthew Alan Sheppard as well as the stories of other infamous missing people including Marcus Schrenker, the money manager who attempted to fake his death by crashing his plane in Florida. The article goes on to note that every year, thousands of adults decide to abandon their lives: according to a British study, two-thirds of missing adults make a conscious decision to leave.

The article inspired Evan Ratliff and Wired editor Nicholas Thompson to stage a manhunt of their own. Starting on August 15th, Evan Ratliff disappeared and challenged Wired’s readers to find him. The first person to find Ratliff, pass on the codeword “Fluke”, the name of Matthew Alan Sheppard’s black labrador, and email Ratliff’s response to [email protected] will receive $5,000. The contest will either come to a close when someone successfully locates Ratliff, or when he emerges from hiding victorious on September 15th. As Grant Hamilton at AbsurdIntellectual.com notes, this is reminiscent of newspaper contests dating as far back as 1927, when the Westminster Gazette challenged its readers to locate the fictional “Lobby Lud” based on his description printed in the daily newspaper.