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Okay, we get it! Fringe has an ARG!

September 14, 2008 / Jonathan Waite

Image from the Fringe TV show

The much ballyhooed J.J. Abrams television series Fringe kicked off earlier this week, and with it came an update to a web site connected to the show, which in turn prompted quite a few of you to send in game tips about the apparent alternate reality game. We’ve heard you loud and clear, which may please The Powers That Be behind the game, since a viral campaign is only as good as the word of mouth advertising it generates. So, what’s the deal with this Massive Dynamic corporation anyway? And what does it have to do with FBI agents, six-fingered hand prints and something called The Pattern?

Honestly, there’s no clear answer to the variety of connections between the web site, which is assumed to be the trailhead into the game, and the broadcast of the pilot episode of the hotly anticipated TV show. Perhaps it’s best to look at a chronology of events before jumping into what might just be a blockbuster ARG.

On June 17, Jenna Wortham at the utterly fantastic Underwire blog at wired.com revealed that a rough cut of the show’s pilot had made its way onto the BitTorrent file sharing network. In the show, it’s obvious that Massive Dynamic will be a focus of the story.

Later in the month of June, a puzzle of sorts showed up at the official show web site, as documented by deletia at the Unfiction forums. Combined with subtle-but-mysterious messages in the show’s trailers, and given that other Abrams productions (such as Lost and Cloverfield) have used the Internet as a hype promotion mechanism in the past, ARG players felt that familiar twinge of curiosity.

In July, animated advertisements started showing up on television, and the Massive Dynamic web site went live with an ‘under contruction’ page featuring the MD logo and the message: “Updating Our Site. Updating Your Life.”

On August 4, a comic was handed out at ComicCon that introduced “The Pattern, which was also a big part of the leaked pilot. Attendees of the conference were also invited to “find the pattern’, a scavenger hunt that began at the web site explortheimpossibilities.com (which had been discovered in July and now redirects to Hadley Media) and was documented by PostLarval at the Unfiction forums.

This takes us to September 9, when the series premiered in North America. We have details on what’s happened since then after the jump, and here’s a spoiler: there’s an employee login to be cracked.

Indiana University Combats the Freshman Fifteen with “Skeleton Chase”

September 7, 2008 / Michael Andersen

Indiana University logo In late May, Indiana University announced that it received a $185,000 grant from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation to explore how interactive digital games can be designed to improve players’ health. Sometime early in the semester, a group of 90 students in the freshman living and learning center at IU will begin to play an alternate reality game named Skeleton Chase, designed by Lee Sheldon. Jeanne Johnston from the school’s Department of Kinesiology and Anne Massey from the Kelley School of Business will be conducting the research for the project.

Sheldon was understandably reticent regarding details of the upcoming game’s plot. However, he did note that it is a “story of mystery, suspense, conspiracies, corporate greed, demented professors, unnatural creatures… You know: the usual.” The story will play out over fictional and real web pages, videos, email, phone calls, text messages, and live events involving actors and lots of physical props. Sheldon promises that by the end of the game, the students “will know just about every corner of this sprawling campus from familiar landmarks to little-known nooks and crannies.”

The research team will collect data on players using FitLinxx ActiPeds, small pedometers that automatically transmit data to a receiver located at the entrance of the students’ shared dorm. Jennifer Boen at the News-Sentinel notes in her article on the project that the high tech monitors will allow the design team to decipher which components are the most motivating and enjoyable, so the results of this study will be of particular interest to game designers looking to increase engagement among players.

Lee Sheldon is no stranger to web mysteries and alternate reality games. In 1983, Warner Books hired Sheldon to write two books in the style of Dennis Wheatley’s Crime Dossiers from the 1930s. Wheatley’s dossiers were fictional police dossiers to crimes presented in sequence, including physical evidence. The project fell through, but Sheldon bought back the rights and released The Light Files: Death in Broad Daylight as a “web mystery” in 1996. Veteran ARG players might also recognize him as the lead writer behind URU: Ages Beyond Myst, which captured the attention of many ARG enthusiasts before the multiplayer’s cancellation in 2004. He is currently a Creative Consultant for the SciFi Channel’s upcoming series Danger Game, about the secretive organization Modern Reality Adventures, which produces alternate reality experiences for the unwitting client. The students at Indiana University are undoubtedly in for a treat over the next few weeks as Sheldon works with the project team at Indiana University to deliver an unforgettable and healthy experience.

Recently, Jane McGonigal and AKQA had participants in The Lost Ring traversing major cities with the Trackstick II and competing in labyrinth runs. Hopefully, the results of Indiana University’s innovative project will help explain what makes us go out and play.

The game is set to run until November 12th.

Eagle Eye Freefall: What Majestic Should Have Been

September 6, 2008 / Michelle Senderhauf

Eagle Eye Freefall

A new alternate reality game, Eagle Eye Freefall, has launched to promote the upcoming Steven Spielberg movie Eagle Eye. While the game lasts only ten minutes, it’s jam-packed with action and fun that will keep even the most jaded ARG player on the edge of their seat. Seriously. One can only hope that this is the first chapter of a much longer ARG.

The upcoming movie stars Shia LeBouf and Michelle Monaghan and is directed by D.J. Caruso with Steven Spielberg as executive producer. The movie follows two strangers, played by LeBouf and Monaghan, whose live are turned upside down by a mysterious woman phone caller. The woman controls their every move by threatening their lives if they disobey. In the Freefall ARG, you too will be controlled by this mystery woman, so beware!

Eagle Eye Freefall thread at unfiction
Eagle Eye Freefall website
Eagle Eye official movie website

Media Factory Produces Branded Alternate Reality Gaming Card Game

September 4, 2008 / Michael Andersen

åæŽ¢åµ ã‚³ãƒŠãƒ³, better known as Detective Conan or Case Closed in the English-speaking world, is a popular Japanese media franchise. The original manga is currently over 60 volumes long and has spawned an anime series, movies, tv dramas, and video games. When I was teaching English in Japan, I would half-jokingly tell my students that Detective Conan is the reason I learned the word for murderer (äººæ®ºã—) before I learned how to speak in the past tense. As of April 19, 2008, Media Factory released Cardtantei (Card Detective), adding “alternate reality game” to the list of Detective Conan associated properties

Cardtantei is a collectible trading card game that functions similar to Mind Candy’s Perplex City. Players can purchase packs of cards that contain puzzles ranging in difficulty from easy (5 Detective Points) to hard (30 Detective Points). Going to the Cardtantei homepage linked via semacode on many cards allows you to gain Detective Points by solving the puzzle with the unique identification number scratched off the top of the card. Many of the puzzles are similar to those shown on the Japanese puzzle game show IQ Suppli or in the video game Professor Layton and the Curious Village.

As in Perplex City, however, the cards hide a larger mystery. Upon registering for the site, the player begins to receive emails intimating there is more to the cards than the individual puzzles. Certain cards have portions of a larger picture on the back of the card. Assembling the cards to reveal the larger images provide clues to larger scenarios that draw the player deeper into the mystery. According to kwsk, the webmaster at ARGFan, ARGNet’s Japanese counterpart, following the clues sent via email and inputting puzzle solves leads to additional puzzles, phone numbers with automated voice messages and different websites helping the player uncover crimes that can only be solved by careful observation and investigation. The interaction is fully automated, so players can start at any time as long as they have a few cards and a rudimentary knowledge of Japanese. Detective Conan tells the story of a young detective who solves mysteries, so the brand extension is a good fit. And while the game’s puzzles are relatively simplistic, the easier puzzles allow ambitious players to play through the entire experience on their own.

Kwsk informed me that the game was viewed as a big success in Japan. Media Factory showcased the game with a tutorial event at the World Hobby Fair on July 12-13 of this year, and hinted at the existence of a second season of gameplay with a new edition.

Click Here for ARGFan’s coverage of the Detective Conan ARG or to purchase the cards.

Special thanks to kwsk at ARGFan for his help with this article.

We’re helping to create the future at PICNIC ’08

September 3, 2008 / Jonathan Waite

PICNIC 08 Logo Back in 2006, a cross-media festival in Amsterdam called PICNIC ’06 caught the eye of our friend and cohort Sean C. Stacey. Billing itself as the “first ever annual event for people interested and involved in cross media content and technology in Europe, North America and Asia,” speakers included John de Mol, Philip Rosedale and Craig Newmark. It also included a presentation by the ARG IGDA SIG, who talked about their first published white paper. The conference was a smashing success, and plans were made for the following year’s festival.

In 2007, PICNIC ’07 expanded on the format of the previous year, incorporating nightly entertainment, partner events and a Green Challenge with their speaker presentations. Sir Richard Branson got involved with the Green Challenge, and visionaries such as Cory Doctorow, Walt Mossberg and Dennis Crowley delivered speeches and participated in discussion panels. Our man on the scene, Daniel van Gool, was especially impressed by a trio of speakers — Eduardo Dias, David Polinchock and Jeroen Mol, who collaborated on a presentation called “Augmented Reality for Advertisers.”

This brings us to 2008, and another installment of the popular cross-media festival. Things kick off on September 24th, and once again ARGNet is a proud media sponsor of the event. This year’s conference will feature a wide range of speakers which include Jyri EngEstrÃ¶m, a co-founder of social networking site Jaiku, Martin de Ronde of the Onebiggame charity, and Kara Swisher from AllThingsD.com, a tech and media web site. There are also special events planned for each day of the festival, such as book releases and breakfast sessions with speakers, and PICNIC Labs, which are “practical workshops that challenge you to re-imagine your business, develop new products and services, refine ideas and formats and come up with creative business concepts.” Daniel van Gool will once again attend the conference for ARGNet, and we’re looking forward to more of his stellar reporting and analysis.

You too can attend PICNIC ’08, and because you are such wonderful, loyal readers of this little news site, you get a discount! So, if you plan on being in the Westergasfabriek area of Amsterdam and want to save a few bucks on attendance costs, click the link below for details on how to register and to find out how to apply the discount code.

Looking for Love in Dead Space

August 29, 2008 / Michelle Senderhauf

Deadspace logo

Bored? Looking for a new timewaster? Need a little more survival horror in your life? Look no further. The necromorphs are here for you and ready to entertain (and possibly award prizes!)

Deep Focus recently released No Known Survivors, an interactive narrative series set in the world of Electronic Arts’ upcoming survival horror game, Dead Space. The narrative series is one part of a extensive cross media marketing package which includes comic books, animated shorts, developer diaries, and a movie.

In the world of Dead Space, necromorphs have overrun the USG Ishimura, a deep space planetcracking ship, after a mysterious stone is discovered on the planet below. No one outside the ship knows there are necromorphs (parasitic zombie-like creatures) running around killing the Ishimura crew, so a shuttle is sent to investigate why the ship’s communication systems are down (of course!).

No Known Survivors, however, has subject matter which is a bit lighter. Griggs, a technician in the Organ Replacement Lab, spends his days replacing the organs of the crew and residents of the Ishimura. He isn’t worried about necromorphs (yet), but is more concerned with how to impress a seven-fingered girl named Jane.

No Known Survivors, still in its first chapter, plays out much like an old school PC adventure game with point and click navigation and puzzles to discover and solve. As players advance through the game and solve puzzles, they will be awarded points and a spot on the leaderboard. The top 100 players on the board at the end of the narrative will receive a copy of the Dead Space video game. The first puzzle, a severed finger code, is still unsolved, so it’s not too late to join in!

For those who like to peek behind the curtain, a few familiar names are attached to the project. Dave Szulborski helped out early in the production of the game, while Nick Braccia and Dee “Addlepated” Cook are both on the current development team.

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