Tag: 42 entertainment (Page 4 of 8)

If Looks Could Kill… ZAP!

June 12, 2008 / Jackie Kerr

Vroom vroom! The sleek champagne Toyota Camry zips around the corner, coming to a screeching halt. Out steps a leggy, ultra-fashionable African-American woman, arriving to hook up with her ultra-fashionable, successful boyfriend. She flips her keys to the valet – a little “blip blip!” sounds from the Camry’s push-button car alarm, like Kit saying “see ya later!” to Knight Rider. Who is this woman? Where did she get such an awesome car with such swanky accoutrements? Where did she find that hunky boyfriend of hers? What does her rolling stone of a father have to do with the dudes who stole her purse? What kind of pie did Nana bake? And where on earth did she find those fantastic shoes?!

The latest in cross-media marketing mayhem produced by Burrell Communications Group and 42 Entertainment for Toyota’s 2009 Camry, entitled “If Looks Could Kill,” takes you inside the world of high fashion and high espionage with Bianca, the fashionista lead character poised to pique the interest of young, hip, African-American women – women, who indeed, need a swanky Toyota Camry. In each weekly episode of this interactive drama, Bianca is pressed to unravel a mystery of intrigue and espionage, all while juggling the stressful duties of her job as a fashion designer, keeping her boyfriend happy and interested, and making sure not to miss coffee and dessert with her Nana. For seven weeks, participants are treated to six movie-styled webisodes of Bianca’s crazy life as she tools around through New York City (without ever running into traffic) in her champagne-colored Camry (with touch navigation and integrated Bluetooth). Within each episode are opportunities for players to help Bianca escape from trouble, as she turns to the camera and asks you to do something for her, such as download photos and find flyers, and email her the information she needs to stay in the game.

RUMOR: An ARG for Resistance 2?

April 16, 2008 / Michael Andersen

Resistance 2 / 42 Entertainment Last week, the staff at Kombo posted a rumor attributed to “inside sources” that 42 Entertainment is developing an alternate reality game for Resistance 2, the sequel to the Playstation 3 title Resistance: Fall of Man. Although 42 Entertainment offered no comment on the rumor, the company has a solid track record of developing alternate reality games for sequels, including campaigns for The Dark Knight and Halo 2.

According to the article at Kombo, the casting call intimates “Cassie” will be central to the campaign. The release states:

[CASSIE] is a 23-30 years old female lead and face of the campaign. Cassie was recruited by the military to do psychological testing on the soldiers. We see the project and its volunteers through her eyes as she struggles to make decisions that not only affect their lives, but the future of mankind. She embodies the moral dilemma of the story. Scene takes place in a Military setting of the 1950’s. It is an all-male world. She has a ‘Mitzi Gaynor’ quality, intelligent, well spoken, compelling and empathetic. She has a PH D in psychology.

The original game, Resistance: Fall of Man, followed Sgt. Nathan Hale as he faces an army of aliens called Chimera in the 1950s. This alternate history sets an intriguing stage for an alternate reality game, presumably allowing players to reach back to the past to interact. Its alternate history status also makes it easier for me to disassociate the name Nathan Hale from that of the Revolutionary soldier famous for saying “I only regret that I have but one life to lose for my country”.

The article claims the alternate reality game will run for twelve weeks. And while an official release date has not been announced for Resistance 2, it is rumored to have a November 2008 release date, so keep your eyes peeled for this potential game over the summer.

Why So Serious, Halloween Edition

October 30, 2007 / Michael Andersen

At the stroke of midnight (Eastern time, GMT -4) on Halloween, the newest chapter in 42 Entertainment‘s alternate reality game promoting the release of the movie “The Dark Knight” launched. Over the past few weeks, the website WhySoSerious.com depicted a slowly rotting Halloween pumpkin with a diminishing candle.

Just minutes ago, as the candle burnt out, the page changed to show 49 small pieces of paper on a worktable. Each piece links to a puzzle involving a US city. A note from the Joker says,

“Hey, clowns! Ready to do what you’re told? First, don’t start before daylight. With a police force this corrupt, it’s not safe to be out at night, and anyway, you won’t be able to see the things you want to find.

Follow all of my directions to the letter and send photos of what you find.

I’ll make it worth your while, I promise – for what that’s worth…

The campaign to promote the new Batman movie started in May with a handful of Joker playing cards discovered in a California comic book store, and led to a massive email campaign to reveal the new face of the Joker. Later in July, strange dollar bills were distributed at Comic-Con that led 140 lucky participants on a scavenger hunt throughout the city of San Diego. Now, it appears the scavenger hunt has expanded on a national scale as participants are encouraged to solve a series of puzzles and send in photographs.

Check back at ARGNet for updates as the story develops.

Click Here for the discussion at UnFiction.
Click Here for ARGNet columnist Geoff May’s wiki for the Dark Knight ARG.

Do You Believe in Harvey Dent? Possible Batman ARG Launches

May 22, 2007 / Michael Andersen

Promotions for the July 2008 release of “The Dark Knight” appear to have commenced in earnest. The official movie website for the upcoming sequel to Warner Bros Studios’ hit film “Batman Begins”, featuring the Batman insignia, recently directed visitors to I Believe in Harvey Dent. The website displayed an advertisement for Harvey Dent’s campaign for District Attorney. Harvey Dent, played by Aaron Eckhart in the upcoming movie, is better known as the villain Two-Face. Campaign posters have been reported displaying the same image in select major cities.

A handful of Joker playing cards were discovered in Meltdown, a comic book store in California, leading curious patrons to I Believe in Harvey Dent Too. This website displayed a defaced replica of the campaign poster. The posters were reported to be similarly defaced within 48 to 72 hours of going up in their respective cities.

Visitors to the defaced website were prompted to send emails to “tragicpast” to reveal the Joker’s grim visage for the movie a pixel at a time. Once completed, a message reading “See you in December” is displayed amidst a string of laughter. And while it is still too early to determine if this will be a full-fledged ARG or a simple viral marketing campaign, with over a year before the movie’s release, there appears to be ample opportunity for much more.

Click here to view the discussion in the UnFiction forums.
Click here to view the Joker cards found at Meltdown

Editor’s note: If you have any pictures of the defaced posters mentioned in this article, send them to us for a future updated article!

42 Entertainment to be Featured on Spike TV Program

April 19, 2007 / Jonathan Waite

Alternate reality gaming has enjoyed a great deal of mainstream press lately, particularly for games like Year Zero and World Without Oil. Tomorrow night, 42 Entertainment will be featured on Spike TV’s Game Head, a “half-hour weekly program dedicated to everything that is happening in the world of video games,” according to the Spike TV web site. While the show description is interesting enough, a more intriguing tidbit of information game in a game tip sent in to ARGNet which states to watch the show closely, as there may be “something you are missing!”

If you are able to watch Spike, the show airs at 1 AM EST on “Friday” (technically, Saturday) / 10 PM PST on Friday. If you happen to miss it, there is a video archive on the show’s web site, but there’s no indication how long this episode will take to show up there after airing. So, just watch it!

ARGFest 2007: 42 Entertainment Roundtable Discussion — The Big Picture

March 31, 2007 / Jessica Price

After a number of panels featuring discussion between independent puppetmasters and members of different design companies, 42 Entertainment‘s Jim Stewartson (Chief Technology Officer), Elan Lee (Co-Founder, Vice President of Experience Design), Sean Stewart (Co-Founder, Creative Director), Steve Peters (Game Designer) and Michael Borys (Visual Design Director) sat down for a roundtable discussion, moderated by Kristen Rutherford, about how their team works together.

Stewart began the roundtable with a discussion of a chemistry puzzle in the Beast that was intended to look “cool and spooky” but be relatively easy to solve, and 42’s subsequent efforts to reproduce that effect in their other games. One of these attempts was Flea++, the “programming” language used in I Love Bees. In a similar vein, players would “teach” the character of the Sleeping Princess to speak as she cobbled together words and phrases from their emails and replied to them. Stewart’s favorite draft reply was “I want a cupcake.” Lee told him they couldn’t use it because it was too ambiguous — it could be a call to action for the players. According to Stewart, one of Lee’s main roles within the company is removing ambiguity from what the players see (Stewart’s summary: the creative process at 42 consists mainly of Lee saying, “That’s really good but can we have another draft?”).