Tag: deus city (Page 2 of 3)

Deus City: Big Brother Wants to See Your Karma

February 6, 2007 / Michael Andersen

When Fundi Technologies announced their foray into the world of Alternate Reality Gaming with Deus City, they promised something different. An immersive reality with economic, prestige, and karmic systems judging players’ decisions. Actually, they promised nothing of the sort — but they’ll probably deliver anyway. Now that the main site has relaunched (Jan. 15), we are finally able to explore the districts of Deus City in 2037. Expect numerous references to dytopian stories in this post-apocalyptic landscape.

Since ARGN’s last article on Deus City, players have received frequent communications from 30 years in the future as characters scrambled furiously for control over the mysterious Defense-Corp Incorporated. While Adam Brackin traveled North America following the trail of prophecy, Alex Wright and “Foo” gained access to the Time Communication interface, allowing players to register as “Temporal Agents”. Alex’s father became the first in-game fatality due to a plane crash, and the fate of Defense-Corp employee Phillip Moore is currently unknown, with our last interaction ending with gunfire.

ARG Netcast, Episode 9

January 15, 2007 / Jonathan Waite

Caution: possible spoilers about Perplex City are revealed in this netcast.

It’s our first netcast of 2007, and I’m happy to be joined by regular panel guests Brooke Thompson, Jackie Kerr and Marie Lamb, with special panel guest rose. In our ninth netcast, we talk about games, games and more games. Subscribe to the ARG Netcast feed through FeedBurner or via iTunes.

Game News

Vanishing Point is live and full of wonderful prizes and challenging puzzles. And, no, we don’t all think it’s an ARG… even if 42 Entertainment is behind it.
Puzzle of the week: The META puzzle from Vanishing Point. Read more about it at the Unforums.
Township Heights, the new VirtuQuest alternate reality game, launches with a pay-to-play model and a few T-shirts.
Meigeist (the ARG formerly known as Geist) goes live and people are already buzzing about the quality of the game this far. Oh, and there are cute, cuddly cats involved. You can get behind-the-scenes information here if you can’t wait for us to publish an ARGNet article about the game.
NeoVenus Construction (AKA Nevec) looked to be stalled before candy bars and a new blog opened the game back up with a resurgence. See Krystyn Wells’ ARGNet article for more information.
The Sector Seven/Transformers ARG viral campaign stalls. Fanboys and fangirls around the world really want this to be more than what it currently is.
Perplex City has life, as the players feel that they are close to finding that darn cube. It’s not an easy path, however.
Second Life Future Salon panel discussion on ARGs took place on the 27th of November, we hope to have access to the audio from that discussion soon.
The Human Pet reinvents itself with more videos and a shiny new website, complete with community-forming forums.
Deus City is on a bit of a hiatus, claiming that the recent storms in the U.S. have thrown an icy wrench into their plans. Yeah, sure — nice excuse. No, really, we like it.
Marie talks about Doom Skull, which we were ready to pass off as just another game… until she really sold us on it.
Preview for next week — Bristelgoodman.. On first glance, it looks rather creepy. We’ll know more by next week.

ARG Netcast, Episode 6

November 26, 2006 / Jonathan Waite

If half a dozen netcasts are as sweet as half a dozen donuts, then feast your ears on the sixth ARG Netcast. Sean C. Stacey, Brooke Thompson and Jonathan Waite are joined this week by Carie Ward, ARGNet staff writer and webmaster of wonderweasels.org. Subscribe to the ARG Netcast feed through FeedBurner or via iTunes.

Game News

Ny Takma wrapped up this past week. The puppetmasters have spoken — find out what we think about the endgame.
Sammeeeees players are hot on the trail of the 4th and 5th Spoocheeeee disc pieces, and konamouse offers a Top Ten list. Does this ARG have the personal touch mastered?
OpAphid becomes the “Official LonelyGirl15 Alternate Reality Game, according to the official LG15 forums. Is this ARG 2.0?
Deus City rolls on. There’s a basic plot time line and cast of characters at the Unfiction forums.
tCotSA (The Committee of the Sedulous Amalgamation) shows signs of life with new snail mailings to various players. ARG or puzzle trail?
Lawn Games For Life is a new ARG. Brooke and Carie have the skinny on this emerging campaign, including info about the PM herself.
NeoVenus Construction may or may not be an ARG related to Capcom’s Lost Planet. Slick web sites, more information to follow this week.

ARG Netcast, Episode 5

November 20, 2006 / Jonathan Waite

On the fifth ARG Netcast your panel gave to you… Sean C. Stacey, Brooke Thompson, Jackie Kerr and Jonathan Waite. Subscribe to the ARG Netcast feed through FeedBurner or via iTunes.

Game News

VirtuQuest OpenARG 6.5 set to launch soon, available for the public.
Free! Psychic Readings ended yesterday.
EVA launches with allusions to the End of the World. A summary thread can be found here at the Unfiction forums.
Avelon 2 is up and running — a sequel to Avelon from 2005.
Correction from last week: Deus City ARG is not done by the Ares Station group. Ares Station group went on to create Studio Cyphers.
Deus City is one week old, and already there is game play controversy involving factions and separate password-protected forums.
The Human Pet is back under a new YouTube identity.

Deus City Launch

November 13, 2006 / Larry Eisner

Well, the time to wait is no longer. In fact, time as we know it may never be the same. Yes, that’s right! Deus City appears to have launched at 11:11:11am CST this past Saturday (That’s 11/11, by the way). And it appears that Brackin’s dissertation theory has proved to be quite true, with much more significance than even he thought possible.

Using some low-budget video (low quality, too, although it fits in well with the story) and some YouTube goodness, the Deus City main site updated with the final moments of the countdown, and some intriguing new developments. Team Brackin’s “communication across time using lasers and a precise location for transmission and receipt” concept appears to have worked flawlessly. However, the signal that was received was much more than anyone expected. Instead of hearing “himself from the future,” it appears that Brackin and his team were greeted by someone who claims to be the Senate Majority Leader and President of Deus City, from the year 2036. After the brief introduction, Brackin’s team received a “burst of compressed data” that is supposed to contain the information required to create a two-way, permanent communication system between Deus City of 2036, and Brackin’s team in 2006 (and thereby, you and me, dear players). However, as tends to happen with this sort of thing, there are many unanswered questions:

First of all, where has teammate “Foo” been for the last couple weeks? Can he be trusted? And why is there a blog with “direct feed” video attached, apparently from him? What kind of information will the “near half-terabyte” of information in the data burst hold? Finally, what kind of “history change” will be required of our players to assist Deus City? Only the future will tell (quite literally, apparently).

While we wait for the answers, this is an excellent time, be you a seasoned ARG veteran or a new player to the genre, to get involved at the ground floor of what looks to be a well-planned, and intriguing Alternate Reality Game. As always, we here at ARGNet will keep you updated with any major developments and breaking news!

Click Here for the Deus City Blog.
Click Here to join the discussion at the unfiction forums.

ARG Netcast, Episode 4

November 12, 2006 / Jonathan Waite

Episode 4 of the ARG Netcast contains more of the same tantalizing discussion that you’ve grown accustomed to over the past few weeks. Regular panel members Sean C. Stacey of unfiction, Brooke Thompson of Giant Mice and ARGNet’s Jonathan Waite are joined by special guest Steve Peters of 42 Entertainment. Subscribe to the ARG Netcast feed through FeedBurner or via iTunes.

Topics of Discussion

With our special guest joining us, we grill Steve Peters about his move to professional puppetmastery, and get his thoughts on the directions that we might see ARG move towards in the near future.
Elan Lee, another 42 Entertainment alum, gave a speech at the Montreal International Gaming Summit this past week (our own Carie Ward broke the story here), and our panel looks at some of the things he said.