Tag: Licorice Films

The Sky Remains

skyremains.jpgThe Licorice Film team, creators of 2007’s popular MeiGeist game, has a finger on the launch button for their newest project, The Sky Remains, due to begin in April. In partnership with HP Labs, The Sky Remains combines interactive ARG elements with GPS technology and the thrill of geocaching and treasure hunting using mscape (short for “mediascape”), HP Labs’ experimental mobile gaming platform. A list of compatible hardware for mscape is provided on the mscaper site. The game’s FAQ section states that players do not need these devices to participate.

Players of MeiGeist may have spotted some familiar faces in the trailer for The Sky Remains. (ARGNet also has a brief cameo!) The main story arc centers around the “6th Dimension Detective Agency” – with the players taking on the role of the 6th Dimension Agents, of course! The game breaks away from the one-time ARG experience by introducing a “re-playable” narrative. It also offers players the option to follow some parts of the story as a single player. However, collaboration and cooperation among players will be necessary to “discover the deeper subplots,” according to the FAQ. The Sky Remains also invites user-generated content, and the game’s website will serve as a social networking site for players to create and publish their own case files and stories after the initial case file has been solved and closed.

Erwin Don’t Like It, Rock the MeiGeist

geist.pngErwin is missing! There’s a great twist to this ARG cliché: you see, Erwin is a cat and back in December he fell down a rabbit hole and hasn’t been seen since.

Erwin’s person is Eva McGill. Eva’s a cute 20-something living on her own over in the UK. Her life seems to be quite ordinary. She stresses over her studies, she looks for her missing cat, and, oh yeah, she blogs.

If all that mundane activity doesn’t get you going, what if I told you that there’s an actor, Melvin Geist, who seems to believe that he was experimented on by aliens and can control people’s minds and wants to build some sort of large something on his property outside of Los Angeles, CA? There are puzzles to leave you spinning, some sort of mysterious countdown to keep you guessing, and a most awful sounding herbal supplement with its own bacterial chatbot that knows a bit more than it should (and, like all chatbots, not nearly enough).

Meigeist, the game percolating all of these fantastic moments and images, launched this past weekend and promises to be an eight week long experience unfolding online and off with websites, live events, email, and text messages. It’s being produced by the UK-based Licorice Films with support coming from HP Labs, UK Film Council, and Watershed – with all that support and talent behind it, it is no surprise that it has gotten off to a promising start. So whatcha waiting for? Go follow Erwin down that rabbit hole!

websites:
Learn more and register for the game at Enter-Geist.com
Check in on Eva at EvaMcGill.co.uk
Chat with Yuki at youkin.org
Wrap your mind around a puzzle at KeirJones.co.uk

And, of course, meet and collaborate with other players on the MeiGeist forums at unfiction and on the player-run wiki.