neowin | ARGNet: Alternate Reality Gaming Network

In our last episode before migrating the netcasts to a shiny new web site, we reflect on the many, many emails we received in response to Episode 12. Episode 13 assembles the same panel as last week, which (in case you missed it) includes Jessica Price, Nicko Demeter, Jackie Kerr, Sean C. Stacey, Brooke Thompson and Jonathan Waite. Subscribe to the ARG Netcast feed through FeedBurner or via iTunes.

A Disclaimer, A Discussion
The views expressed in the ARG Netcast do not necessarily represent the views of ARGNet. The opinions offered in the ARG Netcast are those of the panelists, and should not be assumed to be factual reporting for the ARGNet web site. We discuss this for a bit, just to make sure we leave no stone unturned.

Game News

A new Nine Inch Nails game is out in the wild (starting at www.iamtryingtobelieve.com). It may or may not be a 42 Entertainment game. Nicko has been playing and talks about what’s in the water. Head over to the Unfiction forums for discussion.
The Monster Hunter Club summary from molecularr has been published! Also, The Host movie screening was last Monday and included in-game character yumminess!
The Gumshoe interactive radio play has been postponed until Wednesday the 21st of February, due to inclement weather.
There’s a new game called The Wyoming Incident making waves at the UF forums. With 32 pages of threads so far, we’ll need some help from helpful listeners in sorting out the details for the next netcast.
The Vanishing Point post-game chat finally happened yesterday (Saturday), and Jessica was a moderator. She talks about the chat, and Rob from Neowin sends in a special message for the ARG community.
Lost Envelope is a new marketing campaign that Nicko has started… and finished playing, with less-than-awesome results.
MeiGeist had a live event in Bristol. At airtime there wasn’t much to report, but Russell_k at Unfiction sent us a link to his summary post. Thanks Russell_k!

A mysterious message posted recently in the news section of MSDN (Microsoft Developer Network) IE Blog has people buzzing about the possibility that another large-scale alternate reality game is about to go live. The image, which includes a complicated cipher code and a link to the Vanishing Point web site, was found by a number of people at the Neowin forums who have done a lot of work since the discovery to solve some of the puzzles already in place. One of the features of the web site is a countdown, which is counting down to January 8th, and further investigation of the Flash file reveals that there is an event occurring at the Bellagio Fountains in Las Vegas that day. Conveniently, this coincides with the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) which starts on that day in Las Vegas. The connection between Microsoft and the CES makes this page on the site very interesting, where “high-end laptops, gaming computers, media centers, software, gaming consoles, media players, and games” are said to be won when the countdown hits zero.

According to this Neowin post, the Flash used on the web site points back to 42 Entertainment, creators of I Love Bees and Last Call Poker. Regardless of who is making the game, the message is already getting out to a number of sources — one person has received things in the mail, while a video (used to be on YouTube, but has since disappeared) includes various clues about the mystery so far. It will be interesting to see just what happens in the days ahead with this project, so stay tuned and keep your eyes open for developments.

:: Trailhead
:: Discussion at Neowin forums
:: Discussion at unfiction forums

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ARG Netcast, Episode 13: You Can’t Handle The Truth

The Vanishing Point

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