Tag: television (Page 1 of 3)

TNT launches “episodic Flash game” for Leverage

February 7, 2009 / Jonathan Waite

We received a game tip early in January from the fine folks at TNT TV regarding their new original series Leverage. According to Seth Miller, the Senior Manager of Digital Partnerships at the network, “[t]he games take elements and storylines of from the show, add on a layer of a 3D virtual headquarters and features a sweepstakes to help the Leverage team recover some stolen money.” Miller admits that he doesn’t know if this “qualifies as a true ARG” so let’s have our readers be the judges of that! You can access the game at LeverageHQ.com and please, let us know in our comments how you feel about the campaign.

Leverage is a con series in reverse, in which a group of “specialists” take on the corrupt people and companies that plague our society in a sort of modern-day Robin Hood theme. It stars Timothy Hutton and can be seen Tuesdays at 10/9c on TNT, or you can watch full episodes on the TNT website (U.S. visitors only, we assume).

ARGNet Editor Wears his Grin on Irish TV

October 6, 2008 / Marie Lamb

ARGNet on TV Programming alert! Today on RTÃ‰ News, reporter Laura Fletcher talks to ARGNet Editor Jonathan Waite about the new British Red Cross ARG, Traces of Hope. Catch the interview at the News on Two’s broadcast page:

http://www.rte.ie/news/6news/

Please note that rte.ie uses RealPlayer, so you must have Real Player installed on your computer in order to watch. RTÃ‰ provides a link for the free download on their page if you need it.

Editor’s Note: No, I will not be changing my last name to Wilke. Was that even 15 seconds of fame? Yikes. – JW

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.

Attention Whedon-ites! The Dollhouse Welcomes You with Virally Goodness

May 28, 2008 / Michael Andersen

Over at Furious Nads, The One True b!X (founder of Can’t Stop the Serenity) reported receiving an email from Adelle DeWitt, a character in Joss Whedon’s upcoming drama, Dollhouse. The email reads “Take Southlandlabs.com offline for now, whilst we redesign.” The domain Adelle used for the email, AdelleDeWitt.com, currently displays a single login page. And whilst Southlandlabs.com was offline when the email was sent, it is now up with an image of the lab from the TV show trailer, the message “soon. but not yet” in the source code. A comment on the Future on Fox blog from “Kimi Lassek” revealed the username/password combination to access Adelle’s email: adelle/wipe. Odd, as Kimi seems to be missing.

The Future on Fox blog also posted a link to the adelledewitt.com domain, implying this may be an official ARG for the upcoming show. Last season, Fox experimented with alternate reality games alongside Millions of Us with the Enitech ARG for The Sarah Connor Chronicles. It looks like they were satisfied with the results if this is any indication.

Click here for the discussion at UnFiction.

Chew on This: More LonelyGirl15 Product Placement

February 12, 2008 / Michael Andersen

On Valentine’s Day, Steven Gould’s novel Jumper will grace the silver screens. However, if you look carefully you can already find signs of the film. Hayden Christensen can be seen “jumping” into a Hewlett Packard advertisement starring Serena Williams. And now, the movie is jumping into LonelyGirl15.

LG15 Studios are no strangers to product placement. Last March, the 158th installment of the series was sponsored by Ice Breakers Sours Gum. Similar product placement followed in June with the introduction of Neutrogena into the story. However, the introduction of a Jumper-themed subplot seems to be taking product placement a step further, as followers of the series meet Jack, a “Jumper” who interacts with series regular Taylor.

The integration of stories from other universes is not a new concept, as Perplex City linked up with the BBC’s game Frozen Indigo Angel to promote Radio 1’s Big Weekend music festival. However, 20th Century Fox’s innovative advertising push for the film serves as a reminder that new media content creators have options in funding projects.

Image courtesy of danielbeast of the lonelygirl15 forums, via The Guardian.

Nowheremen – It’s Dangerous to Run a Wiki

January 12, 2008 / Michael Andersen

Back in August when I wrote about 401WTF, the extended experience for Ashton Kutcher’s new reality television show “Room 401”, I predicted the rather simplistic game might expand into something more. It turns out my prediction was correct, as the Wonderland blog reports the impending launch of Nowheremen.net, “a new community-based social entertainment experience that utilizes the full Web 2.0 medium of platforms to reveal the story behind the mysterious disappearance of a brilliant computer science student, Derek Border.” Apparently, the final clue from the Room 401 experience led players to itkeepsgoing.com. The first 300 players to send their contact information to the website received the next clue in the mail which led to the Nowheremen website, an article about Derek Francis Border’s disappearance.

One of the complaints I had with the game was its general lack of purpose, as the puzzle trail lacked a cohesive plot to tie the various puzzles together. It looks like I’ll have to eat those words, as Derek Francis Border (derekfb) was the creator of the wiki and responsible for posting the show’s episodes on YouTube. Both the ARG and web series revolve around tracking him down.

The timing of this game is rather fortuitous, as an extended experience designed to compliment and coexist with a cable reality televison show guides participants directly to an online web series with relatively high production values, premiering during the WGA strike. It remains to be seen whether this is one of the first of many collaborative efforts by workers displaced in the industry shakeup, or a network-based effort to expand into new media. Whatever the case, the first episode goes live January 22nd, so catch up on the plot and keep your eyes peeled.

Click Here for the discussion at UnFiction
Click Here for the wiki

Image courtesy of CSchmitt7166