[GW2] IG or OOG? Your Extended Experience

If you’ve followed my blog for a while you’ll probably be vaguely aware that I used to be heavily involved in the Alternative Reality Gaming community. If you haven’t been reading for that long you might have at least noticed some odd comments made by certain readers which seem a little out of place. A while back a user called “A Pound of Flesh” commented:

Which might seem somewhat threatening until I tell you that he is a character played by a writer over at "I'll See You in Hell". He plays a serial killer who, after he stalks a young woman, begins to find himself the target of his own demon – the Slenderman. As a reader/player you follow him through his torment and interact with him through the blog and other mediums.

Now, I’ve chided ARG writers in the past for posting “In Game” on my blog (ie, posting in-character) – I’ve always considered this space to be very much OOG (out of game) meaning that as far as the characters in the game are concerned: this site doesn’t exist, and anything I say on here should not be used in their story. The game world and the world in which my blog (and the unforum) exists are two totally separate universes.

I was thinking about this kind of intrusion in terms of the upcoming Guild Wars 2 Extended project which ANet are working on. At the moment all we know is that it likely extends to a downloadable app.

But what if they took it a bit further? What if you could be contacted by text by an in game character (in the guise of some kind of telepathic link) would you be cool with that? Or would you see it as the game imposing itself onto a world where it wasn’t welcome? You could get a telepathic message from Queen Jennah imploring you to meet her at Ebonhawke to discuss battle plans. Your progression through a quest could require you to find a RFID code somewhere in the real world, scan it with your mobile and somehow send it to the game?

Some companies have used ARG elements in the advertising and promotion of games (notably Ubisoft for Assassin's Creed and Valve for Portal). Geocaching, RFID tags, flash mobs, community forums, blogs, YouTube, facebook, twitter, web-based radio, email, SMS, augmented reality, apps, GPS, online or real world character role-play – all of these are valuable tools to the ARG community, and there is no reason why the video game industry couldn’t start to use them regularly. One of the advantages which GW2 already has is a vibrant and interactive community, and these kinds of puzzles lend themselves to groups which can work well together remotely.

ANet have already experimented with ARG techniques – the “OBEY/DISMANTLE” campaign is an example of this, as is/was the Scribe (for those who remember back that far!); they are both examples of the game world bleeding out into the real world. I can’t imagine ANet introducing stories which are dependent on mechanics like these to progress, but in terms of side-quests and interesting festival events; I would relish the chance to put my exploration-head on in the real world.
I think it would be an interesting experiment - where do you want the game to end, and your world to start?

My Extended Experience - If you know what I mean

The Web 2.0 revolution has come a little late to the gaming scene, they seemed to grasp multiplayer online gaming with both hands - but then it stopped. Social networks, on the other hand, stormed ahead - Facebook, Google+, Skype, YouTube and Twitter are all fantastic behemoths of frontline technology. It seems that now video game developers have realised the potential which the Internet really poses, and are beginning to introduce further "extended experience" elements into their games to allow the video game experience to flow out of the screen and into the rest of the world.


1. Web/Mobile Apps

Web applications allow players to interact with their game without actually having to log in to their console/PC. Typically they take a small section of the game (such as the chat or trade feature) and allow players to interact with this feature from their computer or mobile phone. It's a clever idea; not only does it allow the player to interact more freely and regularly with the game, but also it keeps the game fresh in the gamer's mind at all times.
eg, For FIFA 11 EA introduced their Ultimate Team online web app which allowed players to trade, set their squad and buy player packs without having to turn on their console. Similarly, ANet have reported that Guild Wars 2 will have an "extended experience" app which will have features such as trade and chat (although we don't know a whole lot about that yet).

2. Cross Game Achievements

One of things about making a good game is that you're expected to make a sequel. The problem with this is that you build up a playerbase on your first game, and suddenly everything they've worked for is lost because you want to line your pockets with just a little bit more gold. One way to get around this is to create some way for their achievements to pass over to the next game.
ANet have done this with the Hall of Monuments and it has really rekindled a lot of players' interest in the game. Even with a game as old as Guild Wars, if players feel like they will get advantages in the next game; they will work hard in the current one. Come to think of it, it's almost Biblical.

3. Gamer profiles
People like to know that they are getting one up on other people. If they can compare their scores against another dude then they will feel a kind of visceral, primal wave of euphoria. A nice way to allow players to do this is to add a "player profile". The profile could show stats such as kills, money and achievements earned etc.
It kinda links into my first 2 points: this profile can persist across games (from what I understand this is what EA are doing with the FIFA12 "football club" feature) and be accessible from outside the game (in a web or mobile app).

4. Conventions

As I've mentioned before; the stereotype of the gamer is alone, sitting in the dark with the curtains drawn. But it doesn't have to be that way! Conventions bring large numbers of like-minded people together, they promote the game and encourage social interaction. The biggest of these (more specific - ie, not general gaming like PAX or GamesCon) game conventions is probably BlizzCon, but from what I understand the very first CoD Convention will be coming up in the next couple of months.

5. Alternative Reality Gaming (ARG)

ARGs are a bit of a passion of mine. I haven't talked about them for a while, but that's because my interest in them seems to come in waves. Essentially, the idea is that you create a game in the real world, which can be played out through a number of different mediums. A single person or group of people act as the "Puppetmasters" controlling the game, playing the characters and setting the challenges for the players who must work together to solve puzzles and eventually reach the end.
One of the games to embrace the ARG method is Assassin's Creed. If you've played the game you might remember the cryptic nature of the plot, with numerous codes and puzzles which aren't solved in game. Ubisoft created real world websites and media to help to solve and reveal the answers to these puzzles. Assassin's Creed itself is a virtual reality game but it employed alternative reality gaming techniques as an advertising method. Another example would be the "obey/dismantle"campaign which ANet set up to release the War in Kryta content.
Much like most of the other points I've mentioned, ARGs allow for gamers to come together to solve puzzles where they might ordinarily be playing alone. It allows developers to build upon already existing lore and to further progress the game story.


The whole "extended experience" idea is a really exciting one for me. As an avid ARG follower you really get to appreciate how involving a well played out game can be. If the part of the game where you have to sit in front of a computer for hours was just a small part of a whole web of activities, interactions and challenges which made up the whole "game" then that would be no bad thing.

Portal 2 ARG

Interesting stuff from Valve being released in the run up to the Portal 2 release. Supposedly, a number of media outlets received a particular image of what appeared to be a bathysphere with faint text over the top (at least, InsideGaming said it looked like a bathysphere - I think it looks like the bot played by Stephen Merchant). In addition Valve's "Potato Sack" Steam deal from April 1st seemed to contain a number of hidden messages.

The Portal 2 blog also has some really interesting info on it, including a page from the turret manual - which suggests that we might be dealing with a book code (whereby you are given directions to a specific page/line in a specific book to crack a code).

The Half Life/Portal/Apeture Science world is very rich and detailed, so really lends itself to an ARG. With so much lore behind it there is a lot to draw on for intrigue and to spur on curiosity. The UnFiction thread is already going, jump in to join the f'ed up fun!


EDIT: Also! Theres a graphic comic available which bridges the gap between the two games - first issue can be found here! 

MLAndersen0 and his Slender "Friend"

I'd been avoiding MLAndersen0 for a while because I'd assumed it was just another "WHY HE MAKE MOVE NOW!?" type Slenderman story. However, last night I bit the bullet and sat down and watched the videos. It was well worth the effort. The story is kinda different from the other Slendervlogs out there as it pits the protagonist as a sort of Anti-Hero (as Michael is essentially batshit bonkers) and his relationship with Slenderman is fatherly at best, homoerotic at worst.

Plus they made a sweet ass April Fools video:

Marble Hornets Entry #38

 It's a good'un.



It feels like we might be finally getting a grip on where the Slenderman has come from. I suppose the implication is that he is one of the unfortunate criminals to have been stretched out by the trees. It's a real and concrete move by Marble Hornets to explain their storyline; a lot of these YouTube series go for a long time surviving on scares and freaky imagery without providing any answers - it's brave of Troy and the guys to lay some of their cards on the table.

Plus, Troy has told us that the DVD is just around the corner (Warning: don't follow the link if you don't want to see OOG MH stuff). He released it with a pretty nifty jigsaw puzzle for us to solve and decipher - smart move, the guy knows his audience. The DVD will include (quoted directly from Troy Wagner's Blog Machine):

MARBLE HORNETS: THE COMPLETE FIRST SEASON
--------------------------------------------------------
-Two discs!
-Includes Introduction, Entries 1-26 and their respective totheark responses.
-Commentary by me, Joseph (Alex), and Tim.
-Behind the scenes funstuff like bloopers and Tim being a constant, hilarious distraction.
-The tweets/twitpics
-Bios
-Festival trailer
--------------------------------------------------------


I'll be looking into getting a copy for myself as soon as poss. Should be good! I'm looking forward to seeing how they tie in all the Entries and convey all the stuff that went on between the YouTube videos (the Twitter trail to the Red Tower, for example).

Chore Wars: I shall Slay the Great Bin Beast

You should see our lair. It's a complete mess. I say lair because, upon stumbling across this festering mass of destruction, you might be forgiven for assuming it is the home of some troll or possibly a swamp beast. Dishes left unwashed, dust collecting on the surfaces, the bins slowly and slowly building until placing any more rubbish in them would probably contravene several elements of the Geneva convention.

Thankfully, whilst reading through Reality is Broken, I've been pointed in the direction of Chore Wars. Now conquering the great mountain of washing will be a quest, tackling the ogre that lives in our bathroom (the "loo" - as the villagers call him) will be an adventure we shall face together and of course I'll rack up points like nobodies business because I do all the cooking. Score.

Chore Wars turns everyday household jobs into MMO style quests; you gain exp, battle monsters and find treasure. You can create your adventurers and form your party (The Great and Glorious Guild of Ceej and Will) and invite your friends/housemates/coworkers to join, then you create your own adventures. I've assigned cooking dinner 45xp whereas making a drink only gives 5xp; cleaning the bathroom might give 60xp but there is also the chance you might encounter a tentacle beast or a water elemental. As you complete tasks you log them online and gain the revelent experience points - as with any MMO you level up, find treasure and hopefully your flat becomes clean in the process. It's an ARG in its purest form.

I cannot freaking wait to get home and do the washing up.  

I'm a Player and I'm Proud

I chaired a meeting today for the first time and, sitting at the table and looking around at their expectant faces, I couldn't help but feel: I'm totally not qualified to do this.

I mean, I am - I suppose. Its all on paper, I've got the qualifications and letters after my name (William Knight MA (hons) - in case you're wondering *breathes on nails, shines on shirt*); but I can't help but feel that in any real world situation I'm just kinda loafing it. It's a feeling I've discussed with several people and I've discovered that this is a fairly universal quality in normal people. You're confident, but not arrogant, firm but fair and give off an air that you've got it all under control. But just under the surface you've always got the sneaking suspicion that at some point someone is going to turn to you and go:

"You there! Yes... you! You have absolutely no idea what you are doing!"

And you'll fall to your knees and concede its all been an elaborate ruse, you are in fact, just a dude, and you still play video games and role play online, you aren't qualified to take blood, arrange mergers, save lives or negotiate divorce settlements, in fact you're barely capable of dressing yourself in the morning without doing that thing with your trousers (one leg in, OK - here's the next leg - ready? ready? GO! NO, don't get it caught on the crotch, steady yourself, steady!... oh look, you've fallen onto the bed).

There is a point to this post, I promise. I'm getting to it. There's just some fluff I need to move out of the way first.

The only area I don't get this crushing feeling of inadequacy is whilst I'm gaming.

I know that if I stick the Black Ops disc in my Playstation I have a damn good chance of getting into a game and completely dominating the opposition. I feel I can run into a crowd and unleash hell, dodge bullets, flash enemies and completely humiliate them. I've had my fair share of poor games, been beaten any number of times and I've come through the other end.

Similarly, if I enter a Jade Quarry battle in Guild Wars I can be pretty sure I can hold down the green quarry versus 2 or 3 caster opponents - I can reliably interrupt 3/4 cast time spells and out-kite any melee. I know that if I go onto GWguru I can answer most of the questions people might have, and I can give damned good advice. I've been playing pretty solidly for 5 years and I can, without hesitation, say that I am a Guild Wars expert.

If I get beaten, I'm more than willing to accept the consequences and acknowledge I lost to a superior player. It isn't arrogance, it's the result of hard work and a love of gaming.

Over the past few days I've been dipping in and out of J McGonigal's "Reality is Broken". So far, McGonigal has blown me away with the enthusiasm she conveys through the book. One of the most important messages she is trying to convey is that the strategies and methods we employ in gaming should be useful in every day life, and if they were, then the real world would be a far more compelling place.

By supplanting gaming mechanisms into every day life we could wash away the feeling that we are loafing our way to the top - always ignoring the dread that some day someone will realise what idiots we really are. If we can harness the enormous effort each one of us put into getting that next title, or finally farming that rare skin and channel it into real world problems - the world could be changed dramatically.

ps. I'm thoroughly enjoying Reality is Broken so far, and I suggest, if you're interested in video games, ARGs and gaming in general, that you give it a go. I'll be writing up a full article once I've finished the book. There are some really exciting ideas in this book.

This Is Not A Game

TINAG is the mantra of a good ARG player and a effective PuppetMaster. It binds the whole game together, keeps players involved and immersed and ensures that the PM can hide effectively behind the curtain pulling the strings at will. It stands for "This Is Not A Game" and essentially translates to that whilst we are "in-game" all characters, players and external game objects must act as if they exist in their own Universe - as if the whole charade is real. TINAG keeps the players in the Universe of the PM's creation, and keeps the PM safely hidden behind the "curtain", it allows the players to experience the game in its purest form, without constand reminders (at least from in-game sources) that it is, in fact, just a game.
UnFiction is strictly OOG (Out Of Game) and anything which is said there must have absolutely no bearing on the game in question, of course, there aren't ARG-police out there to enforce this rule and many a PM has encroached on uF's immunity by posting there as an in-game character (see the Slenderman Mythos board for several examples) or using information shared there by the players to drive their story:

• For example, say Player A finally cracks a puzzle which has been bugging the community for weeks - he posts his conclusions on unFiction to the delight of his peers, they share a flagon of Butterbeer and rejoice, but no-one posts the solution to any ingame source as they want to release the information carefully and get the best result possible. The PM, having seen that the players have solved the puzzle (after perusing the thread for their game on the forums) declares the puzzle solved and releases the next puzzle. Players would probably consider this a breach of the trust which goes with uFiction and be significantly displeased with the PM.
• Another example could be a single player given information by an in-game character and told "not to share it with a single living soul". It is perfectly within their right to release that information on unFiction if they choose to - theoretically, the in-game character could never know as unFiction doesn't exist in their Universe. If there are in-game ramifications for the player releasing the information on unFiction then again, the players would be rather miffed.

Thats not to say there can't be a back and forth between the PM and the players; I've interacted with a number of PMs whilst playing their games - sometimes for OOG hints and sometimes just to chat. The VA interview I did a few weeks ago allowed the players to see how Paul put the whole game together. It gave us a deeper understanding of the story which we might have missed (OK, lets be honest, we missed a LOT).

I've followed Troy's blog for a few months now and I feel its given me a greater understanding of the creative process behind the Marble Hornets series. Troy talks about managing his schedule with MH updates, school, filming, work and other such things and to be honest I'm incredibly impressed. The MH team drop some seriously high quality content every couple of weeks or so and manage to maintain a zealously loyal following of viewers across the Internet whilst simultaneously studying, working and, seemingly, going to Mardi Gras (see left). The MH game has never really been about player interaction. The closest we've come to actual puzzle solves are the cryptic TTA vids which crop up every so often. With this minimal interaction, there have been few chances for the players to get behind the "curtain" and see the cogs which drive the story. Troy's blog allows us not only to peek behind the curtain, but to leap out between the crack in the drapes and shout "Oi Oi boys!".

As a rule to go by, TINAG is a good one. But its not set in stone and it is changing. A while back I talked about Gaming and the Real World, and how Jane McGonigal hopes that through gaming we might influence real world change. It isn't difficult to fit TINAG into this conception - I suppose it only serves to truly emphasise the point: it really isn't a game if it has real world implications. It sounds like a brilliant idea in my opinion and I hope that as a medium gaming begins to gather credibility as a vehicle for change. I hope, however, that if we begin to see more and more games which seek to impress real world changes onto their players, that PMs will not forget that, deep down inside, we are all kids who want to play, we want to be sucked into a world without consequences and just escape for a while. I hope that PMs won't forget that, whatever we say... TIAG.

ZI Acquaintance and Candy

You know when you're just sitting there minding your own business (possibly absent mindedly scratching yourself), and someone forwards you a confidential cipher code disregarded by the CIA and circulated through the means of a temporary dummy email address to the greatest logical minds that the internet has to offer?

You know that feeling? Well, thats the feeling I'm feeling with my feelers right about now.

Received the following email about an hour ago:

Subject: I hope you do not mind me passing this on to you.
From: afriendSPLATfastmail.jp

I was sent this by a friend of mine who's working as an intern at the Central Intelligence Agency. He says that this came across his desk, but they decided to disregard it. Having played ARGs for years, I figured I'd send it along to you. This email address is temporary, and I will not be checking it or replying to any questions you have.

http://j5qip3qf64esrbww.onion/ziacquaintance.html
http://u2fmdzjj576jsyh2.onion/candy.html

Here are the messages you've missed:

ZIACQUAINTANCE:
P F Q U a l D W e D F x w c W P U Y s y v w x Q U D P B Q e x A O y w C

CANDY:
D X F K f x j S Y V W f k q e A D S F V E D R b p W E b d r W E T Y U v
p X P O x o b S D I I P N p l N Y j b S H J L Q q e f k d M S J U b i p
Q D S D C L b t e x P F Q U q x j f i l S K W S X l h f R J V k d c G U
R F R l o x d K V O H x A H O A f k

ZIACQUAINTANCE:
u h B A K L s n b c O B M H V h a P D A u v i E N o n n b M P S Q y c l
u S D E C V L x p y E R l n c V B R T m y g y h A S S n m u h x V E W u
h D F s l y S L D J J m y u S G D l w b n b y S V I Y S s p y w i h N Q
T R D x o C w n C y x i W F V l o A m y L M S F E x

CANDY:
W h B C O g z S F E X u d e t M Y F I k k L z b b R L O X d r r L Q V s
V S D n a A E R L L n s g o A O O C N S z o d S q e h S D F R V G k d A
r z m E R c A D V G s g d A V h q A r P K L E N d q V T Y u d q W E r r
N H N Y h m H P O E b d B V h S L Q W z l c V F V J K D h f S T Y J L L
h s T Y J h y Y U K h m f d E T Y K D F G u d q T x S s F g h J Y m f D

G L x Y U I U K l S z m S z H f d q J T h r S D j H h S m H S c S n H e
Y s J n D J D t b S g E R x H J s g E T J G H U U n t D f D g S U I J

We missed multiple messages between this one and the other next one.

CANDY:
m s D G F B M g D F S D h F G v S s B H N B R T a Y J c J K b I O s m F
D w b h S v s S N o N q q N M c M i b h w g s b c i S F D G u v S t c f
S o S S t S B s G k G F a D J c D b J h v g D h D v o J b J y m D D F G
c i


Good luck

.Unfiction thread has been made here: CLICK ME PLEASE - I LOVE IT. We need help...


ps. can't.stop.reading.Steam Me Up, Kid.curse.you.Becky!

Forest Frederick Edward Yeo-Thomas

The knock on effect of a good puzzle can be devastating. That's why I was still awake at 2am last night, and consequently, why I woke up late and missed the bus. F.F.E.Y.T had me in a puzzle-lock.

The effort was worth it, however, as together we managed to crack the first major gambit laid out by the mysterious Tweeter "WhiteRabbitYT". But lets start from the beginning: like many good stories, this one begins on Valentine's day.

On "Corporate Forced Love Day" a number of us over at unFiction received a mysterious message from a secret admirer:

My name is F.F.E.Y.-T. and I would like[with my friends] to wish you a good day.
Just a little something to let you know you are being thought of.
And will be thought of again this year...
?ZEVoSlRtNXJhVzVuYjJadFpXVlVTVTVIZFhCM2FYUm9lVzkxWVd4c2MyOXZibmg0ZUE9PQ==


Forest Frederic Edward Yeo-Thomas

Nice, isn't it? Well... it would be nicer if Forest weren't a dead guy.

Forest Frederick Edward Yeo-Thomas (1902-1964)  was quite a guy: captured by the Russians during the Polish Soviet War; he strangled a guard in order to escape, after this he worked in a stylish French fashion house before becoming an interpreter for the Free French Forces. He didn't work this job for very long before being whisked away to be a secret agent, parachuted into occupied France to help the French resistance coordinate attacks against German forces. After returning to Britain he wangled a meeting with the PM managed to convince Churchill to help fund the French resistance. In 1944 he once again parachuted into occupied France, but was betrayed by one of his men and captured by the Gestapo. Tortured and imprisoned; he organised a revolt amongst the prisoners and briefly escaped. Upon recapture he passed himself off as a French national and was transferred to a prison near Marienburg. Once again he managed to escape and make it back to the Allied forces. After the war he was a witness at the Nuremberg Trials.

Its quite a life to hi-jack. Experience tells me that it is not random that the PM has chosen this important character as his pseudonym and there are numerous connections which have already been made: FFEYT has a habit of quoting Mary Shelley and Byron; "Shelley" was a pseudonym the real FFEYT went under whilst in occupied France. "White Rabbit" was also another codename the real guy went by; which is how we found the character's twitter account (also worth noting that a "trailhead" or starting point for an ARG is often called a "Rabbit Hole").

FFEYT has been communicating mainly through Twitter up until now, through cryptic tweets about "P.M", the day of the water in the street and endless poetry. After a bit of brainboxing we worked the tweets lead to "Rue de Eaux" or "Street of Water"- a reference to the location of FFEYT's death and so this lead to the date of his death: 26th February. We waited with bated breath for the 26th to come around and for the promised "Gauntlet" to be thrown down.

On the 26th, those who had sent FFEYT an email received a .wmv file in response: the video showed a number of different images and challenged the watcher to "find" him. At the start of the video, there were scrolling numbers running across the screen from top to bottom: 4369605441. Simply googling the number lead to http://www.flickr.com/photos/blinkofaneye/4369605441/ - and at the bottom of this page we find that WhiteRabbitYT had favourited the picture; allowing us to view his saved images. 

When?



Who?



Where?

So: three cryptic questions. Let's take a look at each one individually:

When: The White Rabbit
If you look carefully, you can see some text in white over the Rabbit's eye; thats binary. It translates to 20th April 1798. Fairly easy for a beginning question, don't you think? There was also another code embedded in the picture which translated to "QTR" - we don't know the relavence of this yet.

Who: The Letter Grid
The letters in the grid spell out:

"NATO ACCOLSI GALVANI E PIANSI ESTINTO. PER LUI FU L'UNO ALL'ALTRO POLO AVVINTO - GALVANUM EXCEPI NATUM LUXIQUE PEREMPTUM CUIUS AB INVENTO IUNCTUS UTERQUE POLUS"

Which translates to: "I received the newborn Galvani; I cried him dead / He held together both the electric poles." The numbers at the bottom translate to the coordinates 49.6 N, 84.6 W - which leads us to a crater on the moon: Galvani. The who was Luigi Galvani.

Where: The Parrots
This is the one which stumped us. We knew they were parrots and they might be on fire or something... The tagline to the picture reads: "Names, collectively, have power..." which lead us to believe it had something to do with the collective noun for parrots; which we could only find to be "Company".
I TinyEyed the background and found it was a well used image of Hell. Meanwhile, String, a relatively new player, popped in an informed us that another name for a group of parrots was a "Pandemonium" - Pandemonium was the name for the capitol city of Hell in Paradise Lost - our where was Pandemonium.
 
Ofiuco contacted FFEYT with our answers and he confirmed they were correct. Seems Ofiuco will now be receiving a package with the next set of clues! FFEYT tweeted that we should wait for more information and expect an update on "White Day" - 14th March. 
 
Last night was very fun, and working as a team to put together all the clues really felt good. I can't wait to see what other twists and turns might be lying just around the corner for us. This game reminds me of Ministry of Argon in its twistyness and that was one hell of a ride; this game is shaping up to be awesome on a whole new scale. Bring on March.

The game can be followed at the unFiction thread here.
Or you can contact FFEYT directly at forestfrederickedwardyeothomas@yahoo.co.uk

The Return of Tothecarp

The look which sparked a thousand FanFics

The archetypal "totheark" character has become a staple in most Slenderblogs nowadays - for EMH we have HABIT, for Tribe Twelve there is the mysterious package person, for Dark Harvest there is the Slender-impersonator...
But totheark himself is, obviously, the purist's favourite. He's up to his old tricks again with the new season, giving us a glimpse into his mind with the "Fragments" video from a couple of weeks ago - which included a torn up picture of Alex.
Yesterday he uploaded his second installment for this season: "broadcast" - 14 seconds of what appears to be the visions of a drowning person; watching their punisher from below the surface of the water. Its creepy stuff, amplified, of course, by the overlay of distorted audio. Currently, the theory is that the audio is something like "In time, you will suffer for what you did to me". Made all the more chilling due to the previous Entry of Marble Hornets depicting Alex caving Tim's head in with a rock.

This season is just hotting up.

Marble Hornets #34/35 - Aka - Why I need new Trousers

I haven't done a Marble Hornets post in a while, so I thought I'd update because things just hit the effin' roof.
Entry #34 sees us follow Jay to the return address for the package he received at the end of Season one. It seems to lead him to an abandoned house in the middle of nowhere - other than some rubble and bad graffiti, theres absolutely nothing to see. Until of course, you reach Entry #35.

Entry.Freaking.Thirty.Five. Watch it now. I demand it!


Now, without spoiling it for those not already clued up on what happened - what are the implications of this? How will Jay react to this news? Also, where the hell is Jay at the moment anyway?!

I'm still reeling, and so is the Marble Hornets community. Less than a day the thread on unFiction has almost 500 posts and is nearing 30 pages as I type this. As Jay says at the end of the video. This changes... everything.


ps. oh yeah and theres the TTA video "Fragments" with a cut up picture of Alex - but I guess we won't be seeing many of them anymore, right? WRONG! You forget, the contents of #35 are in the past. We have 2 options: TTA is someone else is still posting (and Tim is dead - although I suppose he could still be alive) or TTA was Tim all along and he somehow survived Alex's rock of doom.

New Eyes on Old Soldiers

Just thought I'd take a second to note how the epiphany of just one person can make a big difference in the Alternative Reality Gaming world. Hwoami came into the Old Soldiers game a little while after we'd all been completely stumped by the original cipher sent to ARGnet - we'd come to the conclusion that it was some kind of double columnar transposition cipher, but this would require two separate keywords to decipher and we'd exhausted all possibilities. With a fresh set of eyes he was able to effectively intellectually-bitchslap the rest of us by realising that these two images:

Could be overlain to highlight a specific part of the cipher page:

He has successfully won himself about 27x internets (that's all his internets for the next 3.4 years) for this. Congrats.

You can continue to follow our flounderings at unFiction here.

ps. reaching the end of The Looking Glass Club; I am beginning to think this book is far cleverer than I am.

Tarot by Saranna and other ARG News

I always like to share my trailheads on here because if the Puppetmaster has taken the time to contact me about the game, then I think they deserve whatever advertising I can give them. With that in mind, the other day I received an email pointing me in the direction of Tarot by Saranna. All the message said was "Seeking info on Past Lives" and a link to the blog, when I got there it seemed that Saranna had been writing since before Christmas, so the game was already set up - it just needed spurring into life.

Saranna is a fortune teller, she reads Tarot cards in order to tell a person's future. In fact, she offers your first reading for free, so feel free to contact her for your own mystical message - mine essentially said "don't be a dick, there's more to life than work". Well, not exactly that, but similar!

Anyway, Saranna tells us that she recently acquired a new client - David. Unfortunately, David is searching for his missing wife but when he is pressed about Saranna's interpretation that he had a previous wife; he leaves. Later, Saranna receives letters from David explaining some very strange shinanigans:

...Over one hundred years ago, I lived another life in another part of the world. I was an arrogant young man and I fell in love with a woman from a foreign land. However, our relationship ended in tragedy and she died by my own hand. Decades later I encountered her brother, who swore he would hunt me down for the rest of my days and ultimately take his revenge when I was least expecting it. I never heard from him again. I died peacefully in my bed at the age of eighty.

For most of this life, I didn't believe in reincarnation, nor did I have any memories of my past life. Nothing happened until I met Norah, and then the dreams began. Dreams of my first wife, and dreams of the man who was trying to hunt me down and kill me.

In my dreams I saw him as he was then, and I could also see who he is in this life. I'm terrified, and I'm taking off for now and going into hiding. I'll be in touch.

 For now, it feels as if Tarot by Saranna is just getting off the ground, we haven't had a lot to solve other than random cryptic messages so far and I'm hoping that the PM will pick it up with things to solve asap.

Other ARG news, Missing Wallace came to an end. What originally started as a simple missing person ARG turned into a battle between Angels and Demons, resulting in the prevention of the opening of a gateway to the underworld. It escalated fast, I mean, it really got out of hand! I have to admit I lost track after a while as the more enthusiastic players took hold and stormed through the puzzles. The PM gave a little bit of an interview in the unFiction thread here.

Finally, Dagada and myself managed to slog our ways to the end of the Fifteen Days of Darkness final solve. It ended up being a passage from Prometheus - now, apparently, we have to apply each section of the passage to a chapter in the game (ranging from the first Vanessa Atalanta game to the latest one). See how we are doing, here.

Old Soldiers

I was browsing through my normal blog-related haunts and came across an article written at ARGNet regarding a recent package they received. Michael Anderson talks about how he recently received a strange package from a man known only as "LOKI", one perhaps related to governmental conspiracies and WW2 veterans. Now, any normal human being; having received mail from a Norse God, would be rather perturbed, perhaps seeking psychiatric attention; but any ARG player would immediately scream TRAILHEAD and run around the office with the package precariously balanced on their head and waving their arms around Kermit the Frog.

On Andersons advice, I popped over to unFiction and perused the details. Seems ARGNet's package contained a number of cryptic clues, dating from WW2 era to present day. An encoded letter, a creased photograph stamped with (we have recently discovered) the message "Time Sensitive Material", strange maps, death certificates and newpaper cuttings. We are currently working on a number of these pieces, including the coded letter, to try to work out what the deuce is going on.

What we do know is that the game is a prelude to the release of Big House Comics' upcoming story "Old Soldiers":

A story born in the last days of World War 2. Across the globe five men begin to feel the pull towards New York, Five Families. What is the  mysterious connection that they have, why are they being called? The pieces in a game that has played out over generations are in place, ready for the end.

The end of the world?

Big House have stated that the release of Old Soldiers will be coordinated with a multimedia campaign and the story itself will bring the reader into an "immersive world" with parts of the story being told online.

For now, our only lead are a number of clues which point towards oddjobs.biz and a strange personality test which claims to be able to give you your perfect job prediction. In reality, the personality test is most likely a kind of "sign up" form for the game which is set to play out - I've certainly signed up, a link can be found here.



Whilst we wait for a reply, the brainboxes at unFiction are furiously decoding the cipher on the original letter and attempting to piece the story together from redacted documents and mysterious coded messages. We are making some headway; with lupusfurcifer translating a Russian letter for us, and Knarf and malevolentneon attempting to persuade an American player to call the number listed on the Odd Jobs website.

What will be interesting about this game, will be the concrete result of a tangible story at the end. You can guarantee its been well thought out and I can't wait to get my teeth into the juicy details which may be hidden below the veneer of the Odd Jobs site. Jump over to unFiction and join the thread to get all the latest info on where we are. Follow on after the jump for links to all the contents of LOKI's package.

ps. bought DC Universe Online yesterday. I figured I'd try the free month and if I don't like it I can always just pack it in. Matt at Darkmatters persuaded me, I expect him to piggyback me through the early hours of the game as payment.

Distilling January: A Review

I've taken inspiration from tagn.wordpress.com and I decided to take a look at what happened in my newly emerging blog over the course of the past month.

 Verydistilled has become a bit of an obsession of mine since I started in November last year, you'll notice I try to post daily on weekdays and stay in contact over Twitter most of the rest of the time.

My topics of conversation through Jan have ranged from creating evil penguin-eating monsters in LBP to attempting to murder my friends over New Year. I've read some really interesting articles over the past few weeks, from the heroism of Twitter defending its clients, tonnes of predictions for 2011 games and even some lore stuff for GW2 (yay for giant polar bear warriors!). Considered buying DC Universe Online; decided against it, bought LBP2.

The most popular posts for January 2011 were as follows:

1. Vanessa Atalanta Trilogy - Puppetmaster Interview
2. Guest Post: The Experience of Evil by time2pwnu
3. The Looking Glass Club
4. Waiting for my Blue Mace Lady
5. Marble Hornets Entry #33

Congrats to time2pwnu - in the short time its been up, his guest post has shot to near the top of my reader list. Nice one :D.

Top 10 Search Terms for January 2011

1. blue mace lady
2. marble hornets 33
3. "robert monroe" xkcd sickness
4. appleofoureye
5. everymanhybrid
6. inception ambiguity
7. marble hornets unfiction
8. segst
9. "an amphibious mammal swims in this sea"
10. "apple of our eye" slender man

Special mention to the person who found their way to my blog via the search term: little naked nude blogspot. Kudos horny midget blogspot adventurer - you are a king among men.

Video gaming wise my time has been split as follows:

50% Black Ops

25% Guild Wars

25% Little Big Planet 2

Black Ops: I'm now about halfway through my 5th prestige - not amazing by the real hardcore gamers' standards, but impressive for me, I think! I'd rate myself as semi-decent. Usually going positive when it comes to K/D ratio once the game ends (my overall K/D is currently 1.22). Each time I prestige I keep trying to use different guns, but inevitably I always end up falling back on the FAMAS - its a complete beast and I love it.

Guild Wars: I've been striving to finish the Elonian cartographer title by exploring the continent of Elona in its entirety (and so get Legendary cartographer by gaining the equivalent title for all continents), and also max my Luxon Allegiance title through grinding out some Alliance Battles and Jade Quarry after Jade Quarry battles. All the while, I've been chugging booze like there's no tomorrow - I will have GWAMM by the time GW2 is released!

Little Big Planet 2: Only recently got it, but if you've been reading my posts and following me on Twitter you'll know how much I've been enjoying this game. I think I'm on the final few levels now and its getting tough, I've heard the final boss is a complete bitch so I'm looking forward to that. I'll be making a level fairly soon, the Girl asked if I would make one on the subject of "how much I love her" - so she'll probably be eaten by Gobbler's mother. Who knows?

ARG-wise, the first part of my month was filled with 15 Days of Darkness stuff (what with the OOG discussion going on the 4th of Jan), subsequent to this we've got some interesting stuff happening in Marble Hornets and also some real developments from the smaller YouTube stories out there (such as Experience of Evil and Dark Harvest). Other games worthy of a mention:

Missing Wallace - brilliant story in this, uF poster Thunderwolf has just come in and blown the whole game apart, so its well worth getting involved if you fancy it.

The Wrach - interesting story, cryptic and twisting. Worth getting into if you've got the conviction.

Interesting blogs I've come across over the month:

Brit Chick Runs - Healthy living and running blog from a horse-mad oatmeal hoarder, lots of fun.

L'Épée Magique - RPG enthusiast and Dragon Age: Origins player. Debates tea and elvish custom.

Video Games Blogger - up to date gaming news, crashes when I load it at work - update IE systems admin! Curse you. 

Kill Ten Rats - MMORPG news, including lots of Guild Wars stuff. Love it.

So, its been an interesting month overall. Expect more stuff from Feb - notably, Guild Wars updates, Marble Hornets shenanigans, Black Ops pwnage, fluff, stuff, waffle and banter.

No Res Shrines: Gaming and the Real World

On the surface, the gaming world is murky and dank. Its dark and cold and confusing, populated by overzealous fourteen year olds slapping their "ep33n" around on FPSs and thirty somethings hunched over keyboards in the basement of their Mother's house in the suburbs and roleplaying busty Night Elves. This is the image of gaming which we have grown to accept; one of mindless escapism, a disconnected self which is controllable in a totally different and disconnected Universe.

Increasingly, however, this restrictive and short sighted vision of gaming is being challenged. Governmental analysts are beginning to confirm something that, deep down inside our heart of hearts, we've always known; gaming makes us better people. This assertion is two fold - on the one hand, there is the exciting prospect that gaming physically and mentally trains us for certain situations. A couple of weeks ago, The Onion jokingly suggested that games such as Gears of War and Fallout 3 are training our children to survive in a post-apocalyptic wasteland.

Are Violent Video Games Adequately Preparing Children For The Apocalypse?

I know I've learned that surreptitiously slipping a live grenade into the pockets of unsuspecting bandits can be a laugh riot, and iguana bits are no substitute for vast amounts of synthetic Nuka-Cola. Today wired.co.uk (my faithful friend) published an article by Noah Schachtman on how American analysts are using videogames to weed out bias in their operatives.

The agency is looking to axe everything from "anchoring bias" (relying too much on a single piece of evidence) to "confirmation bias" (only accepting facts that back up your pre-made case) to "fundamental attribution error" (attributing too much in an incident to personality, instead of circumstance).

I have to admit there is a place in my gut which leaps at the thought that playing Black Ops might make me into a one man killing machine, a real life 007; utilising my twitch reactions to mow down a camp-full of bogies in seconds and then zip lining into my chalet in Switzerland with my sultry femme fatale; Olga. In actuality I think the only thing I'll end up with is bad eyesight, a bit of a belly and the thumbs of a 65 year old.



On the other hand, there is the implementation of gaming in the effort to stimulate real social change. On a more Alternative Reality Gaming slant; Jane McGonigal's book "Reality is Broken: Why Games make us Better and how they can Change the World" focuses on the attempts at using games to raise awareness and encourage "off the wall" thinking when it comes to national and international social problems. McGonigal states that reality is broken because games act as "happiness hacks" and so are more productive at producing happiness than real life situations. This is why gaming is so often used as an escapist pastime.

McGonigal goes on to state that instead of lamenting this change, perhaps the strengths that can be found in gaming strategies could be harnessed to affect social change. Alternative Reality Games could be used as vehicles to increase awareness of particularly critical subjects or even stimulate players to actively improve their lives through giving real world targets to attain.

Michael Andersen at ARGNet did a sterling job reviewing and summarising McGonigal's latest book, although he is skeptical of the application of gamification tactics to real world problems stating that he does not wholly believe that gaming strategies can be applied to "complex problems that are resistant to game designer attempts to reduce goals to concrete action steps". I've already stated that ARG gaming has affected me in a very real way, increasing my ability to make connections, widening my knowledge of cryptography and deduction and giving me a wide variety of skills which I have already been able to apply to my life.

I'm quite enthusiastic about gaming being a vehicle for change in real life, but I believe we need a big push; something to really carry gamification into the media eye and advertise it as a powerful vehicle for social revolution. Alternative Reality Games need the equivalent of what Facebook was for social networks.

Guest Post: The Experience of Evil by time2pwnu

Distilled: This is the first ARG Report for the New Year - penned by time2pwnu (E. Richardson) from the unFiction boards, it concerns the YouYube series: Experience of Evil.

Eric; in the Introduction, looks tired and scared: Introduction.

The Experience of Evil ARG series on YouTube started on December 18th, 2010. It started out like any other ARG; but with a surprising twist. Most viewers believed we were being giving another video series about Slenderman; but that was not the case. The story begins with the main character; Eric Hanes, talking about how his two friends have recently been killed in the past few months. Eric and his two friends; Justin Jones and Grant Compton, started a paranormal documentary in January of 2010. Eric believes a demon killed his friends and is now after him as well. The story starts out fast, as Eric starts posting all the videos from the past year in order, in Episode #2 we get a first-hand look at the demon and the horrors don’t end there. The story begins to make sense in the next few episodes, as Eric tries (in the current time) to run from the evil that has been chasing him and trying to kill him.



The trio of friends are being followed by what they believe to be a man. In Episode #9, the team was doing an investigation of one of Eric’s friend’s home; the man (or demon) says a few choice words to the camera. No one has been able to figure out what was said, but it is defiantly another language. As Eric continues his research into his friend’s deaths, he comes across a demon named “Mush” on the internet. Right now this is the best lead he has to finding the killer.

In Episode #13, they finally seem to make contact with their attacker. Grant is pulled through the house by an unknown force and they are attacked by the demon. Then in the continuation of that video (Episode #15) we see that the demon is definitely more than human when it makes them run off the road. We are left with a cliffhanger; the police do not believe Eric and Justin’s plea that their friends has been kidnapped by this thing, and at the end of Episode #16 it seems that Eric is not alone in his house. The next episode, #17, is sure to be one not to miss. More answers are soon to be revealed and rest assured, the longer this series goes, the more terrifying it will become. Will Eric survive long enough to post their entire story? Guess you will have to subscribe like the rest of us and find out.

See Episode 16 below:

Youtube Channel: http://www.youtube.com/user/TheExperienceofEvil
Twitter: http://twitter.com/#%21/ExpofEvil
unFiction thread: http://forums.unfiction.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=31163


Distilled: time2pwnu is an active member of the unFiction boards, and I want to thank him for taking the time to write this article for me. As always, if you are interested in writing a guest post regarding an Alternative Reality Game (or ARG subject) just drop me a mail or post a comment. Full details can be found here: Looking for Guest Writers!

Marble Hornets Entry #33

I... I'm just... holy crap - just watch this.




I continue to be astounded by Season 2 guys. Muchos kudos, you do not disappoint.

Had a very busy day, my sister was taken to hospital earlier after fainting at work - considering her medical history and whats happened over the past year, its not been an easy night. Thankfully she has now recovered, but not without scaring the crap out of us all.

The Wrach and Missing Wallace

Today I'd like to talk about two very different games currently running over at unFiction - The Wratch and Missing Wallace. The games differ in their approach to characters, puzzles and how they interact with their players. Each game is relatively popular in their own right.

The Wrach is a game which cropped up a couple of weeks ago under the name "Viral Agency" (the thread can be found here) after Crescent "came across" a mysterious video on YouTube which contained an apparent morse code puzzle to solve. Originally, I had made a decision not to get involved - distracted as I was with far more important things like scratching myself and throwing paper balls into bins, but when a friend prompted me to take a look I decided to delve in.
The PM communicates through mysterious YouTube videos and through The Wrach website. The messages we receive are incredibly cryptic, if not encoded in morse - as a result over the past few weeks we've been able to ascertain very little as to the actual intention of the uploader of the videos, who or what "The Wrach" is or where the game is heading. The puzzles we have come across are interesting in themselves, and there was a "live feed" a couple of nights ago which I must admit - I missed - but I'm hoping that over the next couple of weeks we are able to unravel some of the threads we have been shown and finally work this game out.

Missing Wallace is a totally different beast all together. Wallace is a private investigator - used to being employed to find lost dogs and cats, who has been brought in by a distressed woman who is looking for her lost husband - eminent scientist Edward Maad. From the outset there has been an open and mutual sharing of information between Wallace and the players, Wallace has come over as flawed, a little neurotic at times but most of all likable.
As the game has gone on we have been introduced to a wide variety of interesting characters; Louise - Wallaces' rather surly ex-girlfriend, Lewis Styles - a slick corporate energy consultant, Bob - a hacker who has infiltrated Wallaces' website and then the mysterious stalker who seems to be following Wallace. Most of the puzzles have centred around the files found on Wallaces' home site: MissingWallace.net, and their presentation has been nicely varied - from substitution, and deduction to deciphering Welsh and barcode reading.
We are beginning to delve deeper into the twisted story that missingwallace is proposing, as we discover more about Edward Maad's scientific discoveries, about wireless energy, something to do with leys (yes, leys - not ley lines, watch QI - foo'!) and now with the discovery of a new character "Samael" who seems to be concerned with "God's Folly". Interesting stuff.

These two games are interesting but I find myself far more compelled by Missing Wallace than by The Wrach. I think this is primarily down to the fact that MW has a place to "touch base" as it were - a concrete contact with whom we can share ingame information and help progress the story. The Wrach is primarily conducted at arms length and the debate exists in a very much out of game (OOG) context, it feels less tangible and so we wait for new information from the PM rather than interacting with the characters involved. Nonetheless, I shall follow both with interest.

ps. I've been working my way through The Looking Glass Club, but I find myself getting so into the story that I forget about the puzzles - I wonder if I'll even get #1 submitted before the end of Jan time limit is up - soz Gruff! Curse my bibliophilic nature!!