Vanessa Atalanta Trilogy - Puppetmaster Interview

Transcibed below is the 2 hour discussion myself, Dagada and Jess had with Paul and Deni - the PMs for Fifteen Days of Darkness. Most of what was said is down here, although I did cut out some of the stuff about Dagada running around his garden chasing rabbits in the nuddy.
Its pretty long, so I've sliced it down and headed each section so you can keep up. There's some pretty interesting stuff about being a PM and being a player in there, as well as some big story reveals for the whole trilogy. Its probably more relavent for those who played the game, but to those who didn't - I suggest giving it a go anyway, Paul and Deni talk about some really interesting aspects of ARGs and discuss where they think the genre is going in the future and its well worth a look.

I just want to thank Paul and Deni for taking the time to meet their players, its not a curtesy that every PM extends to those who game with them and I think we all appreciated the extra bit of effort.

So, here goes:

Introductions
{;PAUL}; ah - introductions - apologies - players Dagada and Distilled [mind if I use real names?] - Please meet my wonderful co-designer Deni, internet extraordinaire
{;Deni}; as I was going to say, working on this was some of my best work and was fun working with Paul :)
{;PAUL}; thanks
{;PAUL}; Deni worked really hard for me - am for me and about 8 or 9 pm start for you most nights yeh?
{;PAUL}; and this is why we worked well together - thinking along similar lines most times
{;PAUL}; Deni is based in Canada -which was VERY useful for when we did the first intro with Ben visiting the chat
{;Deni}; that was kinda fun for me being that certain someone in chat
{;PAUL}; shurrup now Deni, the grown ups are talking seriously... ;)
{;Deni}; pshhhh =P :)
{;PAUL}; yeah - Deni had never role-played or ARGed before - I told him what to type - and then we had Harold and I gave him free reign
{;Dagada}; Good work!
{;Distilled}; nice one, that’s not at all how I imagined you'd done it all
{;Deni}; In past experiences I had a habit of going to far at times so I usually try to avoid role-playing
{;PAUL}; but I was monitoring without being in the room courtesy of a great program called yuuguu which Deni put me onto..
{;PAUL}; so - sure you have many questions and such - in game stuff first?



Question 1 – Final Scenes
{;Distilled}; ok, first question - the final scenes
{;Distilled}; Did you expect us to approach the destroying of the plants in the way we did?
{;PAUL}; ok
{;PAUL}; tbh - the final scenes were partially ad hoc as plans that were arranged had to change and adapt quickly due to tech issues and access to net over Christmas
{;Deni}; fyi Paul was very good at adapting and dealing with issues that came up :)
{;PAUL}; so I moved the plants to London, used Ben as a 'vehicle' to get people to interact with them and then gave players full reign - I hoped that destruction was on the cards... but as you saw, Claire had an odd Christmas present didn't she?
{;Distilled}; indeed
{;Distilled}; Definitely dead though, she says...
{;PAUL}; life flower
{;Dagada}; Nothing is definite in this game. :D
{;Distilled}; 'spose
{;PAUL}; well one thing is definite - all has finished fully now.
{;Dagada}; Really? I was thinking it'd continue.
{;PAUL}; some of the characters might be used in other things but the full VA 'arc' has come full circle..




Question 2 – Changing Plans?
{;Dagada}; Paul, you seemed to lay a fair bit of groundwork at the start of the game - links on the postcards, etc, that didn't seem to fruit. Did plans change?
{;PAUL}; Dag - re postcards and beginning - I was extremely disappointed by initial interest and then absolute silence - someone realised UV viewing was 'essential' [it wasn't] and thus demanded that the game almost pays out for UV lights for everyone
{;PAUL}; it may do Dag - but both Deni and myself want to do something new - something fresh - and the back-story is a huge amount for new players to grapple with - it'd have to be a fresh start - despite the wonderful wikis created in last games
{;Dagada}; Yeah - there were some times when us players got a bit fixated on minor details and missed the massive trees in front of us.
{;Dagada}; some = many
{;PAUL}; I waited as a PM while players spent MONTHS putting the postcards together...
{;Deni}; I've seen it happen in many games
{;PAUL}; then Distilled came along and the game suddenly accelerated beyond compare
{;Distilled}; Wooo!
{;PAUL}; both Deni and I glanced at each other and it was solved [first part] within a few days
{;PAUL}; that was what I hoped would happen in the first month or so... but it didn't
{;Distilled}; Its a shame, I would have liked to have been there for the start - stuff was happening for me about that time and I don't think ARGs were on the forefront of my mind.
{;PAUL}; you can't predict players, and I may have overcomplicated things at the start - but I wanted to challenge and bring players together at same time - instead I got fractioning and people left. You learn from experience.

Continue after the jump for the rest of the interview - including info about Paul and Deni's plans for coming games, the future of Claire and Ben and a shock revalation about Meeka >>>

Vanessa Atalanta OOG Discussion

Late last year we saw the Vanessa Atalanta trilogy draw to a close. As a group of players we've followed the characters through abductions, nightmares, strange ministries, werewolf cults, first dates, chase scenes, and body snatchings - now the Puppet Master for the series is calling us together to discuss the game and, I imagine, find out whether we actually did destroy the Flower of Life with those salts, or whether we should have just burned the shop down and been done with it!

Last night I recieved the following message:

Go here http://chat.efnet.org/irc.cgi?chan=%23yourchannel

put in a nickname

under the channel tab click other and put in #Vanessa

Click Login – I’ll be there at 21:30 GMT – see you there!

thanks

Paul

Paul asked me to post the info here in the hope that people will drop in and give their opinions on how the game went, ask questions to the PM, or even just to learn about the game itself from scratch. So, if you are interested, head over to the link above at 21:30 GMT and chat with us. I'll be there, certainly, lets just hope I don't get kicked out, my computer fizz and begin to smoke and I hear the Greenwich pips...

UnFiction thread for the latest game is here: 15DD Thread.

Wikias for the three games are here: Vanessa Atalanta - Ministry of Argon - Fifteen Days of Darkness.

Put the Epsom in the Irrigation!

Phew, last night was exhausting. It was the finale of Fifteen Days of Darkness and boy was it tense! For those of you not familiar with the game, there are a number of great player made wikias set up for each "act" or "round" or whatever in the series (Vanessa Atalanta - Act 1, Ministry of Argon - Act 2 and Fifteen Days of Darkness - Act 3) and the unFiction thread can be found here. I've said it a billion times and I'll say it again, the best place to get involved with games like this is unFiction and the whole VA/MoA/15DD saga can be followed there aswell.

I'm going to describe to you how it all went down, and hopefully I can convey some of the tension and urgency which I felt playing it. Quick synopsis of the story, in fact I'll start with the summary the PM gave me when I joined the game late:

"very quick praisee - order of oborot have proven to be the 'bad guys' building up towards something at winter solstice.

Vladimir Sirin [from last game] has remembered everything, was kidnapped by them [possibly] and is now trying o 'hack' the leader [Jayden Doyle]'s mind.

This is via chess and riddles done by Internet pages where people have to work out the answer to each page before moving onto the next..."
 

After we fully hacked Jayden's mind we discovered the Order's final plan - they were growing Erigeron Breviscapus - also known as the Flower of Life - using some power provided by the eclipse and the winter solstice to achieve eternal life. We didn't know where they were growing the plants, and we weren't 100% on what they were going to do with them - but we knew they were bad and must be stopped!

 
The Chess Master's Final Move

So, Tuesday evening myself, the_claw and Dagada were faced with a quandary - do we ask the long standing character, the seemingly all-powerful Vladamir Sirin, to delve deeper into Jayden's mind in order to extract more information and possibly save Ben (an Order member who's body Jayden had invaded with his consciousness), but also risk killing both Ben and Jayden in the process? Or do we ask Vladamir to withdraw, sparing Jayden, but possibly not saving Ben?

We struggled with the choice, dear readers, we hesitated and faltered and left it till the last minute - we simply couldn't choose! Eventually we bit the bullet and decided to urge Vlad to push further into Jayden's mind to extract more info. My reasoning was as follows: Vladamir, although at times secretive and manipulative, is a good man and would gladly risk his own safety for the safety of others. Similarly, if we do not push forward we spare Jayden (a seemingly ruthless man who had no problem invading someone else's body for his own means) and lose Ben. So, onward and upward Mr Sirin. This choice, it appeared, was not without consequence.

The strain of pushing further into Jayden's mind, probably coupled with the fact that we ummed and eeerred for so long was too much for Vlad. He managed to evict Jayden and gather more information, but in the process he succumbed to the pressure and died. Oh woe! Oh damn and blast!

It seemed as if we had made the wrong choice, we had sacrificed one of the most important characters and we weren't even sure what it was worth - all we had gained was a cryptic video message from Vlad and a dead Jayden.

But then Ben chirped up on his facebook wall - he was alive! We'd saved him! He had woken up in a dark flat above a shop in London.

Furthermore, we were able to use the images in Vlad's final message to hack Jayden's account on the Order of Oberon's message board, there we found a final farewell by Jayden to the members of the Order and his conversations with a mysterious character "MeeM" to whom he appeared to be reporting. MeeM demanded reports every few months from Jayden, each time Jayden reported our actions to this overseer and MeeM responded with derision and aggression - eventually it emerged that MeeM intended all along for Vlad to hack Jayden's mind, and in fact had sacrificed Jayden to kill Vlad. I think at that point we all appreciated the gravity of what we had done. Jayden was just another pawn, as were we.

You ain't gettin' on no Train Foo'!

Ben described to us his surroundings, he had woken up in the flat in London, above a shop with the shutters down. Next door was another shop called "Ecomax" where he grabbed a bite to eat and then headed left and round the corner to a tube station called "Stamford... something", then he took the district line into the center - intending to take a train up North. We recognised that he'd essentially been a prisoner in his own body for many weeks and it would probably be best if he could get some rest and see Claire.

It occurred to me, however, that we kind of ignored the information which Ben had given us (and in these games you learn quickly that nothing is irrelevant, we are not given information which has no purpose). I decided to take another look at the place where he had woken up, I looked up Ecomax and myself and the_claw tracked his movements along Chiswick High Road and down Goldhawk Road to Stamford Brooks tube station. There must be something important in the area, then it hit me: Jayden had taken his body to that specific shop next to Ecomax - so I checked it out.

A freaking pharmacist! A perfect place to grow experimental regenerative herbs! My suspicions were confirmed when the_claw - having been reporting to MeeM and pretending to be Jayden, received the following reply:

Message subject: Re: Report
From: MeeM

Sent: Wed Dec 22, 2010 4:16 pm
To: JayD
Message
You write early in the day for me, but I can understand your urgency to inform me of this, little rabbit.
What extra information do you need to know? The plants are in your care still, are they not? Growing comfortably in that dismal city you call home? So what is it you need to know? On the 4th we will be glorious, alive and never turning back...

This message confirmed to us that the plants were growing in London. I quickly contact Ben through facebook (on my blackberry, not the easiest thing to do!) and asked him to stop and head back to the shop. He wasn't happy. I had to guilt him a bit - gave him the old "many have sacrificed their lives for this" speech and eventually he started heading back across London.

Put the Epsom in the Irrigation!

The employees at the pharmacy, presumably, still worked for the Order of Oberon. So, when Ben arrived they recognised him as the Jayden who had showed up and spent the past few weeks asleep on the bed upstairs. They admitted him without argument and left him alone to explore the shop and find the plants. Ben found his way into a back room, pitch black and stuffy, we asked him to rummage around in his pockets for anything which might light the room, he came out with a lighter.

Once he could see by the light of the flame he described the room to us, lines of shelves with seedlings supported by an irrigation system coming from plants. At the end was a window with a shutter over it - angled so as to catch the light of the moon. As he described the surroundings, he complained of a wooziness, but he soldiered on. He uploaded a picture of the shutter to facebook:

Ben activated the shutter, and a countdown appeared - we feared we might be caught! The device had a musical lock, which needed a specific sequence to unlock it. Thankfully Sarah (the_claw) was quick on the case and described to Ben how to play the melody composed by Mozart which we encountered earlier in the ARG. This, thankfully, stopped the countdown.

However, this extra time in the room had left Ben extra extra woozy. We figured it was some kind of gas meant to keep the plants alive, but it certainly wasn't good for Ben! He started to pass out, we frantically suggested items to hurl at/bash the window with, chairs, water tanks, keys... in the end he just went through the door... clever boy.

Once Ben had gained his composure he took a look around the shop - we realise we probably shouldn't just wander round in full view of the cameras, so he used his new found abilities (gifted to him by Vlad upon departure) to take out the security cameras. Unfortunately, the effort caused a nosebleed. We could tell he wasn't exactly having a hoot so we devised a plan to kill the plants quickly and quietly. We asked Ben to scour the pharmacists for anything which might be harmful to the plants - Bleach, Salts etc.

He came up with some Epsom salts. Brillo!

So, we urged him to quickly and quietly fill the water tanks with as much salt as he could muster and turn the irrigation system up to full to give the plants a full blast of its salty goodness. Boom baby! After a couple of breaks to get some air, he was done. We told him to make sure he cleaned himself up (would look a bit suspicious walking out there with a bloody nose!) and calmly make his way out the shop as if nothing happened. I don't even think he knew that he might just have saved the world.

Once this was done the PM, Paul, gave us an out of game tip that the game was now over until 4th January. We still aren't sure if we won - did the salts kill the plants and stop MeeM from achieving eternal life? Was it all in vain? Will Jack Morgan top the charts this Christmas with "Little Mouse"? The answer to the first two questions will come early next year. The answer to the final one: No. It's Matt Cardle. Stupid.



Gaming in 2011: Part 2

Phew, I've finally got around to thinking about the second part of my "Gaming in 2011" series, Alternate Reality Gaming. Now, in recent months the ARG boat has been rocked by the ripples of the return of Marble Hornets, and the rise of EMH and Tribe Twelve - these chaotic fictions have really grabbed the limelight when it comes to storytelling and intrigue, but there are a significant number of outstanding games running which DON'T concern our Slender friend and I am hoping that in the New Year we can cover a few of them and really give them the attention they deserve.
As in the previous post, I'm going to focus on the aspects of Alternate Reality Gaming which I am most excited about for 2011. Three different aspects, and one honourable mention:

Alternate Reality Gaming

The ARG scene is something I tend to flow in and out of, I will be obsessed for months (particularly if there is a good game going on) but then I will begin to drift away. I drifted away a few months ago (I think it probably coincided with the end of Season 1 of Marble Hornets), but recently I have drifted back and I am very glad I did. UnFiction, to me, is the home of ARGs. It has certainly been the way I have heard about most games, and the main way the majority of players interact and play. If you are at all interested in ARGs, I suggest you head over there right away and take a look around.

The first thing I am excited about for 2011 is Marble Hornets: Season 2. I've posted about Marble Hornets before, with the new Season coming out 2011 is going to be a very busy year for Troy Wagner and the team. In an "Out of Game" sense, I've been following Troys blogspot for a while now and its been interesting to see a little bit behind the scenes on what the guys have to face when they make the series, if you're interested his blog can be found here: Troy Wagner's Blog Machine (although, if you want full immersion, I would avoid it until the series is over). Season 2 is shaping up to be super-duper epic, with Entry #29 just released I would suggest purchasing industrial strength underpants, and watching it with the lights off and headphones on (although not too loud, I about blew my drums out through my bumhole). I'm probably going to lump Entries #28 and #29 into a post later tonight and talk about where the storyline is going fairly soon. Very very excited about this.

Secondly, I am quite excited about the latest offering in the Vanessa Atalanta/Ministry of Argon series, this time called Fifteen Days of Darkness. Last time I played a game by this PM he had me scouring google maps of London, attempting to misdirect operatives to allow a character to escape with some vital evidence. If you haven't had a chance to get in on one of these games, Fifteen Days is still playing (although we are reaching the end game) and we would really appreciate any help! Now, I must admit, I am not the best person to summarise the VA/MoA/Fifteen Days storyline - I came in at the start of MoA and came in late to the currently running game - which is why I am keen to get another player to write an article about it in the New Year. However, what I can tell you is that the games are incredibly well constructed, varied, sometimes impossibly difficult and immensely satisfying to solve.
During Fifteen Days of Darkness myself and other players have solved a series of puzzles meant to represent our breaking down the barriers in the mind of Jayden, the leader of The Order of Oberon. The OoO are a werewolf cult, with a focus on transformation. We have reached the conclusion that Jayden's ultimate aim somehow revolves around the "Flower of Life", a geometric arrangement of overlapping circles which represent numerous spiritual and mathmatical theorums. Our reaching this conclusion has allowed one of the series running characters Vladamir Sirin to hack into Jayden's mind and force him to speak the truth, just for one weekend. Hopefully, we made full use of this opportunity.
I have thoroughly enjoyed this game so far, and I have to admit MoA was the most thrilling ARG I have ever participated in. The PM puts an astounding amount of thought into the running of this ARG and it really pays off. I cannot wait for the finale of Fifteen Days and I am really looking forward to where the story will go from there.

Thirdly, there are a number of low-level grassroots games going on with small casts which really talk to me. The two I will focus on for the moment are: The Sound Guy and TheArtoftheOak. Sometimes I want the big, complex and flashy ARGs like Fifteen Days, but sometimes I just want to sit down and play a BLARG! Thats a blog-ARG, I just created the term - like it? The Sound Guy is the story of a normal British bloke, much like myself, who is into metal and wants our opinion on the sound quality of his recordings, unfortunately the audio is plagued by strange background sound which he can't seem to get rid of - lets just say, everything is not as it seems! One of the things which hindered the real blast off of this game is the fact that TSG hid the message so well! After a few weeks we have only just cracked the file and I'm hoping the game will blast off from there. I think the reason I like this game is because it is ballsy, often games are just stumbled upon, but TSG had the guts to just send his trailhead out to members of the community inviting them to take part. I'm looking forward to where he's going from here.
TheArtoftheOak is the story of Shannon, a simple girl who is into the paranormal. One day her friend reads a passage from the necronomicon, and, well, what do you think happens?! Shit goes down! Now Shannon is haunted by strange children in the night, the visage of Ingrid Cold and crazed stalkers. The blog has been eerily quiet over the past few weeks (holidays, finals etc), but I am interested to see how the PM marries these quite varied threads together - it could turn out that Shannon's friend has, well, just released all hell upon them! Poor gal.


Finally, the honourable mention. Slenderblogs/Slenderblags. The good and the bad, Marble Hornets and EMH have spawned numerous Slenderblogs which, more often than not, fall to the wayside due to overwhelming weariness from the Slender-community. The writers over at The Slender Review do a great job of keeping tabs on what's hot and what's not, if you'd like to really get the cream of the crop then head over there for some top notch reviews. My personal fave is Hiking Fiend, find the review HERE.

Its going to be a very exciting year for games in general. My social life is going to be baaaad....