Alternate reality games.
I've been looking into Perplex City and somehow came across the term "alternate reality games." Intriguing, no? Sean Stewart talks here about the ARG for the movie A.I., which I had heard about before but not played. Sounds chilling.
"What's your idea of the game experience?" someone asked Elan.Remember that scene from Neuromancer when Case is running past the pay phones and Wintermute rings each one? Ooh, good stuff. Attack the player from different places. Make her hackles rise when she realizes the game has come at her from a new, unexpected direction.
(Thoughtfully). "The instant you click on a link, your phone should start to ring, your car should only drive in reverse, and none of your friends should remember your name."
I swear I'm not posting this link, or expressing interest, because the guy that owns the company I'm working for had something to do with it. Not that I'm not that kind of suck up, because I am that kind of suck up. Just not this time.
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games
2 comments:
I played that AI ARG. At the time, we didn't know what to call it or what sort of thing it was. The group I was in was called the Cloudmakers, the biggest group working on the puzzles. There were so many puzzles--things to do every day if you had time. It was great. There was one based off of Go, where you had to win a game of it to get a clue. Another puzzle was a modified version of the enigma code used during WWII.
Without doubt, the coolest part was a real-time interaction with (though we didn't know it at the time) the principal author of the game timeline and all narrative game materials. He was by a phone taking real calls from people playing the game, pretending to be a security guard from several centuries in the future. He was the guard at a building where one of the other game characters was being held captive. We found out later that what happened that afternoon, what we'd talked him into doing (he rushed the two kidnappers and saved the person being held there) had been entirely up to us. They'd been prepared to roll with whatever we ended up doing.
I really wish another ARG of that scale would pop up. The problem is, of course, that the ARG for AI was more successful than the movie was. If that movie had been a huge hit, I think we'd see a lot more viral marketing of that type than we do currently. It's a real shame. God, that was a fun game.
okcmpefy
O.K., cereal makes perfect energy for you.
Okay, so I'm not good with names. Now that I'm actually RTFA that was linked, I realize that Sean Stewart was the guy on the phone.
Okay, nothing to see here...move along.
DWOXC
Don't wear one xither, Christina.
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