Slashdot Mirror

DariusD writes "Last summer, Wired writer Evan Ratliff wrote a story about how people erase their identities and start over. After it ran, he tried to disappear — spending 25 days on the lam until a few enterprising Wired readers tracked him down through some brilliant hacking and sleuthing. Now we're going to try the experiment again. Evan, Wired, Loneshark Games and I are working with Universal Pictures to do another, similar contest connected to the new film Repo Men, and this time we want you to go on the run. We need four applicants willing to disappear from their lives from late February to late March. If they can stay hidden for that time period, they'll end up with $10,000 each."

I Love Bees is regarded as one of the more successful alternate reality games (ARGs) ever run in the US. It should be no surprise, then, that the game's spiritual sequel entitled simply Iris , is causing quite a stir. It began on June 11th, with cryptic messages in the Bungie forums. Designed to take players through the history of the Halo world over the course of the summer, players have already uncovered some 'pre-game' information; for all intents and purposes the actual game hasn't started yet. Michael VanderZand probably wish it was already over, though: then he might have some peace and quiet. The climax is expected sometime on September 26th, the day after Halo 3 releases to stores.

Via GameSetWatch an in-depth article on the Alternate Reality Game Network site explaining how Andy Darley found the cube, and completed the first season of the Perplex City game. Written by Darley himself it's an engaging account of what it's like to actually play one of these games, and the process by which the cube's location was discovered. "It was then that I realised I was practically standing on a spot where the topsoil was the colour of the clay that ought to be hidden underneath it. It wasn't 10m from the post, it was slightly further - practically a continuation of the line I'd just investigated, exactly where you'd end up burying something if you walked 10m, stopped, and leaned forward to start digging. Seeing sub-surface clay with just a very thin covering of the material that was several inches thick elsewhere was deeply suspicious." GSW also links to an exhaustive look at an older ARG-in-a-children's-book, the game Masquerade, which is well worth reading up on.

Via GameSetWatch, the year 2005 in Alternate Reality Gaming on ARGN. From the article: "As the world became more familiar with ARG through hit games The Art of the Heist, Perplex City, Jamie Kane and Last Call Poker, the community was also treated to many interesting and in-depth grassroots projects like Omnifam and Seen Steve. Overall, the year was very good for the genre, and the community is thriving and growing very day."

The Alternate Reality Gaming Network has an examination of the ARG H3ist, which recently completed its run. The Audi sponsored alternate reality title went off, generally speaking, very well. From the article: "Overall, The Art of the H3ist has to be considered one of the giants of the ARG genre. The richness of the story, the depth of background, the amazing live interactions and the masterful puzzles all played a role in making this a must-play game."

Ryan Barrett writes "Credits have been posted for the I Love Bees alternate reality game. As many suspected, its puppetmasters included Sean Stewart, Jordan Weisman, and Elan Lee, who created the game The Beast for the movie AI. Many of the principle members of Cloudmakers also participated, one of whom was the voice of Melissa. Sean, Jordan, and Elan have founded a company, 4orty2wo Entertainment, to continue producing ARGs. I don't know about you, but I'm very excited."

An Anonymous Reader writes "The new Canadian television series ReGenesis premiered on the Movie Network and Movie Central last Sunday night, but surprised viewers with a cryptic message at the end: 'Only you know the whole story. Be a part of it. www.regenesistv.com' Players who registered on the website quickly discovered an Extended Reality of websites, telephone numbers and clues which reached out to them from the fiction of the series." More below. Reviews from the Alternate Reality Gaming community have been good, complimenting both the series and the online experience as realistic and gripping. So far users have unearthed links to the North American Biotechnology Advisory Commission, the anarchistic scientific forum ScienceSucks.com and a mysterious weblog which seems to be written by a mole within NorBAC itself.

Project partners Xenophile Media and Shaftesbury Films have been guarded in describing how far the Extended Reality will go, but a recent anonymous interview goes much further to explain what viewers/players should expect.

An anonymous reader writes "Mysterious murders in an abandoned mental hospital, a strange device that reads and records people's dreams, poetry written by dead people, and a reality TV show production company that has pushed the envelope too far and may have a dark secret they are desperately trying to protect. Just what the hell is going on here? It started when "Casting Call" notices for a new reality TV show called "Urban Hunt" began showing up on several popular reality TV fan sites. A secret message encoded into the autoresponder applicants received led to a urban legends website which featured a story about a failed reality TV show called "Dread House" supposedly set in an abandoned mental institution. This appears, on the surface, to be another Alternate Reality Game like the notable and previously Slashdot-mentioned ilovebees Halo 2 ARG, but there are elements that make this game possibly the most realistic and believable yet. So, is it even a game at all? Help us try to get to the truth at the Unfiction forum and game-specific Wiki set up to discuss the conundrum."

An nonymous reader points to articles at the New York Times and on the BBC about online games that require a lot more audience participation and curiosity than conventional games do. "Known as ARGs or Alternate Reality Games, these immersive experiences mix real world clues, phone calls, voicemail, email chatter-bots, real people playing roles in real life and a bevy of bogus and legit websites, to create a fully rounded gaming experience that bleeds over into everyday life. With central sites like ARGN, Unfiction, and endless forums and Yahoo groups, the BBC claims that this is not only a quickly emerging gaming trend, but that it may also have real-world applications like group dynamics and problem solving. Chasing the Wish claims to already have a few thousand people worldwide playing since it opened for play on Feb. 28. One sure sign of having people's attention is the fact that it's already spawned a parody site, Chasing the Fish."