Thoughts are Progressive

Immersion: The idea is that the set up of the plot should make it difficult to know that Amene is false. The integration of it into the real world should be seamless. Having an actual product that people can buy and using real world companies to back it are part of this illusion. Then the game-play shouldn’t detract from it as they make sense. I’m not getting them to do anymore decoding after the initial rabbit hole because being on the blog seems to be safe so they don’t need to do things secretly. The tasks involved in Amene are meant to be very practical. How else are you going to stop it all unless you go out and get people to stop.

Agency: The main use of agency is in the graph that shows the progress of the earth’s stages (critical to non-critical). Without this, the players don’t have any indication if what they’re doing is bringing proper results. I could have just had Nelson Crouch post comments like, “My Monitor went crazy today, thanks to so-and-so for having such a big group. We’re getting closer and closer to non-critical now!” But this would actually effect the immersion, he doesn’t have to the Monitor and could just be saying that. It doesn’t strike me as being as believable. The graph seems more legitimate, trustworthy, regular and instantaneous.

Narrative: I’ve used a typical narrative arc. It begins with an exposition that engages the players (the discovery of Amene); followed by rising action which excites the players (finding that the archaeologists have been sneaky and placed clues about the ‘real deal’); next the climax which might evoke concern in the players (learning the true story behind the destruction of Amene and that it’s happening again); and finally the resolution which brings satisfaction to the players (being a part of changing history and saving the world). This certainly seems to be a fail safe way to do it.

Another article.

Information I looked at to enhance my game.

Here’s the list of my brainstorming for a tagline. I wrote down words that I thought related to the plot and then used them to think up several possibilities for me to from.

A mind map of my idea. An exploration into what could happen…

Socks Inc. is an ARG aimed mainly at children and so the set-up is different. They’ve made sock puppets come to life and be characters. The idea is that you sign up and join Socks Inc. workforce. The work you do is to make videos of your own sock puppet creations perform specific duties like being athletes or groundskeepers (gardening). Then you upload your video onto there site and you get points for completing “Your mission”.

It’s not a conventional ARG like I Love Bees and Find 815 etc. but I believe this is due to the target audience. You can’t be so extreme when it comes to kids because you can’t have them running around to random phone booths to take a call or even wandering all over the internet looking for clues, so I think it works within it’s constraints. Besides, it is merging their fantasy incorporation into the children’s lives.

The reason this particular ARG is relevant to my own game is in the way the tasks/missions are carried out. I intend to have the players take video (or at least photographic) proof that they have carried out the task. Because of the nature of my game, this is pretty important because then you can’t just write and say you’ve done it, but the person behind the blog can see that it was done and maybe even say that it didn’t have a large enough impact on the issue, so they need to do it again but with more people.

So basically, it’s the ‘involving’ factor through use of video that has influenced me.

Some of my sketches of possible DVD cover designs. The sketches are obviously (hopefully) based on these photos my mum took :)

I’ve looked at different documentary DVD cover designs as influences upon my own.

I’ve collected various styles from National Geographic to some oddities because at the moment I’m thinking it could be self-published. Not quite sure yet.

Images are from:
http://www.theufostore.com/erich-danikens-ancient-astronauts-archaeology-p-452.html
http://shop.nationalgeographic.com/ngs/product/dvds/national-geographic-channel-dvds/exploration-and-adventure/egyptian-secrets-of-the-afterlife-dvd
http://shop.history.com/detail.php?p=271012&v=history

This ARG for Halo 2 has intrigued me. It was such a massive concept and such a success that it blows my mind! I possibly also find it interesting because one of my own ideas included bees (but that’s extremely minor!)

I know most people reading this will already know a lot about it, so I won’t go into the plot description and all the sorts of extreme things that happened (if you don’t, just find it on Wikipedia [at least for a general idea of what went on]). But I find the concept of the ilovebees website being taken over inspiring. In one of my own ideas, I have someone being taken prisoner by some high authority and it’s pretty much the same thing, but in reality rather than virtually. I like the idea of someone’s ideas and work being suppressed or muted as the one of the main things that kick the ARG off and helping that person then being one of the elements that drives the game along.

Perplex City

Perplex City is a fictional city that has connections with Earth somehow. Their culture is all about puzzles and mind games and they have this event called The Academy Games, which is equivalent to our Olympic Games but using mental strength and not physical strength. They also have an object of great value called “The Receda (reh-kay-duh) Cube” shortened to just “The Cube” which has been stolen and has ended up on earth.

 People from Perplex City who interacted with Earth were sisters Scarlett, Violet (through blogs); Pietro Salk an investigative reporter (through online newspaper) and Kurt McAllister and I wasn’t able to discover how he interacted with the players. There was also something called Mind Candy, which sold puzzle cards and it was through these cards that players progressed through the game. The cards held many purposes, not just a puzzle, but some had invisible ink and pieces of maps for other aspects of the game and led to websites and the usual features.

 Interesting thing about this ARG is that it wasn’t promoting a movie, TV show or anything. They did make money through selling the puzzle cards, but this might have only been enough to keep the game running. And there was actually a money prize of £100,000 for whoever found “The Cube”.

 The game ran from 2005 until 2007 and because of the longevity of it, the game achieved some interesting traits. A book was written by the players and published so that a fictional character from Perplex City could achieve something and a cd was released from a Perplex City musician. Some more ‘normal’ (for an ARG) activities included a banner plane with an access word; an in-game event where one member was revealed as a mole and the actual Perplex City Academy Games was played in both London and New York.

 I like this ARG because it was able to incorporate proper mental puzzles in without ruining the ‘This is not a game’ mentality. I think they managed immersion through making Perplex City a puzzle based city and this then represented what the norm was for the players. Other immersion would be through collecting the puzzle cards, because they were like baseball cards where some were more rare than others. But players didn’t just have to buy the cards to participate. They could follow the game online without them. Possibly then, the people who bought the puzzle cards were more immersed, but I don’t really know!

 I’m not sure that they employed agency too well because it seems that the only outcome from submitting an answer to a puzzle card were points. I’m assuming that there were other outcomes, you know, ‘the answer from the puzzle you just completed puts another piece of the jigsaw into place’ sort of thing, but I couldn’t find out what they were exactly.