General META Discussion-New

Collaborative art tool?

Mikeyj@forums.unfiction.com — Thu, 06 Jul 2017 12:12:28 +0000

Hi All,

I'm putting together a collaborative art project for science engagement together with our engagement team at the uni I work at. It's to bring together researchers, the public, patients, carers, family and clinicians to explore respiratory diseases.

One of the issues that we have is that patients with a particular disease, Cystic Fibrosis, aren't able to meet each other physically due to the risk of cross-infection. They are supposed to be separated in time or space. The result of this is that as a group they have really never been considered or involved in any outreach or engagement activities which is pretty shitty and something I'd like to change.

One of the events we're running is probably going involve collage as the medium - is anyone aware of any tools or approaches that might work to have a group of people present and others remote interacting with one another to collaborate on a collage piece?

Alternatively, any approaches you can think of for achieving interaction and engagement within a group of people who cannot be in the same location in time and space would be brilliant.

Chronic diseases are really isolating and though people with CF are as a community really active, I feel science research and clinical engagement is letting them down. We're also asking patients themselves for input, but with ARGers special skills I was hoping to get some cool ideas.

Thanks :)

Escape Rooms

Rogi Ocnorb@forums.unfiction.com — Mon, 03 Jul 2017 03:36:43 +0000

Experienced my first escape room tonight. WOW!!!!!
Puzzles and ciphers just like the old days of ARGs.
ROT-5, puzzle wheels, chess pieces with numbers that turned out to represent degrees on a compass, words buried in a letter as instructions to open a box, a real cryptic with a key inside, a lever inside an old phone case that opened a secret door, turning wall decorations that opened a hidden drawer, so many little puzzles in our hands.
Brought back so many great memories.
Now we're going to try other escape rooms in town.

Two Takes on Experience Design

krystyn@forums.unfiction.com — Wed, 24 May 2017 18:01:08 +0000

Today while reading tweets, I ran across the following, thanks to Jim Babb:

http://patternsoftransformation.com/

It's a pretty good read. If you are someone interested in designing ARGs, it probably would be good to think of doing so in terms of designing experiences for your players.

Looking through it, it reminded me a little of a related, phenomenal (heh) piece of work on experience design presented by the late Brian Clark (on a domain named phenomenalwork.com). Brian wrote a series of posts which he entitled Foundations of Experience Design. Here's how he described it , and his intentions for it:

For the last couple of years, Ive been working on a book about experience design through the lens of phenomenology, a never-ending project thats taken me into ever-more-surprising corners of where those ideas come together. Ive reached the point where I realize that one whole pile of that probably isnt destined to end up in the book: the part that is really about the introduction to experience design as the craft that accompanies phenomenologys philosophy. Instead, I realize I actually have two half-finished projects instead of one.

Over the next couple of months, Id like to share with you the affirmative argument for experience designs role in the changing landscape of design thinking, explore the principles of the new questions it grapples with (that other designers should grapple with as well), and detail a system for developing practical toolboxes of techniques. More than half of it is material Ive been polishing for more than a year, now structured in a way that I hope is modular and practical while still tackling the big questions that beg exploration by more practitioners. It is one of the most complete documentations of the processes Ive been honing for 19 years, and it is doing no one any good just sitting on my hard drive.

Your dialogue and commentary on these posts are both invited and appreciated, as I hope to include parts of that commentary in some e-book version of the result to expand it as a resource for others.

Unfortunately, I don't think the e-book ever came to fruition. If someone knows otherwise, by all means let us know. And also unfortunately, phenomenalwork.com is no longer a registered domain. When I went to look for this, for just a moment I was worried that it was lost in the digital sea. But, fortunately, we have the Wayback Machine. It has preserved this material, and you can find it there: Follow this link to see the ten substantive sections, in reverse chronological order. That's a bit of an inconvenient way to read it though. So, for convenience and posterity, I have assembled the material into a rich text document with attachments, and a PDF (both attached). I have the left the hyperlinks therein pointing to the Wayback Machine's contemporaneous archives of those pages. A quick attempt to find some of them today reveals what you might expect: Over time, the resources at those URLs have in some cases persisted, while in others they have changed or disappeared entirely.

Records of The Beast

SignT@forums.unfiction.com — Thu, 04 May 2017 15:00:05 +0000

I remember previously, the cloudmakers have kept a careful play record of the events of the Beast ARG. However, the domain has been bought, and new robots text makes it unable for the wayback machine to access the records.

Does anyone know how to reaccess the record?

Alternate Reality Awards 2017

catherwood@forums.unfiction.com — Thu, 09 Feb 2017 21:00:57 +0000

Hello there! I'm here from GameDetectives , so I apologise if I'm posting this in the wrong place or something. I'm currently running the final vote for an ARG awards!

You can vote in the awards here. I don't know if you'll have heard of any of the ARGs that have been nominated, but there's a description of each on the first page of the form.

I thought you might be interested, anyway. And the more votes, the better! I'm planning to run an awards ceremony in a voice chat on GameDetectives after the vote ends, too.

P.S. what's with my password being emailed to me in plaintext?

What happened to the contacts thread?

Caprice@forums.unfiction.com — Mon, 09 Jan 2017 02:54:47 +0000

Last time I was here, there was a thread where users posted contact information for PMs to send trailheads. I can't seem to find it.

ARG Chatroom (is inactive) (NEEDS MORE ACTIVE PEOPLE)

ComputerGuide@forums.unfiction.com — Wed, 28 Sep 2016 04:27:18 +0000

https://join.skype.com/sVoUzuJz7x7J
a chatroom i've made for talking about ARGs and what not
Update:
a way better version
https://discord.gg/f9UrFSx
new one:
https://discord.gg/bbqxq8p

Almanac - 84 page report on The Black Watchmen ARG

Anashel@forums.unfiction.com — Sun, 07 Aug 2016 03:59:00 +0000

Hey there!

If someone is interested, I made a 84 page report about the creation of The Black Watchmen ARG for the last 2 years.

https://s3.amazonaws.com/cdn.blackwatchmen.com/archive/uploads/Almanac-2016-WebEdition.pdf

FYI: Black Watchmen started as "Behind The Yellow Curtain" ARG on Unfiction. It later became The Secret World ARG (Gate-33 + End of Days) and finally was spin-off as a new game.

i hope unforum is more active in the day.

albadoo627@forums.unfiction.com — Mon, 09 May 2016 04:31:40 +0000

11:30 pm for me right now. I hope the forum is more active tomorrow and not just full of guests all day.

lonelygirl15

theworldisquiethere@forums.unfiction.com — Mon, 18 Apr 2016 18:37:20 +0000

I'd heard of lonelygirl15 back in 2006 but I thought it was just like a popular blog or something that caused drama when it turned out to be staged. Just recently I heard it had supernatural stuff in it and was basically an ARG, so I watched quite a bit of it (or usually just had the window on the side as I was doing something else).

It's a pretty creative idea. I think it's probably one of the firsts of its kind? I like how there are other channels that chime in, and I like the occasional videos with post-production, like the OpAphid and related channels, and the videos where Bree is brainwashed and play synthetic music.

Too bad it's mostly bad though! :lol: I guess it's KIND of the point, but even after it was revealed to be staged, there was lots of stupid drama videos. And later on they kept insisting on showing us "action" segments which of course didn't work out well. Also it does seem kind of manipulative to me that people apparently tried to message Bree and got back answers that were ostensibly written by her but were actually written by the show's writers. And the story clearly wasn't planned out, nothing ever really happens except they add new characters. I stopped watching when Bree dies. That's as good a place to stop as any I guess. I see there are actually a ton more videos and even spin-offs and stuff.

Anyway the best thing about it was the nostalgic feeling of like, seeing a fun mystery from 10 years ago, and seeing those comments that were left 9 years ago. And I like that ARG feeling of wanting to believe it's real. Are there any other internet mysteries from years ago that anyone recommends reading/watching?

Also are there any more of these spooky, ostensibly true web series? Like Marble Hornets, for example. It's the only other one I know.

I just saw The Institute

gimlet@forums.unfiction.com — Tue, 08 Mar 2016 13:28:19 +0000

I just saw The Institute on Netflix and wish so badly that I could have been a part of that! I live in Portland, Oregon. Any folks from Stumptown know of anything like this around here? I will probably watch The Institute again tonite, I know I missed a lot of details the first time around. So fun, a bit scary, and explosions of Happiness!

See you in Elsewhere,
Your Average Girl

Recommended Reading

gimlet@forums.unfiction.com — Sun, 06 Mar 2016 02:55:21 +0000

So, since we've had a lot of time on our hands during the 10 Cloverfield Lane ARG, a lot of Meta talk on the subject of ARGs has come up.

I myself have spent the last year searching for a "required reading" list and coming up empty. So I've been hacking together my own. I figured I'd share it with you guys, you can share your own recommendations, and we can hive mind together a list for future enthusiasts who want to go deeper down the rabbit hole.

There's going to be some Transmedia overlap, since Transmedia seems to be largely more well documented, and much of the knowledge there is useful or related. I also haven't gotten to read ALL of these books, articles & essays, but see them recommended enough I feel safe including them (but correct me if I'm wrong).

I've also included a lot of of maybe not directly arg related fiction for lulls just such as this one, when you're itching for a convoluted, mysterious narrative puzzle, but the PMs just aren't delivering.

I'm also going to collect stuff under headings I think, because you may be interested or need one thing but not another (maybe children's fiction is a yes please but non-fiction theory is a no thanks).

Non-Fiction & Theory
Flow by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi
Reality is Broken by Jane McGonigal
Homo Ludens by Johan Huizinga
Play by Stuart Brown
Understanding Media by Marshall McLuhan
Travels in Hyperreality by Umberto Eco
The Design of Everyday Things by Donald Norman
Convergance Culture By Henry Jenkins
Passwords and Simulacra and Simulation by Jean Baudrillard
A Creators Guide to Transmedia Storytelling by Andrea Phillips
The Art of Immersion by Frank Rose
This is Not a Game by Dave Szulborski
The New Digital Storytelling by Bryan Alexander
Mythologies and Empire of Signs by Roland Barthes

Adult Fiction
Mr Penumbra's 24 hour Bookshop by Robin Sloan
The Crying of Lot 49 by Thomas Pynchon
Ready Player One by Ernest Cline
The Story of S by Doug Dorst and JJ Abrams *
The Museum of Innocence by Orhan Pamuk *
Invisible Cities by Italo Calvino
Love and Other Games of Chance by Lee Siegel
Griffin and Sabine by Nick Bantock
Personal Effects: Dark Art by JC Hutchins and Jordan Wiseman
The Selected Works of TS Spivet
Foucault's Pendulum by Umberto Eco

Children's/YA Fiction
Masquerade by Kit Williams
The Jolly Postman by Janet and Allan Ahlberg
Animalia and the Eleventh Hour by Graeme Base
A Series of Unfortunate Events by Lemony Snickett (aka Daniel Handler) *
The Westing Game and The Mysterious Disappearance of Leon I mean Noel by Ellen Raskin
The Mixed Up Files of Ms. Basil E. Frankweiler by E.L. Konigsberg
Chasing Vermeer by Blue Balliett
Under the Egg by Laura Marx Fitzgerald
Greenglass House by Kate Mitford *
Cathy's Book by Sean Stewart *
The 39 Clues by Various Authors *
The Invention of Hugo Cabret by Brian Selznick
The Secret Series by Psuedonymous Bosch
Escape from Mr Limoncello's Library by Chris Grabenstein
Endgame by James Frey and Nils Johnson-Shelton *

Important Articles & Post-Mortems
Masquerade
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/books/booknews/8448139/Masquerade-a-treasure-hunt-that-ended-in-a-scandal.html
The Beast/AI
http://www.slate.com/articles/arts/culturebox/2001/05/signs_of_intelligent_life.html
Junko Junsui
http://www.cnet.com/news/junko-junsui-and-alfa-arkiv-behind-the-curtain/
Lost
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/01/arts/television/01manl.html?ex=1317355200&en=9a89c6ab5bf568c9&ei=5088&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss
Year Zero
http://www.wired.com/2007/12/ff-args/
Jejune
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/22/us/22bcculture.html?_r=0
& http://cardhouse.com/where/
Latitude
http://www.businessinsider.com/my-experience-with-the-latitude-society-2015-10
& http://blog.longreads.com/2015/09/24/we-value-experience-can-a-secret-society-become-a-business/
A Mystery On Fifth Avenue
http://mobile.nytimes.com/2008/06/12/garden/12puzzle.html?referer=
The Story of S
http://www.newyorker.com/books/page-turner/the-story-of-s-talking-with-j-j-abrams-and-doug-dorst
JJ Abrams produced Wired issue
http://www.wired.com/2009/05/0514_metapuzzle/
Portal 2
http://www.gamasutra.com/blogs/AdamFoster/20130617/194321/
Weldon Library Letters
http://www.thestar.com/news/insight/2014/04/05/i_cracked_the_code_at_the_western_university_library.html
Horse_ebooks/Pronunciation Book/This is My Milwaukee
http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2014/02/10/man-and-machine-2
Cicada 3301
http://www.rollingstone.com/culture/features/cicada-solving-the-webs-deepest-mystery-20150115
& http://www.fastcompany.com/3038719/what-its-like-to-be-on-the-inside-of-cicada-3301-the-internets-most-enigmatic-mystery

Not an ARG, but ARG techniques used by real life clandestine Government agencies
http://mobile.nytimes.com/2015/06/07/magazine/the-agency.html?_r=2&referer=http://www.pinterest.com/pin/141019032059197811/

Audio Visual Supplements
The Institute

Other Helpful Lists
Transmedia Reading List: https://designingstory.wordpress.com/reading-list/

*note: asterisk denotes work is part of larger ARG or larger transmedia project

Creating a hidden Video with youtube.

Caprice@forums.unfiction.com — Sun, 17 Jan 2016 19:51:14 +0000

A Let's player I follow just released this video of an interesting technique of encoding a secret video in another youtube video. with the 60 FPS and double speed revealing it.

https://youtube.com/watch?v=pHh-66ZZsU0

Mistaken for an ARG?

dmax@forums.unfiction.com — Sat, 16 Jan 2016 04:12:38 +0000

Has there ever been anything posted on Unfiction or any other ARG site that was thought to be an elaborate game, but, turned out to be " rea l", as in not a game?

What would you like to see in an entry-level ARG?

icarus496@forums.unfiction.com — Wed, 06 Jan 2016 14:16:34 +0000

This will be my second game since 2006, and like the first, the storytelling will be a massive part. I don't want to weigh players down with incredibly hard puzzles, but I will make them challenging. In your past experience, what did you hope for, and what would you like to see?