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Wainamoinen
Veteran
Joined: 16 Sep 2004 Posts: 126 Location: On a little planet I like to call Earth...
The Curtain Opens Well... it's been quit a ride but it has come to an end...
This was on the main page:
Quote:
596F752063616E20736565207573206E6F772E
May 5, 2005
It's time to take off our masks.
Ares Station was designed by Nathan Mishler and Will Emigh as a thesis project. We are graduate students at Indiana University Bloomington in the department of Telecommunications. This project represents about a year of work (and around three complete concept overhauls: we didn't even start out thinking we were going to make an ARG!)
First off, we would like to thank our entire cast. We, collectively, put in more hours than we ever dreamed we would need and everyone pitched in without complaint. Special thanks to Rory, who constantly surprised us with new art we hadn't even asked for (hope you liked the wallpapers!), and Ian who stayed up late every Tuesday getting Jacob's sound files ready for Wednesday. We wouldn't have made it without you guys!
Secondly, we want to thank our players: both those who actively came and solved puzzles and those who simply came and watched. Ares Station wouldn't have been the same if our audience hadn't thrown as much (or sometimes it seems, more!) energy into it as we did. You guys were our co-pilots through this whole story. It'll be hard to go back to writing on our own after this.
Two things before the credits roll:
1. Since this is a thesis, and we're going to be writing big thick papers about this whole thing, we'd like to ask everyone who even looked at Ares Station casually to fill out a little questionnaire about the experience. We won't be asking for names or anything that we can use to identify you; we just want to know who you are in a general sense. The questionnaire isn't ready right this moment, it will be up sometime next week, we hope. It'll be up on the main Ares Station page and we will probably put it on the Ares Station unfiction board as well.
2. Nathan and Will will visit the Ares Station chat room (#aresPMChat in irc.chat-solutions.org) at 8pm GMT Saturday May 7 for an hour or so. Come around if you want to chat.
Without Further Ado, Ares Station is:
Developers: Will Emigh and Nathan Mishler
Technical Lead: Will Emigh
Story Lead: Nathan Mishler
Puzzle Design: Nathan, Will, Ian Pottmeyer
Art:
Art Director (Fall '04): Trip O'Dell
Art Director (Spring '05): Rory Starks
Station Design, Poster / Desktop Graphic / Most Everything: Rory Starks
Main Site Design / Character Design: Michelle Buddie
"Charlie" Model / Miner Ship Models: Mat Powers
"Charlie" Graffiti Design: Ian Aliman
Gas Mask Design: Steve Brennan
Blackbird Design: Nathan Mishler
Bloggers:
Michael Trathen, Rory Starks, Michelle Buddie, Will Emigh, Mat Powers.
Sound:
Sound Engineer: Ian Pottmeyer
Voice Actors:
Simon Miller, PIRSIG (the robot), Simon's computer, Charlie, monkeys, Ohmega's voice: Ian Pottmeyer
David Severn: Trip O'Dell
Jacob Jones: Sam Saharani
Mary Haynes: Michelle Buddie
Hanna Redfoot: Melissa Beaver
Garith Yung: Addison Rogers
Ship Traffic Controller: Nathan Mishler
Blackbirds: Will Emigh
And, of course, you guys were responsible for half the story, even if you didn't know it at the time.
The headline...
Quote:
596F752063616E20736565207573206E6F772E
=
Spoiler (Rollover to View):
You can see us now.
Well, they did a great job, I'll be sure to to fill out the questionnaire!
I have a few questions to ask them on Saturday...
I wonder what happened to Jacob Jones... I think he was the one in the pod... because the robot said that there was a life pod just incase he needed it.
Anyway I think they did a great job!
[Applause]
-Wainamoinen
Posted: Thu May 05, 2005 3:10 pm
chippy
Entrenched
Joined: 19 Feb 2005 Posts: 789 Location: Leeds, UK
woo well done!
Posted: Thu May 05, 2005 3:28 pm
ellipses
Veteran
Joined: 17 Nov 2003 Posts: 138 Location: Location Location
and
But !!
That was great!
Just to keep the discussions going - I think it was Charlie, since he "got off the wheel" before it all happened. I'm not sure it being Jacob would make much sense (surely Ohmega wasn't helping the character in the life pod!)
I want to know what the other endings would have been if we made the other decisions! Perhaps we should get a list of questions we definitely want to ask them - just so we don't miss any (I'm sure we'll think of others on the night...)
Posted: Thu May 05, 2005 3:38 pm
Russell
Unfictologist
Joined: 11 Feb 2005 Posts: 1571 Location: London
Congratulations to everybody on a fantastic game and big congrats to the PM's for making my first Arg experience (From start to finish) thoroughly entertaining. It's a shame I wont be able to make it on Saturday but Im sure it will be good fun peering behind the curtain.
If it is in a Q + A style, can someone ask them a question on behalf of me?
"How much of the story was actually planned by the PM's and how much was due to the direction we took it. Were there any storylines that they never used because of this"
Thanks again everybody!
PS Make big hints for them to make a sequel!!!
Posted: Thu May 05, 2005 3:42 pm
Wainamoinen
Veteran
Joined: 16 Sep 2004 Posts: 126 Location: On a little planet I like to call Earth...
ellipses wrote:
Just to keep the discussions going - I think it was Charlie, since he "got off the wheel" before it all happened. I'm not sure it being Jacob would make much sense (surely Ohmega wasn't helping the character in the life pod!)
Well, I just remember the robot jacob was with said if anything happened there was a life pod for him...
ellipses wrote:
I want to know what the other endings would have been if we made the other decisions! Perhaps we should get a list of questions we definitely want to ask them - just so we don't miss any (I'm sure we'll think of others on the night...)
I agree, I was planning on asking that question too!
-Wainamoinen
Posted: Thu May 05, 2005 3:46 pm
Tonamel
Veteran
Joined: 06 Oct 2003 Posts: 104
Hey, guys, glad you enjoyed! I was the sound designer for this little escapade. It was a lot of fun (Well, except the part where I was up until 6am making esperanto morse code by hand...), and I'm glad you guys liked it too. I'd love to do another one of these things (and maybe get paid for it ) sometime! See you at the chat Saturday!
Posted: Thu May 05, 2005 3:54 pm
Russell
Unfictologist
Joined: 11 Feb 2005 Posts: 1571 Location: London
Sequel Sequel! lol
Posted: Thu May 05, 2005 3:59 pm
ellipses
Veteran
Joined: 17 Nov 2003 Posts: 138 Location: Location Location
Oh Damn! Just got back to the computer to find Tonomel was on chat earlier... (been too busy voting - erm and going to the pub on the way back from voting )
I notice from the credits that he voiced the monkeys!! How good is that.
Posted: Thu May 05, 2005 6:35 pm
Oshovah
Boot
Joined: 09 Apr 2005 Posts: 15 Location: Canadia
That was fun!
This was my first ARG, and I think I liked it. I especially enjoyed how much we influenced the events that occured in-game (even if I didn't do that much personally). But I too would like to see how much the players really did input to the story itself.
Posted: Thu May 05, 2005 7:59 pm
Wainamoinen
Veteran
Joined: 16 Sep 2004 Posts: 126 Location: On a little planet I like to call Earth...
Tonamel wrote:
It was a lot of fun (Well, except the part where I was up until 6am making esperanto morse code by hand...)
Yikes, that would be hard!
You did a great job!
Quote:
Just got back to the computer to find Tonomel was on chat earlier...
Me too...
-Wainamoinen
Posted: Fri May 06, 2005 2:40 am
Wandering_Angela
Veteran
Joined: 10 Aug 2004 Posts: 108
Well, a friend of mine hosted an impromptu poker party last night, so I missed all the discussion and only now have gotten a chance to listen to all the recordings. Great stuff! I've got a crush on David - he's my hero!
Just wanted to say how much I enjoyed gaming with you guys! Thanks to everyone who worked so hard to put this together.
I may not make it to the chat on Saturday, so can someone please post a log?
See you in the next game...
Posted: Fri May 06, 2005 3:47 am
Tonamel
Veteran
Joined: 06 Oct 2003 Posts: 104
Wainamoinen wrote:
You did a great job!
Thanks
Posted: Fri May 06, 2005 3:48 am
Wainamoinen
Veteran
Joined: 16 Sep 2004 Posts: 126 Location: On a little planet I like to call Earth...
Tonamel wrote:
Wainamoinen wrote:
You did a great job!
Thanks
Thank you
-Wainamoinen
Posted: Fri May 06, 2005 4:35 am
ellipses
Veteran
Joined: 17 Nov 2003 Posts: 138 Location: Location Location
Thought of some more questions -
Job Application Puzzle - was it always intended to swap between dog and cow DNA for the answer? Personally I think it worked well, since we got a clue right when we needed it, but I think it ticked a few people off.
Thesis - what is it about - and can we read it when it's done! I for one would be fascinated.
Esperanto - does anyone on the team actually speak Esperanto?
Merzkeen - how do you spell Merzkeen?
Were there any puzzles we missed, or passwords we didn't get?
Oh - and can we have a sequel?
Posted: Fri May 06, 2005 9:42 am
tongues
Greenhorn
Joined: 14 Mar 2005 Posts: 9
*bows* *bow*
Story guy here. It's me that's been idling in the chat room for two and a half months now.
Thank you all! The praise is heartening.
I'll hold off on answering questions until the chat. Well, other than to say there'll be two thesis papers coming out of this, and I'll probably put mine up somewhere that you all can see it. If I'm lucky it'll be done by the end of summer.
Posted: Fri May 06, 2005 10:46 am
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