unforum

[Sherlock_Holmes]

[QUESTION] Hopeful PM looking for guidance...

[imbri]

Welcome!

First of all, I must warn you that you may get quite a few seemingly negative responses to your question. We're a generally a kind and helpful community, but certain topics occasionally cause us to run for our pitchforks. One of those is people who think that they can PM a game after hearing the genre exists. Fortunately, you've asked for guidance, so hopefully people will just look for their pitchforks instead of just charging

I'll point you in the general direction of the "PM Guide" forum. It can be found here and contains a basic start for your research.

Also, if you're at all familiar with irc chat, we have a chat channel set up on the irc.chat-solutions.org network to chat about all sorts of PM issues. It can be found at #pmchat. If you don't have an IRC client (such as mIRC), you can access it through your webbrowser here. Just change the room from "unfiction" to "pmchat'. Also, it's frequently quiet in there. I'm usually around during the day and late at night, so if you type something, I'll likely see that there's activity in the channel and check it out (or type my name, imbri, and it will alert me). Additionally, we occasionally hold a scheduled chat in that channel on an issue relating to PMing a game, the latest one was just last Sunday and a log of the discussion can be found here

I would also recommend looking at the "PM Chat" chat logs from previously concluded games. Frequently the PMs provide little nuggets of insight and wisdom. Those can usually be found in the game forums... do a search or just go to the various archives and look for a post titled "PM Chat", a log is probably posted somewhere in that thread. Omnifam, a game run by several notable UF members, just concluded and will be holding a PM Chat at 4:30 PM EST today (Dec 8.). More information on it can be found here

If you prefer paper resources, you could purchase Dave Szulborski's This Is Not A Game which is available through LuLu.

There are a ton of us around that have worked on a game in some fashion. While a few of us have worked professionally, most have experience in the 'grassroots' games (generally smaller experiences put on, for the most part, for the existing community... there are some great notable exceptions to this, of course). With all this varied experience, there really is quite a bit of insight floating around... the trick is getting us to talk about it (sometimes that's a lot easier than others).

Finally, I'm not sure what your experience level is or what drives your interest, but I would suggest researching and playing any games that you can. Look through the player created resources (guides and wikis) to get a good idea of what all goes on from a player perspective and also to see some of the techniques that are utilized. Two of the better ones, in my opinion, are Cloudmakers (a guide for the Beast, often cited as the first ARG, and probably the most complete resource for any single game) and Metaurchins (a 'book' written after the Metacortechs game by several of the players... disclaimer, I was one of the PMs for that game so am certainly biased, but it really is a well thought out chronological look at a game with the benefit of hindsight... something rarely done).

Please feel free to ask any questions that you have as you try to figure some of this stuff out. Though, issues related solely to PMing a game should be asked in the PM Guide forum while those about the genre as a whole should be asked here (in the meta forum).

[ItWasntMeISwear]

imbri, do you ever sleep?

Anyway, Sherlock.. welcome to the community. I am unsure why the name you chose hasn't been taken yet.. it would seem like a logical choice for this type of genre... but who am I to judge?

And I totally agree with everything that imbri has mentioned. I have Dave's book "This is not a game" and it's something that I refer to whenever I have a question about something. And if I can't find the answer in there, I come here and ask.

How these things work is pretty complicated to explain. I PM and even I don't understand it sometimes. It really is a complex network of different aspects of game creation that must be neatly and logically put together.

I have to run but I wish you the best of luck. Hope to see you in the chat room soon.

[Sherlock_Holmes]

[catherwood]

Re: [QUESTION] Hopeful PM looking for guidance...

[Varin]

[GuyP]

Reading guides and more guides can only help...

Anyway, I must say that by actually asking about such things, you've already shown yourself to have rather more forethought than several individuals that spring oh-so-immediately to mind. Well done you! That said, I think that the majority of people who find the ARG concept appealing also find the idea of making one attractive. Superficially, it really is throwing together a few websites, registering a few email addresses, and...

Oh, telling a story.

My earnest advice (as a player) is to develop a great, engaging plot first, and let that inform the game elements you create. If there's one thing that I find to be a total failing in an ARG, then it's to think "acting mysterious" is going to cut the proverbial mustard.

So: it looks easy, but it isn't, and everyone who's tried PMing will tell you that it takes a godawful amount of work to both prepare and execute. Yet, if you familiarise yourself with the genre properly, recruit assistance (or assist others) and are honest with yourself about your intentions and quality of your work, then you might just make something special!

Best of luck!

[MageSteff]

[buff]

Thanks GuyP for pointing me in the direction of the Guides. Been looking for a guide to UH forever.

My Internet died halfway through and I hadn't any possibility to follow it any longer...

Thx!