unforum

[Slyfox]

A tongue-in-cheek ARG?

[Saevitia]

I think the answer is a massive 'yes' to this, judging by the response to 'Seen Steve' a few months ago.

[dorkmaster not logged in]

I personally would love to see a game like this, especially if it did not rely on the puzzles or mashed-up storylines of previous games, i.e. a spoof. I'd love to see something intelligently odd or grounded in a firm absurdist reality, or something, that was completely original. (Obviously this is much harder done than spoken of...)

But I think the key to making it work, would to have a consistent in-game world, even if that world is nonsensical at times.

Bad Examples: Everyone in this world uses two sentences at a time only, and the first sentence has to always be thrown out as non-usable, as part of the culture, and has no daytime, so it's consistently dark. They resent the fact that there are players involved, and want to solve everything on their own. Snyde comments, dark, dry humor, and outright comedy would be appropriate.

Anyway, again, a horrid example, but just a couple ways to make this world odd, funny, and completely unlike our own. But as long as it's consistent internally, then it works as a player, IMHO.

[Ehsan]

I guess this is a good place to announce that I've finally put up the
Seen Steve archives, so you can revisit all the websites. (And the discussion thread is here)

Seen Steve was an experiment, a recruitment campaign, and several other things. But despite the humour it was in essence what I believe to be an ARG. Behind the bizzare humour and spelling mistakes were:
- Actual story elements (rising action, conflict, resolution)
- Real puzzles (one of the best I've ever written)
- Interaction (with multiple endings chosen by players' actions)
- Good website design, artwork

Which you have to make sure you think about. If you don't understand any of the above you're in trouble.

But in essence it was a parody and had a specific target audience. It was full of inside jokes that nobody other than the folks at Unfiction would appreciate. The same effect could've been achieved without inside jokes, but it all depends on what you're aiming for.

So I assume by your question that you are looking to do something like that (create your own ARG). Make sure you know who your target audience is and what you are trying to achieve. Are you trying to make people laugh? Are you trying to make US laugh?

I also think writing humour is much harder than writing a serious piece. Being funny is not an excuse not to have a story in place or to get away with inconsistencies.


Good luck

Boom

[SirQuady]

I think the best examples of tounge-in-cheekness that i have seen in ARGs were at E3 last year, with these two tongue in cheek refrences between the PMs making The Art of the Heist and Perplex City.

Ahh, humor. Where would we be without it
The Part of Me that takes things to literaly: Probably in a dark hole, in some pit, bawling our eyes out...with no chocolate or DVDs!
Wait, what?


*edited for spelling and grammar*