unforum

[addlepated]

Short definition of ARG

[ScarpeGrosse]

"Interactive fiction on crack that gets me to go places and do stuff and meet really nice people from the internet who aren't scary or weird or predatory, I *swear*, mum."

This is usually followed by "well, I'm glad you're getting out..."

[imbri]

My Stock one sentence answers (though usually, as I'm such a wordy bastard, I combine these one sentence answers into one paragraph answers):

Alternate Reality Gaming is, essentially, a dynamic narrative that is told over multiple media platforms and occasionally bleeding into real world spaces.

Alternate Reality Games are really stories, told live through a myriad of forms (websites, email, real world interactions, etc), that grow and change according to and with audience participation.

Alternate Reality Games are a modern twist of classic Interactive Fiction games where the play is collaborative and, instead of the story world being contained in a computer file it's told through all sorts of communication channels, such as the internet, email, phone, and even real life play.


Those are all pretty formal sounding. Random Person X tends to get a twist of the second example.

[Mikeyj]

It seems that someone should mention The Game at some point in this thread! However, as I've never seen it and Michael Douglas makes my flesh crawl my own description to uninitiates relies on the Usborne Puzzle Adventure books with knobs on (in the form of less 2 dimension-ality)...anyone remember Escape from Blood Castle? Brilliant!

But these aren't definitions of a genre, merely handy descriptions...what were the guys who were attempting to get a patent describing them as, That would have to be pretty definitive?

[colin]

[European Chris]

An ARG is an interactive narrative played over a variety of media.

[Puppy_Zwolle]

That deserves its own placard.

[cabalagent23]

My Current One Sentence ARG Introduction

[Ehsan]

Websites; lots of websites.


Thank you.

[MageSteff]

I say it is a bit like those Mystery parties, with the internet, telephone and mail, and they take place over weeks rather than a few hours.

Those who already know I play RPGs or about RPGs, I tell them it is more of a storytelling base, and you don't really make up a character (for yourself), even though you may interact with them.

[CreativeEmbassy]

A bunch of us sit in chatrooms and forums 24/7,speculating on whether ordinary websites have hidden meanings. Oh, and we play games. Yup, that's about it.

[Ethernull]

"An ARG is like LiveJournal Drama that you can touch."

[gazdemon]

an ARG is an interactive story played-out across different media

[addlepated]

A lot of those definitions use a bunch of fancy words. How about taking it the other direction and explaining ARG to your grandmother? What would you say?

(Or alternately, what the heck do I tell my 6 year old when she asks what I'm doing?)

[gazdemon]

"Im playing a game on the computer"