unforum

[stacey]

Genres within ARGs

[Rekidk]

I'm no veteran, but I know that a lot of members of the ARG community are sick of two 'hooks' in particular:

"I don't know you, but help me!"
or
"X is lost! Let's find him!"

There are generally a lot of conspiracies and creepy cults and secret societies in ARGs. Why? Because they facilitate puzzles.

To illustrate... It'd be hard to make a romantic comedy ARG with lots of puzzles. After you've hidden the encoded message in the valentine card, you're really going to have to start getting creative.

So... If you could make a romance work, that would be quite refreshing. We see some comedy, though it's not as prevelent as scifi, detective, and horror.

I think that the genre of ARGing tends to lend itself to stories that are fun to 'uncover' or 'discover.' Think of ARGing as 'story archaeology.' Mysteries work quite well with that 'story archaeology' idea.

So basically... If your story is a mystery/scifi/horror, that's ok. Just try not to repeat plots from previous games. Be creative. And give your players a reason for playing--other than "help me because I said please."

As for why many games have lots and lots of Puppetmasters... It's because these things are crazy. To actively play a big game takes a fair amount of time. Running one, though, takes an insane amount of time. One of the pieces of advice given to aspiring Puppetmasters is to have a team. There's just too much work (especially in a big game) not to have a group of people working on the game.

Not sure if that answered your question.

[stacey]

You're telling me there's never been a long, drawn out "secret admirer" ARG? I'm shocked!

Actually, your response is very helpful. I've seen a lot of "help me!" beginnings to ARGs lately myself. And I've only been lurking a month.

I think the need for a team may be one reason so many amateur ARGs implode. People tend to want to have creative control, and this gets diluted as more people get involved. Also, I'd imagine there are people who just don't know anyone and are afraid to ask for help.

I suppose a lot of preparation ahead of time might help. You still run the risk of the players getting away from you, though. Hmm.

[Rekidk]

Well, like you said, a lot of good planning can offset the extra workload of having a small team. Labfly ran Sammeeeees, one of the most talked-about grassroots games, with very little help. However, she also prepared for the game for over a year.

Sometimes, just having two or three people is sufficient; I can think of several successful games just off the top of my head that only had two or three PMs.

(However, that doesn't count the actors and actresses.)

[stacey]

Well, I went to go research Sammeeeees. Very interesting game. I would have to say all the preparation there paid off.

I can see the advantages to collaborating with one or two people. It should be fairly easy to keep a consensus, but it spreads out the work and allows people to put forward their differing strengths.

I stumbled from the Sammeees videos on YouTube to the ARGFest 2007 videos. I think that should keep me entertained a good while.

Rekidk, thanks for your quick responses.

[konamouse]

Yes, the ARGFest 2007 videos of the Puppetmaster panel....very good information.

Sammeeeees is a very rare example of one PM - but look at all the time that went into preparation alone. Then during the game she said it took her about 18 hrs a day keeping up with the emails, the blogs, the videos (many were created before the game started, but some were done during the game and reflected player created situations). She had to have multiple personality disorder to keep all her characters sounding/typing differently (and she mentioned a living room full of post-it notes on poster board to keep character knowledge organized).

Most other games really have benefited from multiple PMs - keeping the characters writing/acting different. A long time ago, I played one character in CTW. The main PM only told me what I needed to know as a character, I had my own personality online and phone calls, so it was easy to stay consistent. I could not imagine having to keep track of multiple characters & be able to write differently for each one. As players, we pick apart those inconsistencies in characters and might think two characters making the same spelling mistakes is an important clue.

And what happens with real life gets in the way of that grass roots ARG? With not enough PMs, the game imploads (sorry guys, homework is killing me, I have to shut down the game - or I'll have my girlfriend post a blog that I died in a fire and my dying wish was that I wanted the players to know how the game was suppose to end). With a team approach, it lightens the load.

If the game is well planned out (all the websites created, all the videos/other content ready to go, all the email templates prepared) then real life doesn't stress you out as much. If you jump into creating a game over a weekend and launch, thinking you can build the sites and answer the emails on the fly, you are sorely mistaking.

[stacey]

Thanks, konamouse. That really provides some useful perspective. I can see how useful it would be to have different PMs steering different characters during the game. And if you're going to have that anyway, why not have those PMs involved with the creation process too?

I definitely don't have 18 hours to spare per day for several weeks.

[AtionSong]

I think that one of the reason that there's so much "mystery" involved in ARGs is because in order to create an Alternate Reality for the players, things need to be eased into. You can't just say, "Here I am, I'm a member of a secret underground organization, and this is our problem, and this is what you need to do about it to help us."

Firstly, that's completely out of character for anybody to actually do, and it's not fun. Part of the enjoyment of a good ARG is figuring out what it's all about piece my piece. When "The Human Pet" launched, it just showed a video of one man being kept in captivity by another. It took months to uncover that we had to complete challenges to keep him alive, and we slowly uncovered bits about the backstories of all the characters.

So, although the generic "Find this for me" mystery is very overused, most ARGs will tend to contain a bit of mysteriousness about them.