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 Forum index » Meta » Puppetmaster Help
UFers Rule!! How About An OPEN SOURCE ARG!?
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tinag222
Unfettered

Joined: 27 Feb 2007
Posts: 521
Location: Here, Now

 		UFers Rule!! How About An OPEN SOURCE ARG!?
I blame Halloween. This time of year is when the doors of Imagination Vault spring open and out comes a litany of super morbid and ghoulish notions for "what to pull this year."

But I got another one and had to share. It doesn't hurt my feelings if it gets zero response - it actually helps...and eventually one will come to me that lots of people can sink their teeth into ;-p

Anyway, this one was dual inspired from the above and reading UF about the genre itself and how to get more people involved, or at least help make it more popular. Of course I'm not implying the following notion would accomplish that per se, but it did cross my mind that maybe there would be a methodology for all the active UFers here to work on a large collaborative thing - not for each other but for the market itself.


Then I had this scenario come to mind and it got a little bigger so I'm sharing.

This one would be an open source operation, where anyone associated with UF, experienced and noob alike can contribute to create one giant book of puzzles...or if the response is popular, a series of them.

We can publish it completely for free via LuLu.Com. Each person who has contributed can take the manuscript and set up their own account and market the book in whatever manner and take royalties. (you can do this with any other book you might be of a mind to write, it's an awesome service). In case of conflict with LuLu doing it that way, it can be broken down into a series of volumes, that individuals can submit and accomplish the same thing. Each one would be responsible for his or her own marketing, etc.

The premise I had in mind, as a collaborative effort was inspired as described initially...the serial killers' log book. Like Zodiac, Ripper, Dalia and others, our serial killer has never been caught. He can be modern or historic, living or dead, his notes/files can have been discovered in some such chilling fashion, or he could be publishing them himself under a number of aliases (UFers ;-p) but he's kept a file on all his victims, describing his ways and means in full detail, all of which is encoded.

Each file (chapter) for a victim is filled with ciphers and puzzles detailing the crime, victim, location, timeframe, etc. and throughout the book are snippets that tell his story, who he is, what's wrong with him, what motivated it, etc. There is also room for the ARG itself as he can be developing a file on a potential victim (or victims) who (played by any of us) needs to be contacted and warned...a race to figure out who he is so he can be stopped before the next victim ends up in the series. There can be a deadline for each branch of that game with a defined means of either having saved the victim or missed it, and then all that victim's cipher info would go into a new volume...

It could be an annually produced thing if it catches on, new volumes every Halloween ;-p and for those with a creative edge, we can even toss in notations that the bodies were never found, providing the clues to the location (can we say treasu....can we say corpse hunt!! heh) (and yeah, sadly I'm *dead* serious)....so the creative ones could corpse out a Bucky or a cheapo $5 skeleton, wrap it up and hide it somewhere in their area and set the clues to point there so players can actually find them. Nifty little Halloween prop for the ones who smoke out the victim's corpse.

This one can be an ongoing ride for people, and it's easy enough anyone can jump in and contribute during any leg of the creation process; we could develop the victim criteria and then UFPMs can set about developing the clues and puzzles for that vic.

A central website for the game, the logbook library...it could be pretty fun. It's definitely different - least I've not seen anything like it before but even so, it's unique enough it can fly. A small team of PMs could pull it off but the idea is a more open source sort of thing where UF people are aware of it, it's the rest of the market we'd all be PMing for. More PMs marketing the book, the more publicity it can get for itself, for those making money with it, and for the genre itself. Additionally, the Golden Rule is humbly set aside as this sort could be a great opportunity for a total noob to learn hands on and be part of it...eases down that learning curve. Lots of people - myself included - couldn't follow the golden rule and play some first and needed to jump in and do it, learning far faster that way. Some people are more comfortable as PMs than players, too.

Because this would be open source and a full UF collaborative thing, it's all on the table, people can learn and participate and help contribute something kick ass...and if the full template notion is followed, make a little money in the process without cutting out the rest of those who helped.

AND, for those who are prone to instructing, of course you can work on the (ever so desperately needed) Serial Killers Game Guide with all the knowledge and skill and experience set forth in a help manual for playing this game, the other themes that might be developed, and puzzle solving in general.

I am aware this particular theme isn't for everyone, but the idea behind open source is that there are other themes that can be inserted into the same frame, some can do historic documents, others can do a series for kids, there's room for themes....but the books that are produces are all ciphered and puzzled up. They're not novels with puzzles, every page of text is encrypted into some sort of puzzle, the solution of which reveals the story, pieces of it, and info on characters.


so consider it a Happy Halloween present/offer/suggestion to you guys and a wish to see the whole UF community - experienced and inexperienced - be able to produce something massive for the public, like "our gift" to the genre.

Give it some thought...it'll be here hanging out in the IDEAS section not hurting much.



UnFiction Games
A Collaborative Series Brought To You Courtesy Of The UF Community

.....c'mon...can ya see it?

PostPosted: Mon Sep 10, 2007 2:10 am
Last edited by tinag222 on Wed Sep 26, 2007 5:57 am; edited 1 time in total
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Caz
Veteran


Joined: 18 Aug 2006
Posts: 127

 		i like this idea Smile [but i think others will hate it Twisted Evil ]

the Serial Killers story may be hard to start with as the players will what to have some type of solve to the murders. and if it was just guy who keeps kill and kill the players will become dishearten. but a Group of Serial Killers that my work.

i hand an idea a bit like this and it was to have a round-robin style. i.e. you make up the idea write the first bit of story make the first puzzles and websites. then you pass it onto the next PM who make the next set of story, website, puzzles and they give it to the next and so on.

this way every one becomes a PM but only the last PM knows how it ends.
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PostPosted: Mon Sep 10, 2007 8:36 am
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Silent
Boot

Joined: 05 Aug 2007
Posts: 56
Quote:
I am aware this particular theme isn't for everyone, but the idea behind open source is that there are other themes that can be inserted into the same frame, some can do historic documents, others can do a series for kids, there's room for themes....but the books that are produces are all ciphered and puzzled up. They're not novels with puzzles, every page of text is encrypted into some sort of puzzle, the solution of which reveals the story, pieces of it, and info on characters.


Er...It is an interesting idea, but I think I might be the poor devil who's against it. Twisted Evil

I think I rather like a novel with cleverly disguised puzzles rather than an entire novel encoded in one huge puzzle (I like puzzles...but codes just screams TIAG). As long as one reads the novel, get one story, then solve the puzzles, and get a totally different story, then things might be interesting indeed.

And I don't like Lulu. I see it as a vanity publisher...and for something to be really legit, it should be taken up by a better publishing company. Lulu has no start-up costs, but in conclusion, little if any profits as well. Plus, you pay for all adverstiting for Lulu, and if you get a traditional publisher, they'll do the ads for you. (Rumors has it that traditional publishers actually blacklist those who use Lulu, so I am already a bit leery of getting in the project)

PostPosted: Mon Sep 10, 2007 4:52 pm
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Kaiya
Boot


Joined: 31 Aug 2007
Posts: 50
Location: Norfolk,UK

 		It's all a good idea in principle, but why not break the proverbial mold and go for something totally off the peg, in my humble opinion I feel there are maybe a tad too many murder type Args about. I'm sure if a few of us got our heads together we could throw some new ideas about

PostPosted: Mon Sep 10, 2007 10:18 pm
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