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 Forum index » Meta » General META Discussion
Idea: Puzzle trail that turns into an ARG? (Pre-game thing?)
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GasparLewis
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Joined: 19 Nov 2005
Posts: 474
Location: vicinty of NYC

 		Idea: Puzzle trail that turns into an ARG? (Pre-game thing?)
Just an idea I've been knocking about; unformed (fetal, almost), but something I think might be pretty rad in the right hands; namely, not mine.

So, a hacker (whose position is unknown to the players) creates a puzzle trail, like so many of us have seen in TimeWasters, about 50 puzzles long, with a promise of a prize at the end; this is like his masterpiece. Now, being a hacker, he makes the prize access to some big, secret something-or-other. But, aware of this tap-in and how many people are slogging along towards this big secret, the possessor of the secret constantly derails (Deliberate Denial of Service, counter-hack, redirects to threats/nasty things). Nevertheless, this hacker continues to put in safety passages to allow people to circumvent the stops and make it along to Puzzle 50. After they get in, the secret is revealed, and then... the page is nothing but anoother blockade set by the people hiding the information, but this time as a warning/threat along the lines of:

"We got him before you got us. And there's nothing you can do to get him back. He belongs to us now. Leave, before we crush and consume you as we did this pest."

Then the site could be all scary and atmospheric to freak out the players of what they're up against. But, somewhere deep in the source code, our endearing hacker has given us another clue, but this time: a contact. Someone who knows, someonw who can help; someone to stage a rescue and bring down the evil secret-keepers.

And then more stuff happens! Woo! Very Happy

So? Comments?

PostPosted: Sun Jan 29, 2006 1:35 am
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Ehsan
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Joined: 09 May 2003
Posts: 992

 		From a "game" perspective this would work very well for a pre-game. The puzzle trail gets enough people interested and interaction with the hacker is something many players will enjoy.

From a "story" perspective I wouldn't be able to see why the hacker is creating a puzzle trail in the first place instead of just distributing this big secret all over the intrawebs. You could say that he is testing the players to earn the right to view the secret, but that just seems like pushing it, as people have better things to do than create puzzle trails to expose big corporations. There's also a huge potential for this to fall into ARG cliche land.

So whoever wants to run with an idea like this, make sure you flesh out the story and fill in any gaps. My personal #1 gripe with ARGs is why characters are asking for help or even talking to random strangers from the Internet... if you can get past that with a solid story then you can start focusing on building a game on top of it.

PostPosted: Sun Jan 29, 2006 3:50 am
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GasparLewis
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Joined: 19 Nov 2005
Posts: 474
Location: vicinty of NYC

 		Of course it would require an artful hand to implement properly. In my own head, he "worthiness" angle would be combined with a simple desire for mischief and chaos-causing. The playful creation of disorder and mayhem and all that. The puzzle trail would also act as a good way to mask the exposure; going out-right and proclaiming "Look what I found, ev-er-ee-bo-dee!" wouldn't exactly be good sense, either. It would control the distribution in to able hands and keep views of the information at a minimum, choosing seeming pose only a minimal threat. The capture would be a matter of underestimation of how far the entity would go to protect its secret, indicating what was found appeared minimal, but was really a tip-of-the-iceberg situation.

Shaky still, but a little more defined.

As for how cliche it could become, obviously the potential is ridiculously high. But, hopefully, whoever adopts it would make good use of it.

Just thought it was something that someone might be interested in, so I put out the skeleton; fleshing it out is for whoever likes the idea. Cool

PostPosted: Sun Jan 29, 2006 3:27 pm
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Nightmare Tony
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Joined: 07 Jun 2004
Posts: 824
Location: Meadowbrook

 		And if your story demands it....
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PostPosted: Sun Jan 29, 2006 9:41 pm
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