View topic - [FREE IDEA] A 4-up small-audience ARG

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[FREE IDEA] A 4-up small-audience ARG
Moderators: imbri

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toenolla
Boot

Joined: 22 Aug 2004
Posts: 51

[FREE IDEA] A 4-up small-audience ARG

For a while, I've been kicking around the idea of developing a way to build ARGs for the friends and family of a PM (me), to get their (my) feet wet with a more tolerant and less widespread audience. I've come up with one...shall we say...structure that really appeals to me, and so I'm sharing it with all you guys out there who need structure and rules to get your brain juices flowing.

ARG 4-Up
You will need:
- 4 or more PMs, willing to spend time every week.
- 4 or more main characters, 1 for each PM.
- A week-by-week plan for your ARG, including what plot information will be given to the players every week and which main character will deliver that information (or have it planted on their site Wink

)
- Various and sundry things needed for every ARG: web space with decent bandwidth, mad web design skillz, etc.
- Friends and family.

This game is meant to be PMed by four people working semi-independently from a pre-arranged storyline. Each week, a predetermined amount of information is given out, and each PM, playing a character in the story, must characterize that information and create puzzles to convey it. (For example, a PM playing a character named Elizabeth has to convey the fact that a secondary character, Maria, is her long lost sister who was given up for adoption. She might create a jigsaw puzzle which, when assembled, shows the two together in an old photograph, and on the back of which is a letter explaining that Maria was given up for adoption, and why Elizabeth's parents chose to do that.) Each game site will have a predetermined "live day," on which they will update.

The intended audience are the PMs families. At launch, they will recieve a card telling them that their relative, along with 3 others, are playing parts in this game. It is up to them not only to solve the mystery, but to correctly guess which of the 4 characters is being played by their puppetmaster.

Every week, through some combination of interactions and puzzle solving, a winner will be chosen. The week's winner will get to ask one question of one PM to help them more accurately guess their identity. (However, each PMs family will not know who the other PMs are, thus obfuscating the process of elimination.) Questions which would give away the entire game, such as, "What is your name?", are not allowed.

Using this framework, you're not only inviting people to play based on something they already know (your personality), but you're effectively able to personally invite people to your ARG while keeping the curtain closed. I'm dreaming up ideas for this right now, but if anyone else finds it useful, feel free.

Posted: Sat Nov 19, 2005 4:43 am

gamersquest
Greenhorn

Joined: 21 Oct 2005
Posts: 9

Thanks Teonolla - am currently tentatively looking at starting out behind the curtain - your ideas have been most thought provoking Very Happy

Posted: Tue Oct 31, 2006 6:40 am

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