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 Forum index » Meta » Puppetmaster Help
Developing ARGs, how to get started [Basic Guide]
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Jas0n
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Joined: 19 Aug 2006
Posts: 244

 		Developing ARGs, how to get started [Basic Guide]
-a little nod to the folks in the podcast
Starting this thread so that those experienced with launching and developing ARGs can help lay out some generic groundwork for future developers.

My opinions below aren't from an expert, but from experience. Feel free to comment and add to this, because I'm leaving this wide open for those with more experience than I have.

I'll comment on a few things:


Having a TEAM

Believe me when I say a team definitely helps. I've developed two games: MyLucidEnigma and Ny Takma. With MLE I was a solo developer and the headache involved with running the game was massive.

Why did I do it solo? Primarily trust. As a new developer I felt that I couldn't trust for my story to remain behind the curtain and interesting if I had someone on a team which might release information. I wanted to run the game and not have any conflicting opinions on what I was doing. This absolutely killed MLE, it started off interesting, but I was definitely burnt out 2 weeks through the game after spending hours upon hours each day developing puzzles for the next day (oh and plan ahead). MLE died because players lost interest in the puzzles and only wanted to see how the story concluded.

With Ny Takma, I began with a modest staff. Two writers, a graphics guy, a programmer/graphics guy, a female model, and myself. We began launching a mediocre story and I brought on a "voice." Now with the addition of the "voice," we discovered faults in our story and character development. I can say that as a guy I can't tell you exactly how a girl will act, not to any believable extent, and there are several women with the same problem with male characters. Now, beyond all of that there are a few other points. Characters need to be different, they don't need to type the same, make the same spelling errors, etc. You must have a TEAM, even if it is only two or three people, and make sure one of them has depth in experience playing games to offer opinions on helping the game reach out to the players.

Character development/interaction

Above I mentioned making sure the characters are different. You, also, need to make sure the characters have depth and are realistic. Here are a few examples:

*character going room to room and finds a dead guy he's got to get picture from for puzzle development*

(BAD)
Character: Hey look there is a dead guy in this room
players: Woah run!
Character: I can't, I have to find out who killed this guy
players: umm but you don't know him and you're a janitor
Character: I know but I uh am compelled, I've got to look around and see if I can find anything
players: uh huh
Character: hey I found a picture in the guy's wallet
players: why are you digging through his pockets
Character: I had to find out who he is

(GOOD)
Character: Oh my god, he... he's dead
players: who?
Character: I'm not sure, there's a guy here and I think he's holding something
players: can you see what it is?
Character: it... it looks like a picture or something
players: can you get it and show it to us some how?
Character: why?
players: we want to try to help you
Character: I... don't know... yeah, ok... I'll do it

-Ok so perhaps that's not top notch character development, but you can see that the character isn't leaving stuff open for them. He's somewhat timid in the second example and has personality, while making the players tell him to do something instead of telling the players he needs to do something.

Puzzles

yes, we can do ciphers, but think your puzzles through. There are so many different types of puzzles that you as a developer can feed your players, but think about something while you're developing the puzzles:

WHY?

Why would this puzzle be a puzzle?
Why would this character give the players this puzzle?
Why would this puzzle be this type of puzzle?

(Thank you MG for constantly doing this)
If your character is some hobo living on the street that has been given a laptop with wifi or something, he's not likely to know how to develop HEX codes or to embed something in a picture with steganography. He'd be more apt to try to hide a message with missing letters, or through a picture association puzzle. He wouldn't be giving the players a puzzle just so he could lite his barrel ablaze at night, he might would be giving them a puzzle if he had a family somewhere whose life was in jeapordy and he needed the players to help him defeat this villain who has put them in jeapordy.

Think through the puzzles as it only helps the players to understand how the puzzle fits into the overall storyline, and make sure it gives them something... don't just give them a puzzle that leads them to an advertiser's website (like Jeep or something) without feeding them more story or having something happen when they solve it.





-------------------
I guess that's it for my little commentary, and no it's not complete. I'll leave that for others to add to this thread, I only wanted to get the ball rolling so that the players overall can have a more enjoyable time - and maybe we can help developers position themselves so that games stop imploding halfway through the storyline.
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Most recent game developed: Ny Takma
We are that which the game makes of us

PostPosted: Mon Dec 04, 2006 11:05 am
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MageSteff
Pretty talky there aintcha, Talky?


Joined: 06 Jun 2003
Posts: 2716
Location: State of Denial

 		I whole heartedly agree with the above and would add the following:

Background:
Having a set background that the team is familiar with will help keep the individual parts consistent. Consistency is a big part of keeping player interest. As long as the story is consistent with itself, it will be easier for players to come along when you add any fantastic elements (time travel, space travel, and fantastic creatures).

Story ARC:
You can plunk the payers down anyplace you think would be good to have player interaction enter the story, but you need to keep track of there you have been and where you want the story to go, even if it has alternate paths to get to the final scene. A story arc will also help with timing of puzzles and clues.

Testing:
Have team members test interfaces and puzzles to make certain they work as intended, and to correct as many typos and security problems as possible before the players see it.
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Magesteff
A small group of thoughtful people could change the world. Indeed, it's the only thing that ever has. - Margaret Mead


PostPosted: Sun Dec 10, 2006 8:44 pm
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ItWasntMeISwear
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Joined: 15 Feb 2005
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Location: Illannoys, USA

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PostPosted: Sun Dec 10, 2006 9:50 pm
Last edited by ItWasntMeISwear on Fri Jun 29, 2007 10:39 am; edited 1 time in total
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Phaedra
Lurker v2.0


Joined: 21 Sep 2004
Posts: 4033
Location: Here, obviously

 		Re: The Story
ItWasntMeISwear wrote:
Just because it's a good story, doesn't mean that it's good for this form of delivery.


True.

ItWasntMeISwear wrote:
As an "artist" I tend to have a different view on this subject in that I believe that if you can not deliver some portions of your story via this medium, then you probably need to get rid of it all together.


Not so sure about this.

The cross-media nature of ARGs means that if a section of your story is not particularly suited for one medium, there are tons of others out there you can use. You're not limited like in film, where if a story isn't suited to being brought to the screen, you're screwed. If part of your story doesn't work as video, but does work as text, you have text media available to use and varying your delivery platform may actually enhance the story.
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PostPosted: Sun Dec 10, 2006 11:48 pm
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ItWasntMeISwear
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Joined: 15 Feb 2005
Posts: 503
Location: Illannoys, USA

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PostPosted: Mon Dec 11, 2006 9:45 am
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