unforum

[Perversion]

New to these forums, and hoping for some advice

[FLmutant]

Interesting topic, are you talking about RPG Tsukuru? Just did a quick Google and was kind of tickled to see that a new version is coming out this month and that the last version incorporated Ruby!

A couple of ideas occur to me that might help. You can certain make puzzles and hide them around the Web and make understanding those answers key to being able to advance in your game. However, you could just as easily to do that in a straight-out-riddle type environment (where you're drawing upon real details already out there on the Web in a new context.) As an example, we used something similar recently with map of real events that were also being used in the story we were telling.

Equally fun, though, would be if the RPG were itself the clue. Imagine that one of your map areas in your game were modeled off of a real place -- perhaps a place where you have actually hidden a little trinket. I could imagine MMO-style events where all the players were waiting for one of them to accomplish that "road block" in order to open up different opportunities for everyone (almost like a Kerafyrm but in real life.)

Ultimately, ARGing isn't really about puzzles -- it is about the community of audience members feeling like they accomplished something, something that changed what they were experiencing and that required thinking about things in non-ordinary ways.

You'll occassionally hear the developer mantra "this is not a game." That isn't a description of what it is like to play an ARG, that's a description of what it is like to design an ARG -- as a developer, you like it if the audience needs to remind themselves "this is just a game, this is just a game." To accomplish that feeling of immersion, the puzzles or activities need to feel somewhat natural, at least in the setting of the story you are telling.

In your story, the players are people who play in an RPG Maker world, and from playing that world they discover there is more to it than meets the eye. There have been some really great novels written with that general premise (Tad Williams' Otherland series leaps to mind) . Figure out the story you want to tell first, then let the activities and puzzles and whatnot flow from that.

Sounds like a fun experiment, you have to make sure to let us know when you get that launched. Sorry there aren't any clearer "how tos" to guide you to, but I suspect you don't need one as much as you think you do

[Rekidk]

OMG, RPGMaker! I was never part of the community over at GamingW.net, but I played Lysander86's games. They were awesome.

And with that, I have run out of things to add to this conversation. XD