unforum

[Karensa]

Help! I'm New And Making My First ARG and Need a Puzzle!

[Rogi Ocnorb]

Sticking to the topic, and not trying to be trite.

I don't think there's a ready answer to your question, as posed.

Just a guess, but I'd say writing is a forte of yours and you feel like puzzle creation is something you can take a 101 class on.

You mention the tiredness of using common methods of obfuscation and that's the root of the issue. While there are common methods and generally accepted standards, there are no RULES. Solving a puzzle may entail using knowledge only obtained through lots of failure (read, experience). Or, it may require only a bit of inspired intuition.

Good puzzle creation isn't (or shouldn't really be) about the best use of standard methods. It's more about being creative and stretching the minds of the audience. And, as you noted, ARG players tend to like it if the puzzle makes sense within the framework of it's presentation. Combining those two aspects is what makes for a good puzzle and is where some puzzle developers shine as true artists in that pursuit.

As an example, I did a bonus puzzle for the person I drew in our last Secret Santa gift exchange that required me to learn more than a little about molecular biology, DNA, proteins and the recipient herself. One part of it actually used reworked graphical output from a utility she had developed while in school. She reported that while it took several hours to figure out, it was enjoyable. She was able to do it by herself, which was also one of my hopes. I wanted it to be special for her and I think it was.

The previous year's recipient had a series of wooden stacking boxes with alchemy-based locking mechanisms to get through to get her gift. Again, tailored to her likes and with lots of personal touches.

It's about looking at the lug nuts on cars in a parking lot and realizing those could be made into a puzzle. Not the lugnuts... How about the way they're parked?

[Deadfish]

I am in no way a genius. I got mediocre grades in Highschool, failed every college course I took, and my GPA is a .06 )maybe a .16 can't remember properly) Anyway, my point is that I was able to come to this site several months ago, read the forum rules, and jump into an ARG in a week or so. I read thousands of posts, I researched codes, ARGs in general, and other subjects of interests to the game I wanted to play. This took a lot of time, but I wanted to play these kinds of games so I took the time and effort to learn how. There isn't really a shortcut for a lot of this stuff. If you have to be taught how to use a forum, how are you to be expected to crack codes? I have been asking people politely how they get their answers for codes and learning how to do it and what to look for. A lot of this stuff is aquired learning.

As far as creating puzzles, posting on youtube, writing stories and that type of stuff goes, again I must say it can't be taught in a quick HOW TO. That type of creativity is kind of, "either you have it, or you don't." I can look at a vending machine and think of a few different puzzles. While another guy looks at it and sees a hundred possibilities. Meanwhile, that jerk in accounting who always slaps you on the back WAY to hard when shaking your hand can't even figure out how to get a packet of Corn Nuts from it. It all has to do with how vivid your imagination is.

And Youtube has plenty of tutorials on it's site to figure out how to upload videos.

I don't disagree with everything you've said, I just think that part of the journey of ARG's is learning as you go along. Frankly, I'm enjoying my journey.

[FLmutant]

You're actually asking for step by step guides on how to do everything that might be involved in making an ARG. But, since an ARG can include anything and everything, you're actually asking for step by step guides to how to do everything. I don't mean that to be trite, I mean that to be illustrative of the challenge, and thus why you don't find those laying around out there.

If you moved to even a smaller subset of everything, one with a long history and processes for teaching the skillset in place, it is a massive challenge. Imagine you wanted a step-by-step guide on everything involved in making a movie: how to approach investors, how to approach cast, how to write a good script, the basics of location sound, cinematography & lighting design, acting theory, editing theory, post production approaches, festival debut strategies, union rules ... the list goes on so far that people can get Masters degrees or more in the field and still find the need to gain "in the trenches" knowledge in other areas.

The typical way artists approach this is with teams. I know you raised that as a cliched answer, but it is the answer. A director who can edit still might choose to have an editor on their team -- hopefully someone who is a better editor than them -- so that they can focus more time on directing.

Finding someone who understands puzzle design might be easier than learning to be a good puzzle designer is a correlary of that same decision making process. Also being about to do some puzzle design is also good. People think I'm anti-puzzle (I KNOW WHO YOU ARE!) but I'm not.

If you're looking to avoid the cliches but also want step by steps you're in trouble, but there are some solutions:

1. Every good cypher is reversible. That's key to writing an interesting cypher. Which means you should be able to think about a cypher, write a few test messages, and decypher them yourself. You're writing a coding and a decoding process.

2. Every good game cypher is detectible. This gets to your "strange symbols" complaint -- and gets to the heart of understanding how cyphers are broken. That's a complex topic that people get Doctorates in, so a useful starting point is to find an existing historical cypher and give it a twist ... because most historical cyphers can be detected by certain patterns in cryptography, so you can build off of that detectibility.

3. A good game cypher that's production friendly is mutable. This is a PM wrinkle on the creation process: a cypher that can I twist further and make varients on has some use in game design to bridge learning (so that what they learn from one puzzle helps them solve a more complex puzzle after that by following certain similarities.) If nothing else, it can go in my personal notes and be mutated again for another game.

Cyphers are just a subset of puzzles, though, but they are useful ones if your goal is to "hide information" in the puzzle itself as the reward for solving it. I think you'll find this forum most useful for more specific (and perhaps shorter ) questions. You're not the only one confronted with the lack of clear step by steps

[Jas0n]

I had a lengthy reply for this thread, but it disappeared from my phone when I tried to hit submit. Anyway, I noticed that flmutant responded and said the majority of what I had said - with the exception that he says it better then I.

I do offer one suggestion beyond the cliches, talk with other developers and seek their advice and guidance. I've learned so much from joining the ARG SIG, talking with Brooke Thomspon and others in the #pmguide channel. Brian said one thing that now seems so obvious, but was something I just hadn't even considered. I don't remember the exact wording (wow such an impact and I can't remember the wording sheesh), but it was along the lines of thinking about yourself as a producer rather than a puppet master.

For me, I've got a team of developers... Actors, writers, programmers, videographers, beta-testers. All of them are volunteers for this project. I get to enjoy allowing them to create their own content to integrate into what I had originally conceived and seeing this imaginary universe expand (and contract at times). When I changed how I was looking at what I was doing myself, I was better able to understand my own responsibilities.

I've never had a door shut in my face when asking for advice from any of the more experienced developers I have talked with. Some are busy with projects and shorten their responses, but for the most part they all seem so excited about the genre as a whole that they are more than willing to help.

[Jas0n]

darn double-posting phone

[Lysithea]

I'll start by observing that there are so many questions in the original post, that I can not hope to address them all in a single reply.

Why doesn't unfiction have a huge link at the top of the page saying NEW? GO HERE TO LEARN HOW TO MAKE PUZZLES
The simple answer is that the unfiction community does not want to encourage every new player to immediately go off and create their own game.
Lots of people find a game like ilovebees, or cloverfield and think "hey, I've got a couple of hours to kill, I want to create my own arg". The vast majority of these people have no idea just how much time is required for a successful game (much more time and effort than a single afternoon). The result? Lots of games that implode almost as soon as they have begun.


Why aren't there a bunch of sticky HOW-TO posts in the Puppetmaster Help forum?
1. They haven't been written yet.
2. If there was a step-by-step tutorial on how to make an arg from start to finish, it would result in a bunch of short, boring, cookie-cutter style games that few people would enjoy playing. (It is a paradox, if such a guide existed, the games created from it would no longer be described as args)


What is the best way to launch an arg? What is the best puzzle for an arg? What is the best type of character interaction in an arg? What is the best theme for an arg? What is the best type of ending for an arg?
These are all unanswerable questions.
What works well for one game may not work so well in another. If you and your team are online several hours a day, IMs and IRC chats may work well. If, on the other hand you want to run the arg mostly on weekends, then a 'weekly update' scheme might work better.


"next you go find yourself a team to work with" - the question is HOW TO do that...how do you go about that?
Go to the PM Recruitment Area thread in the Puppetmaster Help forum.
Or, go to the unfiction irc chat room and ask there. http://www.unfiction.com/chat/


How can I become an expert at creating believable and interesting characters?
Play some games.
Read about old games that imploded.
Ask this question on role-playing and writing forums. RP forums will help you understand why it is so important to work out a backstory/history for each character before you launch, even if especially if you don't put all of that info up on myspace at the start of the game.


How can I learn about how to be a puppet master?
The game, Orbital Colony was intended to be a training ground for fledgling PMs. Reading about the making of this game should be interesting.


How can I learn to solve arg style puzzle ciphers like a pro?
The best way to learn is to wait until a puzzle comes up in a game you are playing. Then ask questions about it.
Why do you think it looks like binary/octal/hex?
Where can I find an online tool to decipher binary / enigma / vigenere?
Once the puzzle has been solved, ask the solver for a detailed explanation of how they did it. Most people would be all too happy to describe the step-by-step solution.


Why isn't there a big flow-chart that will show you how to solve any kind of arg puzzle?
Partly because the best and most memorable arg puzzles have been original ones. Partly because part of the challenge of an arg puzzle (as opposed to say, sudoku) is to figure out that a. it's a puzzle and b. what kind of puzzle it is.


Why isn't there a link that says GO HERE TO FIND NEW GAMES JUST LAUNCHED?
Actually there are two.
1. News & Rumors
If you want to find a brand new game, then go here and click on threads with [trailhead?] in the title.
2. CF with Potential
If you get fed up with all the false leads in News & Rumors (games that implode after a day, experimental websites that aren't really args), then try the CF with Potential forum. Only games that have been ascertained by the mods to be args appear in this forum.


Is there a secret mailing list that lets people know when new games launch?
Yes, but it isn't a secret. Try www.argn.com

[catherwood]

Excellent response above, I wanted to insert a few extra comments:

[Karensa]

Thank you guys for thr feedback - just wanted to add that again, I only used UF as an illustration, I was not ragging on UF for not providing a training ground and as I stated clearly, that is not UFs intended purpose. UF is arg discussion on all fronts OOG which includes general info on all the above.

And mutant, again you seem to be taking me far out of context. I'm in no manner asking for guides on how to do everything in some broad sense.

[Karensa]

One last quickie...

If I hooked up with one of you guys - and by I, I mean I collective - and hit you up with a series of specific questions becuase you offered to "help" me if I have any questions about anything, and then you deliver unto me said specific answers and that helps me. then you are among those in the community who have your on brand of expertise in the ARG world.

So instead of waiting for me to come hunt you down and ask, why not take some time and whip up a guide offering this knowledge? Then someone else does one on what they know or are good at. With this size community collectively tossing in a little specific meat when things are slow, a specific HOW TO resource could be developed in record time.

It is, after all, a community - a range of skillsets. I didn't say write an encyclopedia of every shred of argism - just what you know. It might be the only thing out there for awhile but it's a contribution that could motivate a few more to follow suit.

No resources because none have been created. So...why is it not being created? Why is the community strictly limiting this genre to "jump in somewhere and catch up and watch"? Share a little of what you know...

That is all ;-p Thanks again!


EDIT: CASE IN POINT

I wrapped this up and went to see other topics and landed on the one about the YT cheating videos. It really drove home what I was getting at.

The gist of it is kids posting YT vids INSTRUCTING/DEMONSTRATING various measures of cheating...different approaches to the same theme...and how to.

Link: http://lawgeek.typepad.com/lawgeek/2008/02/students-demo-t.html

That's what I mean.

The UF community response, as a standard, to "how to do arg/etc" is "jump in and wait til it clears up" - which in cheaters terms would be the same advice as "just sit in the classroom for however long it takes and watch people's manner of cheating until you work it out on your own...it'd take too long to go through every possible method of cheating, so just try to jump in cheating and you'll get the hang of it...but cheat first before you go looking to learn how to create a way to cheat."

But that still requires some specific knowledge, otherwise they're just reading and watching others come back with solves but still don't know how to recognize where the bait is, or what methods were used to solve them at all, etc.

The issue I raise about sharing knowledge in helpful specific way is illustrated in the above link. Very short amount of time to whip up those videos, these are elementary school kids who managed to create a very helpful, truly impressive instructional or demonstration hands on guide to cheating tactics. No one kid spent hundreds of man hours creating the definitive guide to cheating. A range of experienced cheaters made use of YT video guides and viola'...a resource is available for people who get the concept of cheating, aren't looking for an article ABOUT all the methods of cheating, but a specific series of steps for a specific series of options on accomplishing the same thing...not all of them will work, but the varieties that are demonstrated will inspire and motivate, or even just be a point of origin to get the brain working with a field of specific reference.

I'm 44 y/o...I cheated the old fashioned way...the hard way. I would've paid money I bet to somebody who had the cokebottle method! That was just....wow. But what those 6th graders just accomplished for me personally, that UF hasn't managed to do as an arg community, was showing me something specific and novel (not cheating, the tactics)...and the coke bottle one opened up and flowered into all sorts of possibilities for planting information. THAT is what ARG needs. There will likely never be a case in my life I need to do the cokebottle label...but just the possibilities it inspired gave me fresh slants on using the ideas for several things in a gaming sense.

What did I learn? Not how to put info on a coke label...but the enormous range of potential locations available that could contain hidden in plain sight information at minimal risk of exposure and what sort of story angles that could play well into, even as ARG but for me more focused on real time stuff.

Kids today...

[Jas0n]

Again, Karensa - I think you're asking for a lot of stuff that may not really be feasible or truely necessary.

The reason I say this is because an Alternate Reality Game incorporates various means of telling a story - each of which already exists out there somewhere. The developers pull upon various sources to do create the content for the game, and with absolutely everything being able to be incorporated in some way or another how can anyone explain how to do it in a step by step process for something that should be unique?

There are a ton of guides already available for most everything you can do for an ARG.

I've got a few games to my credit and am working with a group on a game launching this summer. It's tough work from every aspect of it, and I don't think I could write a how-to on what I've done or what I'm doing while allowing you to be able to create your own experience.

Here's what I did though:

I came up with a general concept for the basis of a story, something that didn't exist yet (basically it's a big twist on several things and I can't say much more), and a concept for how to present this story to the players - how can I best present to them this alternate fiction in a way that allows the players to feel as though it could be factual enough to make them double-take on their own reality.

I then reached out to this community to find some writers and got some good ones. We've since been developing the backstory and various characters and whatnot for the game/story.

As we got further through the storyline I reached out again for programmers to develop some software stuff, websites and whatnot.

I've since done a bit of web development myself and have researched various css tutorials, and other html development tutorials that are widely available on the net.

I reached out again and drew in some persons that can help with the creation of video content and assigned them the task of casting various characters as these characters would need to be in the same location as the videographer.

We meet on a regular basis and brainstorm things from how to evolve the story from week to week, how to better the story to ensure the players get the best experience possible, how to simplify the process of interacting with the players, and more.

There's not really anywhere in there that I can tell you that THIS is what you need to do. I can tell you what I did do (and there are various resources available on the net from past developers who mentioned what they did do -- especially if you sit in on a PM chat post-game) and some of what I plan to do. I can't tell you anything about how to build a puzzle or how to integrate a puzzle into the game, because this is something that's going to be unique for each game (as Dave pointed out).

It's something you've got to learn with experience by watching games unfold from the players' perspective and from the developer's perspective. I'd say that the majority of us have had our share of mistakes in developing games, but have overcome them with determination. I know I royally screwed up on my first game, but again it was chalked up to experience (maybe a what-not-to-do guide would be more feasible than a how to).

The creation of an ARG isn't a very complicated process, but it involves getting the right tools in your hand to get your vision to the audience. Those tools are the people in your corner - literally - who help you with the stuff you don't know how to do. Go into your development with your idea/dream and get people that can fill in what you can't do.

Get the idea
>feel how it unfolds and how you want to present it
>find people that can help present it the way you want
>find people that can help you iron out the kinks
>work on the presentation
>present it

beyond that simplistic process a how to guide would have to cover so many things (many of which are covered in other places) that it's not really feasible. Some hints/tips and what not to dos are scattered through unfiction - and many developers and interested parties discuss their experiences on the ARG SIG. http://www.igda.org/arg/

[notgordian]

Karensa: just clarifying on why I posted the "cheating" link, as it may help explain the "meeting of the minds" problem that seems to be going on right now.

Alternate Reality Games rely on a disparate set of largely discrete skills -- and it's up to the PM to assemble them in a logical and entertaining manner. Some "skills" may seem like more of a "common sense" thing to you, like

-Registering domains: free vs paid (and the use of Domains by Proxy anonymization)
-How to use music and not get sued
-Customizing automated email responses based on words used in the email
-How to use Voice Mailboxes

As those posts (and many, many more show) the community can come up with fairly detailed responses to discrete concerns about specific elements -- but creating an "overarching PM guide" would make it seem like every ARG needs to have customized auto-responders, when the real fun is when a PM stumbles across something in their life, the news, or their research (like the article on cheating I posted) and thinks about how that can be used as part of a game.

Do you think that every visitor to BoingBoing who saw that article immediately thought "I wonder what kind of world would have people passing information by coke bottles...and how would the players intercept that information?" You need to think of the world in a different way.

I guess what I'm getting at is, the questions you're asking are still too general to be answered without pidgeonholing whatever project you (the collective you) is considering.

edit: fixed the broken link - imbri