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[Caseys_Mom]

Building a reliable team

[Dray]

Adding to this: What generally seems to be a good amount of team members? 2? 4? 10?

I know it'll vary from person to person and game to game, but I'm curious to see what sort of average it is to put a successful small to medium ARG together.

[Caseys_Mom]

**Just stopping by to sweep the dust bunnies out of the thread**

- I guess everyone's just pretty busy right now, at least it would seem that way. Good luck with whatever everyone's working on.

[Sarah B]

This probably isn't super-relevant, but since you haven't had many other replies...

I've run one game on my own, and that taught me: get a team. XD Even if it's just one other person. The pressure on me for the few weeks I ran the game was just insane - mainly because players are pesky in that they solve some puzzles much faster than you intended them to!

To that end, I'd also recommend building into your game some story-based methods for slowing down the pace. Like... characters travelling and unable to pick up their email til the following day. A power cut meaning they can't get online. Whatever. XD

*drags self back on topic*

For the next project I'm doing, I'm going to have a team of about six or seven, including the actors (I didn't even have actors last time, lol). That's a couple of people to help on the technical side, a couple for the online presence (answering emails and stuff) and a few who are just actors for the live / video aspects. I've picked entirely people who I know in RL. I don't think they necessarily understand what an ARG is, most of them, but they liked the idea of being involved in something a bit different.

[ndemeter]

I would say check their responsiveness when it comes to communication. When I sign up on a team I give out all my info to include my cell phone precicely because I want everyone else to know they can count on me. From that point on if the rest of the team is not even willing to text me saying "hey, can you work on this puzzle/character/blog/etc" and in general communicate with me then my interest level and involvement dies.

[Caseys_Mom]

Thank you both for the advice. It's very much appreciated.
-And yes, Sarah, sharing your experience is very relevant. I can see where a business trip or power outage could come in handy! It definitely seems like an issue that would be worthwhile to plan for- just in case it's needed.
-ndemeter- It's also good to know that you take your PM-ing responsibilities seriously. It would be nice if everyone was that dependable.

[unmortal_mind]

Re: Building a reliable team

[distilled]

I love the grassroots nature of the ARG community! I've only really considered using my friends as a team, we all have pretty compatible personalities and senses of what is intruiging and what is scary - we don't always agree on what is feasible, Im more down to earth and my colleague is the dreamer, the third member of the team is the tech guy - he makes stuff actually happen.

So, I think of it like the creative process as:

Dreamer -> Me -> Tech guy

About to start work on a major project just the three of us, gonna be epic.