unforum

[MasterSpike]

NICE! BIG MAX! haha Even though I let U see it from my Computer.
Now on the site it asks 4 of us to press the RED Button. (3 since I already pressed it)

[vapor]

press'd

[MasterSpike]

Nice 2 down 2 ta' go.

[amandel]

Welcome aboard Big Max. Sweet first move. I, too, pressed **crossing fingers this isn't a sock-it-to-us ploy** Result:

[diszaster]

Oh huh...

[shrtyscott3]

Great beginning, terrible end.

[MasterSpike]

-_-

[redct]

...and curtain!

What's up, guys? I'm one of the PMs for this game (and the main one). First order of business: I'd like to apologize to you all. I agree with you: the ending was a horrible cop-out and frankly rather shitty. Unfortunately, that had to happen. I'll explain a little further down, though.

This ARG literally grew out of our boredom. At the beginning of the summer, me and Gregoryn (who are both high school students and who were both looking forward to a nice long summer) decided to start an ARG on a whim. We literally went from having no inkling of our plot to a launch within about six days, if I recall correctly. Things were looking good then. We got a few more friends from Unfiction (more specifically uF IRC) to sort-of join us and we were off. We naively thought that we'd be well and done by the time our respective school years started.

Fast forward to late July. We were happy with the game and the awesome progress it had made and one of us sent off Sr. Choamsky on his merry way. We had a passing thought after he was received by his first host—"Hmm, maybe this is going to run over a bit." No qualms, though. We had time and it wouldn't be too bad, right?

(Side note: the whole sock thing blossomed out of all of 25 minutes of thought. We hadn't considered the need for other players to have something to do while Choamsky was having his cross-country fun. Goes to show you how much we plan, huh?)

Fast forward to mid August. "Shit!" The game wasn't going to reach its natural end according to our original plan (which we rewrote about three times on the fly, btw) by the time that I had to go back to school. So, we unfortunately had to push the brave gnomes of the IFILR and their sock-y enemies to a premature death. School was going to start in a week. Lightning fast, puzzles were whipped up, pages were drafted, images were Photoshopped, and backends were coded. That leads us to today. I know it was forced, I know it wasn't as much fun as it should have been, and I know you would (and we would) have preferred another ending. And for that, we do apologize. However, all of us would like to thank you guys profusely for playing along with our little gnomish game. I hope it's been fun. Choamsky will complete his travels so you guys can have a bit of IG closure. Also, some of you (remember the propaganda contests?) might get some sweet schwag in the mail in 4-6 weeks.

So, yeah. Thank you all for playing—and stick around if you'd like. Who knows what will happen next summer? I hear somebody in the IFILR has presidential dreams.

—The PM team
by IRC handle: redct, Gregoryn, Oriza, and |mando|
by uF handle (in the same order): redct, Gregoryn, elite.fencer, and apcfreak

P.S. If you've got any questions/comments/encouragement/discouragement for us, we'll be in this thread. Also, if you want to do the standard PM chat thing, let us know and we'll set a date.

[Big Max]

Boo!

[amandel]

Gee, ya think you know peeps and then they turn out to have these genius mad skillz.

Playing to liberate the Gnomes was hands down the most interesting uF fun of the summer for me. Mega Thanks y'all!!

p.s. My swag usually winds up in the uF Museum to keep so plse send the submission win thingy and I'll pay the mailing costs cuz I know you're impovershed students. **Yaha, shameless yet bligthly unashamed**

[snorkle256]

I had Choamsky visit me.....

Best ARG Evar!!!

[vapor]

I agree, this was a very fun ARG even if it did have to end abruptly. I had to tell my wife it ended yesterday after I pleaded with her for weeks to crochet a gnome hat for both myself and my sock puppet. She finished the sock gnome hat yesterday just as I was logging in to check Gnomer. Sooo...I may or may not have a gnome hat when Choamsky reaches Dallas (hopefully he still makes it this far). I was actually going to do the sock puppet reenactment video but I think it would just be silly to do that now.

Anyhow, great fun guys. Thanks for keeping me entertained for the summer.

[diszaster]

I'd definitely be interested in a post-game chat. I have some plot-type questions that are bugging me.

I guess I should move the gnomes along to the next stop. Blackwell is eating all my food.

[Nighthawk]

Yeah, I figured it was you redct (although I could have sworn Lauren was involved, too)!

Anytime you want to send me another trailhead, you're welcome to. Next time I promise I'll be ready with photo and/or scanner so I can disseminate it more effectively.

Nice work! It was fun to watch at least, and the characters were very well played.

[shrtyscott3]

Wow, a spectacular game! Although the ending with VERY rough, the game overall was so much fun. I became immersd with the texts from Richard, the propaganda was fun (although I never got my prize in the mail )

This is one of my favorite grassroot ARGs, thank you so much to the entire PM team.

Christosock ;]