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[imbri]

ARG Grammar

[Nightmare Tony]

An ARG grammer.

Prelude: The Secret Cabal.
PMs meet based on the GREAT IDEA.
PMs work hard as heck on it, bringing it to life.
(note that PMs may also be singular)
This leads to:


ACT 1a: The Rabbithole
PMs officially open the ARG for business by the following methods.
a GIGANTIC and moneyed trick to announce the new game.
Swag sent to Nash and VPISteve and SpaceBass
An AIM conversation with HKDL

ACT 1b: The Players Get Together.
Die hards and newbies take interest and get together.
The amount of spec is a proportion relation to the relative strength and exposure of the rabbit hole and how many players get interested and how many forums get devoted to the new ARG.

ACT1c: Open For Business
The new rabbit hole blooms into the full game. the websites hopld the puzzles, the conversations to go strong and the players go wild.


ACT 2: The Full Swing
Every player's attention is riveted like hot melt glue.
The PM(s) are hard at work running through everything.
Spec is rampant.
IRC conversations are nuts and have their own room.

ACT 3a: Endgame
The clues all lead to the finale. The players are fastened with cryonalate super glue.
The final showdowns occurs, the storyline moves into its exciting ending.

ACT 3b: Curtain Call
The curtain is swept aside
All PMs are revealed.
A post game chat is attended mightily with a ton of questions.




As a curious aside, someone once posted about a curtain being so perfect that at the end of a game, the curtain simply disappears, and you will never know who was responsible for the game....

[krystyn]

[Alzheimers]

You forgot:

ACT 2B: the near meltdown

The players begin to whine and moan about lack of constant updates.
Flamewars start over spelling errors and grammatical mistakes.
The wrong name in a puzzle solution creates a contradiction.
Shares of Maalox producer jump 200% on news.
Fans revolt.
Lead PM Goes on 3-day drinking binge.
Rest of PM team quits.
Lead PM comes back, forms new team.
New plotline written to include contradiction.
Some fans come back; some just to heckle futile efforts.
Someone whispers "What if this is made by Microsoft or 4orty2wo?"
Rumors lead to multipage spreads in gaming magazines.
Lead PM cancells appointment with Dr. Kevorkian

[imbri]

wow, so much negativity! where's the love?

I do find it interesting just how "meta" those examples are? After all the talk about "ARGs are about the story!" it seems as if both of you point out the development side first and foremost. Are ARGs really about the design?

A simplegrammar feel free to flesh it out or point out where you think it's right or wrong:

Rabbit Hole

Act 1
Subplot introduced
Call for help
Player friend introduced

Act 2:
Protagonist (generally a female and occasionally the 'player friend') introduced
Big evil corporation/plan of evil revealed

Act 3:
Secret info about big evil corporation/plan of evil revealed

Act 4:
Protagonist fights big evil corporation/plan of evil

Act 5
Crazy twist, revealing that big evil corporation is only kinda evil and the real evil is still out there

Act 6
Protagonist fights the real evil

Act 7
Protagonist wins
- world is saved!
- result unknown
- - protagonist won the minor battle, but the 'war' is still going on

[catherwood]

[maxim]

Here is a basic outline that applies to many stories of different types, which could be applied to an ARG as well. It's a bit prescriptive for my tastes, but is useful as a guideline.

Part I (roughly 25% of total)

1. Develop protagonist [~2%]
   
2. Glimpse of other world [~6%]
   
3. Protagonist meets helper [~5%]
   
4. Journey about to begin [~10%]

Part II (roughly 50% of total)

1. Committed to journey [~3%]
   
2. Tests by Antagonist's helper(s) [~22%]
   
3. Tests by Antagonist [~11%]
   
4. Crisis of Protagonist [~12%]

Part III (roughly 25% of total)

1. Transformation of protagonist [~3%]
   
2. Preparation for 'fight' [~11%]
   
3. 'Fight' [~10%]
   
4. 'Death' of antagonist (literal or metaphorical) [~5%]

This may serve as a guideline for any story.

[Phaedra]

[Phaedra]

[maxim]

It just occured to me... in an ARG, could you say that 'you' are the hero/protagonist? I was just trying to apply my own layout to PPC so far... in which case Sente might be the protagonist, Scarlett the helper, the hints of the journe still to come. And then I thought - what if YOU are the protagonist, you have met Sente, he is helping you along the way, you may soon be committed to the adventure you have begun, the tests, the build up.. and so on. I think you could look at it that way.

[Phaedra]

[krystyn]

I dunno, the Pious Flea/Covenant are pretty frkn evil, if you ask me.

[Phaedra]

[krystyn]

The Pious Flea helped to break Melissa, and keep her hobbled for much of the duration of the game. He hacked SPDR, and set a chain of events to keep everyone strictly on the path towards activating the artifact and signaling the Covenant invasion to happen anyway.

That's still pretty frkn evil, if you ask me. Even if he was this sort of faceless, highly-adaptable simple routine set that we, in a roundabout way, tricked into reconstructing the SP. He wouldn't have done it if he didn't think it would help him Reveal the Truth.

[Phaedra]