ARGNet Insider - Issue 3.1

In which Michael stumbles across an Eroda pop-up shop, attends a very special MIT Mystery Hunt wedding, and goes on Twitter rants

• A Very Special Mystery Hunt Wedding - This year's MIT Mystery Hunt was teased with an invitation to the wedding reception for "M" and "G" - while that was enough to get me attending kickoff dressed in suit and tie, very few people realized kickoff would feature the actual wedding of Mark Gottlieb and Gaby Weidling, complete with ring bear.
  
  This very real wedding transitioned into a delightful puzzle hunt themed around their honeymoon destination Penny Park, where successful solves were rewarded with trips to the Workshop to press pennies into souvenir coin puzzles. I went on a Twitter rant highlighting some of my favorite puzzles from the year. Gangs of Six in particular is a great example of how to design a puzzle to distract dozens of people for over an hour, and have it stay fun along the way.
   
• Dispatches From Elsewhere Returns, with Energy Drinks - Last year, the Jejune Institute returned under new branding as the New Noology Network, in anticipation for the upcoming AMC show Dispatches From Elsewhere with Jason Segel. Since our last article on the game, an organization opposing NNN emerged, a former NNN employee went on a livestreamed road trip, and last week the Twitch streamer EvanneElizabeth received a demo of an NNN game "controlled by brain waves", in parallel with a Philadelphia deaddrop of a crushed can of the (fictional) Poliwater infused FLOW energy drink that sponsored her stream.
   
• Unknown 9, Back From an Extended Hiatus? - While nothing is confirmed yet, it's beginning to look a lot like the transmedia franchise Unknown 9 is poised to make a return at SXSW Interactive, next month. What form will that take? Who knows! But something to keep an eye on, nonetheless.
   
• Yet Another Twitter Rant: The Broader Immersive Space - Talk about broader immersive categories has resurfaced again, after Nick Nocturne uploaded a heartfelt tribute to the Unfiction forums on his channel, proposing that Unfiction would be a fitting umbrella term for works that blend the line between fiction and reality. As more fans and creators are broadening their areas of focus, it led me to reflect on my own experiences with the communities involved in the broader [ARG, transmedia, immersive] space that inspires so much creativity and innovation, in the form of yet another Twitter rant.
   
• HEREFest is Almost Here! - Speaking of broader immersive communities, the Immersive Design Summit has rebranded as HEREFest, moved to the Los Angeles area, and is coming up in a month, with an impressive lineup of speakers and events across pretty much all of the areas covered in my rant (including one of the creators of the Baskin Robbins / Stranger Things ARG), along with exclusive runs of some of Los Angeles' most beloved immersive performances and shows. I'll be in attendance, and look forward to a very busy week.
   
• Hit the Bricks Hit the Digital Airwaves - Hit the Bricks is an audio drama set in the world of the Oz books, a hundred years after Dorothy started her adventures. Episode 1 recently dropped along with a prologue episode, and I make a small cameo, along with a few other familiar names in the ARG and podcast fiction spaces.