ARGNet Insider - Issue 4.4
The Jejune Institute of the South, cross country road trips, and Doctor Who
|
|
Summer is always a hot season for ARGs, and this year that's more true than ever, with live immersive experiences tentatively reemerging after a year in virtual hibernation.
- The New Immersive Award on the Block - The Peabody Awards expanded their award categories to recognize interactive storytelling. Details on the submission calendar, eligibility, and award categories will be coming later this year. The Peabody's interactive Board includes a number of judges from the ARG space, including Jay Bushman (working on projects including The Lizzie Bennet Diaries and 10 Cloverfield Lane), Sara Thacher (working on projects including Disney's Ghost Post and Star Wars: Galactic Starcruiser experiences), and Lance Weiler (working on projects like Pandemic 1.0, Hope is Missing, and Beyond the Rave).
- The Intersection of ARGs and Geocaching - Michael Andersen joined former ARGNet contributor Geoff May for a conversation about the intersection of ARGs and Geocaching for a Cache the Line livestream, reminiscing about everything from shared memories of I Love Bees to geocaching outings during past ARGFests.
- Inside a Cross Country Road Trip - Inside A Mind's Jamie Foster recently did a video on Meow Wolf's newest immersive installation Omega Mart (located in Las Vegas' Area-15 facility). Inspired by the company's lore, he is planning a cross country road trip across the United States with a host of creators in the ARG space including Dad Feels' Nathan Barnatt. The trip will hit cons like Vidcon and Free Play Florida, as well as all three Meow Wolf locations, starting in October.
- Early Notice on Some Emerging ARGs - In Paranormal Paranoids, fans of an old ghost hunting show are digging through archival footage for a show that never existed. "Shows that never existed" is an increasingly common framing, as seen with the New York Times' coverage of TikTok phenomenon Ships of the Northern Fleet. Speaking of TikTok, 10 Tapes has been following the gradual unveiling of ten mysterious tapes. Finally, on the serious games front, Waking Wakefield features a story about the return of mythical creatures due to the climate crisis.
- The Evolving ARG Podcast Scene - Reality Escape Pod kicked off its second season debut by interviewing Neil Patrick Harris about his history in the immersive space and his single-player puzzle game Box One, while No Proscenium celebrated their 300th episode by teasing a revamped format, kicking off later this week by interviewing Sean Stewart, Austin Grossman, and Neal Stephenson about an audio spinoff of their Magic Leap ARG. There's even a fan-created Animorphs ARG, centered around the podcast Sporadic Phantoms.
|
|
|
The Last Month(s) in ARGs: May/June 2021
|
|
|
Mysterious Nashville: the Jejune Institute of the South?
|
|
|
For the past few months, Nashville residents have been receiving weekly missions to explore the city, in a mashup of geocaching and alternate reality gaming. Missions have led players into taxidermy stores searching for hidden art, out to the Nashville Parthenon to identify what Athena holds, and into the woods to find a collective art project.
|
|
|
|
Picture of Gwen and the Cottagecore Aesthetic ARG
|
|
|
Pictures of Gwen is a fantasy based alternate reality game by Rogue Beacon (the team behind Boomtown Fair's alternate reality game), telling the story of an artist named Gwen's adventures in a new city through highly aesthetic social updates and optional monthly mailings that double down on the game's stylistic look and feel - the game is even releasing a custom tarot deck, a few cards at a time.
|
|
|
|
A Playable Sequel to Doctor Who's Weeping Angels Episode
|
|
|
Doctor Who: The Lonely Assassins picks up over ten years after the events of the Doctor Who episode "Blink", and continues the tale of Larry Nightingale's encounters with the Weeping Angels through a found phone game. Made by Kaigan Games (the company behind the Simulacra series), this official Doctor Who mobile game manages to replicate the feel of an ARG in a tidy single-player package.
|
|
|
|
Detective Mimo is Doki Doki Literature Club without the Horror
|
|
|
Detective Mimo starts out as a puzzle game focused around an anthropomorphic cat detective trying to chase down a cat burglar during a bank heist, but quickly evolves into a more meta experience, in both the narrative and puzzling sense. To complement the non-spoilery preview article, a more exhaustive (password-protected) review breaks down most of the game's secrets, from its two different endings to the optional puzzle trail hidden in the game. Coincidentally, I joined a group of ARG vets to tackle the same company's virtual escape room earlier that week.
|
|
|
|
ARGNet Insider: From the Archives
|
|
Three years ago, ARGNet covered the blockbuster Larp Dragon Thrones, framing it as a strong immersive primer since the weekend-long experience offered introductions to everything from parlor Larp, tabletop gaming, boffer Larp, and puzzle experiences. Dragon Thrones is returning for a new live event later in July 2021, joining the list of immersive experiences opening up now that more people in the United States have been getting vaccinated.
While ARGNet will not be returning for this session, I wrote up a few post-mortems on the puzzles I designed for past Dragon Thrones events, including a tarot deck puzzle to enable players to pass Culper Ring-inspired secret messages, and a custom dice puzzle inspired by Dan Katz's Duck Konundrum Mystery Hunt puzzles.
On the subject of Larps, YouTuber Kaza Marie released a video summary of the events from New Orleans' Armistice Arcane event from 2020 that included footage from the game's pre-game briefings - access that should be highly interesting to immersive creators curious about player onboarding and safety mechanics.
|
|
|
|
|
