Wikibruce |

Creativity-Online.com has posted an in-depth behind the scenes interview with 42 Entertainment - the company that produced the Alternate Reality Game for Batman: The Dark Knight (aka “Why So Serious?“).

Read the interview with Susan Bonds and Alex Lieu about The Dark Knight over at Creativity-Online.  Find out some hidden secrets and the way things were from ‘behind the curtain’ during the campaign’s run.

42 Entertainment is also currently known to be running the ARG for Sony’s upcoming PS3 game Resistance 2 (aka “Project Abraham“)

• Visit the Dark Knight ARG wiki at batman.wikibruce.com
• Jump in the Resistance 2 ARG by catching up at fallofman.wikibruce.com

Recently I was privileged to be invited to Hollywood to meet with the company Double Twenty, the creative team behind “The Secret Device” - the Alternate Reality Game tied to Guillermo del Toro’s upcoming sequel film Hellboy II: The Golden Army. I was also granted entrance to the special advanced screening of Hellboy II at the Linwood Dunn Theatre in Hollywood, hosted by Guillermo del Toro himself, on July 1st. Having played “The Secret Device” devotedly, I can certainly say that it successfully had me ramped up for the movie, which I did find quite enjoyable, to say the least! But, this isn’t a movie review…

I had an amazing time meeting the team of Double Twenty and some of their partners for this project, having time to discuss ARGs, Hellboy, HETFET, and many other random topics. I was able to sit down with them and learn more about the company and their practice, and bombard them with questions. Below is the “Double Twenty 20 Questions” session I had with the lead designers, Matt Wolf and Tania Thiele.

GM: Hello and hello! First off, if you could introduce yourself - who you are, what your role is at D20, and, oh I don’t know… your favourite ice cream flavour.

MW: Hello. My name is Matt Wolf, I’m the founder and Creative Director at D20. I’m here with Tania Thiele, she oversees Community Experience for D20. Hmm, favourite ice cream would have to be Ben & Jerry’s Peanut Butter Cup :)

Continued…

Reports of new content have been spreading over the webz like wildfire.  As far as I can tell, the spark was lit when a news article was posted at bungie.net’s Compound Intelligence group, reporting that ilovebees.com content had been updated. It was redacted quickly, once it had been noted that the content was in fact the same.  But the flame had already caught, and discussion continues, and news is spreading.

Hate to break it to everyone, but ilovebees.com hasn’t changed.

Now, there may truth to the rumour that Bungie may be doing something on July 14th, the beginning of the E3 Expo, as per this exchange between Brian and Luke of Bungie in their latest podcast:

Brian: Isn’t there something going on on July 14th or something like that?
Luke: Yeah, around then.
Brian: Somehow that’s sticking in my head for some reason. Guess we’ll have to see.
Luke: Yep, we’ll just have to be patient. Who could say?

There may also be something about to happen as reported about 1019foxfm.net which is displaying this familiar text box with some minor adjustments, including a countdown to July 17th, 7:17pm:

However, even after all this, no - ilovebees.com hasn’t changed.  WAV files, audio, images, all are just as they’d been left - and still counting down to November 9th, 2552.

(now just my luck, 42 will come along and update the website :P)

That said, mark off July 14th (and July 17th, for that matter), and watch for… something.

UPDATE: The 1019Foxfm.net countdown has been adjusted to August 7th, and is no longer indicating July 14th.

The 2008 Cannes Lions International Advertising Festival began Monday in France, and awards have already been announced in many categories. Yesterday, the Cyber Lions category was addressed, and some familiar faces were rewarded with some hefty recognition!

For last year’s Halo 3 Believe website website, AKQA (www.akqa.com) received silver for “Websites & Microsites”.

Synopsis:
The Halo 3 “Believe” site is the interactive companion to the global advertising campaign which positioned Master Chief as the greatest of Earth’s heroes. Utilizing sophisticated motion control cameras and digital compositing, the 1200 square foot diorama was transformed into a fully immersive experience, giving users the ability to interact with and explore the elaborate monument to humanity’s greatest battle as well as a wealth of other content.
(Halo 3: Believe - view the site)

Synopsis:

The ambitious Year Zero alternate reality game (ARG), a work of cross-media art involving websites, emails, phone calls, album packaging, tour t-shirts, thumb drives, music videos, murals, and live concert events with the new music of Nine Inch Nails at its core. Playing out over 10 weeks, the Year Zero ARG engaged over 2.5M participants. It started with a message hidden in the back of a concert t-shirt that lead to online websites - ultimately over 29 websites discovered over several months, 7.5M page views, 7M forum postings, 2M phone calls and thousands of original art submissions.
(NIN: Year Zero - see the overview)

The veil’s been lifted - the creators of the Holomove company, technology and, well, drama have been discovered. Speculation of its connections ranged from Microsoft’s Surface, to Fox’s upcoming TV series Fringe, to a very, very high quality grassroots ARG. But the following news was discovered posted on Microsoft’s MSDN Tech-ed blog:

Holomove
In collaboration with Visual Studio, Microsoft has created the ultimate challenge that tells the story of Nathan Bozeman who gets the chance to change the world, but at an extraordinary price. Since the immersive game began in May 2008, it has captivated players around the world. Find out what’s happened so far and join the adventure—there’s still time to get involved.

Watch the experimental technology being developed at Holomove.

To join in, catch up on the trailhead at Unfiction.
Or check out all the current websites and media.