In the past, researchers were lauded and honored for curing a single disease. But what if we could cure ALL illness? No more cancer, no more HIV virus, no more ebola… The suffering of millions could be lifted with a single injection. A working strain of Intragen will mean the end of all disease as we know it.

Brave words we hear all too often from genetic biologists these days. Most recently, it comes from IngenBio.

The owner of that twitter account is recording comments, thoughts, messages, all related to experimentation on this cure-all drug Intragen.  But where is it leading?

IngenBio’s website (IngenBio.com of course) contains some background on the company, including an image of their headquarters.

The site’s whois information lists PCBProductions.com as the primary contact.  Checking their site, we find that Contagion, an industrial band, references “40-CFR-761” – a log code series repeatedly mentioned in IngenBio tweets, along with mentions of video logs in the IngenBio archive.

Archive.ingenbio.com leads to much more “eyes only” information about the company, and Dr. Leonard J. Kendall, Ingen Bio – Senior Director of Applied Biotechnology.  He apparently died in a lab fire on April 16, 1995.  Many test subjects have undergone treatment of the experimental drug, most of whom are now ‘deceased’.

Sending an email to kendall@ingenbio.com returns this reply:

CLASSIFIED
>>INGEN BIO ARCHIVE – EYES ONLY PERSONNEL
INTRAGEN ITC LOG RECORD Recovered video log fragments: 40:CFR1 – 40:CFR40. Kendall, Dr. Leonard J.
– Restored from Kendall lab Fire 04-16-95
<<Kendall>>

Kendall, Evelyn – Surveillance record: incomplete
Thorne, Garrett ? Quarantine Holding. Control 9 – Intragen ITC Adjuvant testing

INFEX Status – UNKNOWN
Secure server login: http://www.infex.tv
978-0-615-21243-2

Returning to PCBProductions, we also find that Infex is a graphic novel in development by Keith Arem and Brandon Humphreys.  It also links to Infex.tv.

A recent IngenBio tweet includes the cryptic phrase: 32.7075.117.1638>32.42.5>117º, 9.8mW>08.07.23
Breaking it down, it’s composed of a number of components:

1. 32.7075.117.1638 is 32.7075, -117.163  (decimal GPS coordinates)
2. 32.42.5>117º, 9.8 is 32° 42.5′, -117° 9.8′  (latitude/longtitude)
3. 08.07.23 is 2008/07/23 – July 23

Other tweets are numbers indicating a countdown which appears to end at midnight GMT, July 24.
Locating the coordinates above, we’re taken to the San Deigo Convention Center, July 23.  The countdown time in local time would be 5pm, July 23.

The San Diego Comic Con event is being held July 24-27.  What mysteries shall be revealed about Infex and IngenBio?

PCB Productions in currently in pre-production on the new Contagion project, INFEX™. Based on the upcoming Graphic Novel created by Keith Arem and Brandon Humphreys.

• Infex graphic novel trailer (watch on youtube)
• Watch Infex.tv for updates
• Follow along discussion at Unfiction

Tags: infex, ingenbio

Categories: ARGs General, Books

What is Aladygma.com?
What is the significance of 00 | 11 | 22 | 88?
The site has been active for a number of months, offering strange, cryptic webpages. It began with people thinking it might be related to a Cloverfield movie sequel, but over time, the web pages became less and less related to JJ Abrams’ work. Now the pages are appearing quite random.

The homepage of Alagyma currently shows the instructions: “follow the whitespaces“. If you hit CTRL-A, you’ll notice a number of ‘spaces’ scattered around the page. Clicking on them takes you to the hidden webpages.

As of this writing, the available cryptic pages linked by the whitespace are:

Read the rest of this entry »

Tags: aladygma

Categories: ARGs General, Viral General

All week, the splash page to Blizzard’s homepage has been graced with a slowly deteriorating icy fortificaton.  While it’s doubtful this is or will be an ARG, it’s certainly raised quite a viral stir.

Friday, the splash image updated to clearly show two ominously glowing eyes in the center, along with the 5th (and final?) symbol or rune, each now glowing and much more visible.  The runes have been appearing one by one throughout the week, each believed related to various Blizzard franchises or games.

Read the rest of this entry »

Tags: blizzard

Categories: Video games, Viral General

A recent bout of chaotic fiction named “Notes to Mary” has come to a close.  Well, as a game at least.  The creator came forward revealing everything about his original plan, and how he decided to take it a step further… even to the point of ending it in potentially one of the most entertaining ARGish conclusions to date – The Rickroll.  And people liked it!  In a time when ARG imposions and unsatisfactory conclusions seem just around every corner, somehow this one snuck by unscathed.

You can read all about the PARG: Prank Alternate Reality Game here – by “Robert Valdemar”.

The creator does intend to continue his fiction series, but not as an ARG.
Check out the discussion trail over at Unfiction.

Tags: notestomary

Categories: ARGs General, Viral General

The Joker’s just released his HaHaHa Times volume 3.  Once again making light of serious Gotham news, and yanking Batman’s chains.  Check it out

Wednesday morning, on hovering the mouse over the upper left corner of the most recent Gotham Times, the paper slowly smolders to reveal the link to the Joker’s spoof.

Throughout the paper, in typical Joker fashion, are circle words and letters.  The letters spell:

Herrings are red
Corpses are blue
You’re on the right track
But you don’t have the clue

And the words: party, chaos, level, aren’t, twice, world, level, Dent’s, Dent’s, faced, urban

Where’s the Joker taking us now?

UPDATE:
Shortly after, people began receiving text messages from the Joker, containing image attachments labelled 1A.jpg through 6F.jpg.

After aligning all these image attachments in a grid once they were reported in, it was noticed that each image was made up of four smaller patterns.  Replacing each of these patterns in the 12×12 grid with a letter produced a substitution cipher!  The solution to that puzzle was another clue:

color me impressed just use the second letter of the fourth word to the right of each circled five letter word to find out where to go from here

That takes us back to the new HaHaHaTimes from the Joker.  Looking for each five letter word, then the fourth word after each, and the 2nd letter of each of those words results in the Joker’s next game – Red Balloons.

Now, while it’s a fun game in and of itself (YMMV), it’s similar to the Joker’s previous game – LaughTilItHurts – there’s a ticket slot.  The game requires pushing the clowns’ noses to blow up the balloons to exploding within the allotted time.  But if you look closer, the clowns’ eyes turn blue at a certain ‘pressure’.  Try getting each clowns’ eyes blue simultaneously!  If you’re successful, you’ll be given a ticket, and a pass to Inept Lackeys, where the Joker left us a new message:

Hired goons are so unreliable these days. That’s why I only employ the ones who graduated at the top of their class from Clown College (and being opera-lovers didn’t hurt, either). But Maroni’s got his hands full with inept lackeys like little Stevie and Romeo, Romeo, wherefore art thou, Romeo?  I’ll tell you where they are: sittin’ pretty with a smile on their face. They tried to reschedule their pick up service at Pasquale’s, but things didn’t go according to plan.

HAHAHAHA.

Analyzing this message, and the number of subtle opera-related hints, composer Giuseppe Verdi seemed to be fairly important.  Calling Pasquale’s business number, 1-877-678-7277, forwards you to voicemail, where you have the option of providing a 5-digit administrative PIN.  Guess what?  “verdi” is 5 letters.  Entering 83734 gets you into the voicemail.  The first and only voicemail says:

Hey, Frenchie – me and, uh, Rosolio ain’t gonna to make it to, uh, Sunday Night Crepefest. Something came up – in the Gotham River. I think his name was…Fred. Anyways, we’ll be there Monday night for our ‘box of pastries.’ Baker’s dozen this time, capiche?

This eerily seem to explain what may have happened in regards to to this security feed at the end of LaughTilItHurts…

• Follow along the events at the wiki: batman.wikibruce.com!
• Join the hype at Superoherohype, or at Unfiction

Tags: 42E, batman, TDK

Categories: ARGs General, Movies

It certainly hurts, playing the new and frustratingly unending game that’s shown up at Whysoserious.com, care of the Joker.

Earlier today, holders of the Joker’s cell phones received a new text message, though a few variations were reported.  One read:

Welcome to Short-Attention-Span Theater: Align This Tutu Hurl (-un)

The letters of the strange phrase form an anagram which leads to whysoserious.com/laughtilithurts – a typical fairground race game where you spin a wheel, and move ahead a number of spots, trying to beat out 3 other cars.  There’s a ‘skill shot’ spot, however, which if hit, doubles the spinner value and moves your car ahead faster.  So you play.  And play… and play… and scream at the universe… then play some more.

Until you realize that hitting the skillshot spot continuously in a row leads to a colour pattern on the spinner – make note of the colour pattern (of Blue/Yellow/Green/Reds): “bgygbrgbyrygbgybbrbyg”, and manually click that same pattern on the spinner itself (any number works).  The machine spits out a ticket!  Clicking eventually leads to a new location – whysoserious.com/laughtilithurts/static.htm

Security footage of Acme Security Systems – CAM 4131 Dock 138.  Watch carefully.  Before the video ends, you’ll see a familiar face.

The trail continues… watch for updates!

• Follow along the events at the wiki: batman.wikibruce.com!
• Join the hype at Superoherohype, or at Unfiction

Tags: 42E, batman, TDK

Categories: ARGs General, Movies

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)

Secondly, 42 Entertainment (www.42entertainment.com) received two awards for their Year Zero Alternate Reality Game with Trent Reznor and Nine Inch Nails: the Grand Prix for “Viral Advertising” and a Silver for “Interactive Campaigns”

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)

Congratulations 42 Entertainment and AKQA!

Tags: 42E, akqa, awards, halo, year zero

Categories: Puppetmasters

What kind of stunt is Gotham City Pizzeria trying to pull?  Sponsored by Dominoes Pizza, reports are they’re selling their pizzas in new boxes that have cut-out Batman custumes for people to run around in.  And this, just on the heels of Gotham Cable News‘ report of Batman sightings, and asking the public to send in their pictures and videos?  This is just asking for chaos!

Also, Gotham Tonight’s first episode, originally airing only on Comcast On Demand, is now available on GCN.

UPDATE: Free pizzas are to be delivered as part of Gotham City Pizzeria’s one-day-only promotion – today!  Go to their availability map to find out where the free pizzas are available!  Get ordering!  Only 245 will be available across the country!

Check back for updates…

• Follow along the events at the wiki: batman.wikibruce.com!
• Join the hype at Superoherohype, or at Unfiction

Tags: 42E, batman, TDK

Categories: ARGs General, Movies

Gotham Cable News is now airing the first Gotham Tonight episode via Comcast on demand.

Someone has already captured it on video and posted it to Youtube for easy viewing…

Original Video– More videos at TinyPic

Update: Comcast also has a new, exclusive trailer for Batman: The Dark Knight.  (available for now on Youtube)

Update: Additional website updates…

• TheGothamTimes.com
• Gotham City Election Board
• GothamCityPizzeria.com
• IBelieveInHarveyDent.com
• TrustGarcetti.com

Owners of the Joker’s cell phones are also receiving messages, with attached pictures.

Update: The SMS picture puzzle has been solved. (spoilers below)

The three groups of cellphone owners received from three sets of 6 related images.  Group 1 received images representing names of Dominoes games; Group 2 received words anagrammed from Commercial; Group 3 received fractions all multiples of 3/8, multiplied by 1, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 – the missing fraction in the pattern is for 2, or 6/16.  Together, the clues seem to indicate a Dominoes Commercial 6/16.

Gotham Cable News is reporting that Gotham Tonight will be airing online at noon on Monday (June 16th).  Will we see a Dominoes commercial on the air?  What does the Joker have up his sleave?

• Follow along the events at the wiki: batman.wikibruce.com!
• Join the hype at Superoherohype, or at Unfiction

Tags: 42E, batman, TDK

Categories: ARGs General, Movies