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

Tags: 42E

Categories: Puppetmasters

This week, Cassie’s voting crew chose Nathan Hale [wiki] as the next injection candidate. Thankfully, it appears another serum being delivered from Base Station Genesis has had far more positive results, and this will be the injection Hale faces this coming Tuesday.

Not only that, Cassie’s actions have been under observation, due to the ‘personal’ nature of some of her interactions with the candidate soldiers – specifically Hale and Khaner. Jarod Daltings has been suspended, and his observations catalogued in the SRPA Terminal [wiki].

But of most importance, is an image discovered in this observation package – a very high quality (1920×1200), surveillance photo of Katee Sackhoff Cassie Aklin. Of course, the image has now been made public, so who knows how many will now have Katee Cassie officially gracing their desktop background.

Download the full image here (or from the original source)

A list of today’s update events can be found on the wiki timeline

• Get involved at ProjectAbraham.com, GetAWarJob.com, and AmericaFirstAmericaOnly.com
• Join in the discussion at Unfiction, SuperHeroHype, and MyResistance
• Track the events and help organize at the wiki – fallofman.wikibruce.com

Tags: 42E, resistance, sony

Categories: ARGs General, Video games

Someone’s been locked up in a warehouse in Thailand and they need our help!  Though, I don’t really know who to trust… I mean, I received this tip from someone named slayher.  That doesn’t sound too reassuring.

hey, i’m not getting a lot of traction with the regular gaming crowd, but i heard youre a good detective?  My brother, 2600, and his gaming team, B Dangerous, are locked up in a Thai warehouse.  They had a run-in with some bad guys after winning a tournament at the Caribbean Club.  tryin to figure out ways to help them help themselves, know what I mean??
 
www.SaveBDangerous.com
 
help me, the bruce, yr my only hope!
oh, bring your friends.  i heard they’re smort.

Despoiler also received a tip this week, although with different content.

Nevertheless, if you’re smort, go get’em!

• Join the discussion at Unfiction

Tags: slayher

Categories: ARGs General, Rabbit Hole

“If you count down to it, they will flock”

Too busy to follow forum threads?  Want to get involved, but have no idea where to start?  Too much free time and want to find ways of wasting it productively?

Have no fear!  There is now a “Countdowns and upcoming events” page on Wikibruce.  While I can’t guarantee it will be an exhaustive list of every possible event that’s coming up, it’s a list of notable countdown targets and planned ARG/Viral events to look forward to, and to mark on your calendar.

Note also there is a contact link at the bottom – if you know of a countdown or event that you think should be listed, let me know!

Go check it out – see if there’s something that might interest you.

Warning – contents might be hazardous to your schedules!

Tags: wikibruce

Categories: Site Info

During Comic-Con 2008 in San Diego, many, many things happened.  Viral drops are a growing trend at events such as this, and Year Zero’s headline-making flash–drive–in–bathroom stunts at Nine Inch Nails concerts seems to have opened the ‘flash-flood’ gates.

A number of reports have streamed in of people receiving USB flash drives for various exhibitors – one of which was Sony’s upcoming Playstation 3 game, Resistance 2 – the sequel to Resistance: Fall of Man.

Sony launched their ARG / viral campaign back on July 1st, with a “Popular Technologies” flyer ad in Gamepro magazine, which directed people to GetAWarJob.com.  Since then, numerous videos and content and a few other websites have appeared or been discovered.

But this week at Comic-Con, a few lucky attendees managed to take home a special “America First – America Only” flyer, and a USB flash drive loaded with an image and a video.  The flyer was primarily intending to direct people to AmericaFirstAmericaOnly.com.

But thanks to an unfiction community member, celina63, I managed to acquire the contents of the flash drive.  Neither the image nor the video were ‘new’, at least to the online community already following the campaign, but rather intended to draw Comic-Con attendees/bloggers into the campaign.  The image and video are shown below.

As the video explains, Cassie (Katee Sackhoff!) has been commanded to select individuals from a group of soldiers, who have been transferred to a secret base in Alaska, to undergo a top secret medical experiment – an injection supposedly related to an outbreak of influenza.  But the moral toll the decision is taking on her is too much, and she enlists the help of the online community (hey this is an alternate reality – they had internet in 1950!) to make the decision.

Test subject #2 (the first, shown in the video, was Pvt. Joseph Capelli) has been chosen already – the voting results led to Channing Brown becoming the next injectee.  He was informed on Friday (July 25), and the results of the injection will be made known tomorrow (July 29).
What will happen?

Resistance has a hefty back-story built up from the first PS3 game and other media.  The Resistance 2 ARG looks to expand on the events taking place between the first and second game.

• Get involved at ProjectAbraham.com, GetAWarJob.com, and AmericaFirstAmericaOnly.com
• Join in the discussion at Unfiction, SuperHeroHype, and MyResistance
• Track the events and help organize at the wiki – fallofman.wikibruce.com

Tags: 42E, resistance, sony

Categories: ARGs General, Rabbit Hole, Video games

In less than 5 days now, ARGFest-o-Con 2008 will kick off in Boston, MA.  Last year, ARGfest invaded San Francisco for an awesome weekend of meeting and greeting, joining (most for the first time) community and industry members, puppetmasters and players, lurkers and veterns, young and old, local and foreign, from across the nation and across the continent, ushering in an era of world peace!  Ok… getting carried away.

ARGFest stretches vaguely from Friday through Sunday morning.  People typically arrive anywhere from Thursday through Friday evening, so that entire period is a general social meet and greet and drinkering.  This year, some key elements strengthening ARGFest’s position as an event you don’t want to miss:

1. Friday night, 42 Entertainment (the company behind the TDK ARG themselves) has graciously sponsored 75 free tickets to see Batman: The Dark Knight at 10:30pm!  Tickets are available first come first served to registered ARGFest attendees, though regular tickets can still be bought while supplies last.
2. The team behind the Holomove game will be performing a PM chat Friday at 4pm (which also be available online for those not at ARGFest)
3. There will be a special labyrinth training event in Boston for The Lost Ring ARG on Sunday morning at 11am. Exact location (near the hotel) TBD.
4. If you’ve been to Boston, there’s an attraction called “The Tomb” for which Jason Chrest of AporiACME has performed some magic, granting special reduced group rates (of up to 12) for the experience.
5. Of course there’s the meet & greet cocktail party Friday night (before TDK) at the hotel. Who’d want to miss that?
6. The traditional FestQuest takes place Saturday afternoon!  It’s always a mystery… you never know what’s going to happen… but for some reason it typically ends up gathering everyone for dinner.  Strange.
7. Thanks to bingo-master BrianEnigma, there may very will be another implementation of Buzzword bingo – Unfiction member Bingo!

Much of this event has been made possible thanks to the gracious sponsorship of:

But with additional sponsorship from other organizations, ARGFest has been made possible again this year, with ever-more exciting content.

The panels and speakers planned for this year, taking place through Saturday’s schedule, include:

• ARGs and Extended Media Experiences – Evan Jones, Lance Weiler, Yomi Ayeni, Blair Erickson, and Elan Lee
• Serious and Independent Games – Ken Eklund, Alice Leung, Dave Szulborski, and Brian Clark
• ARGs and the Rules of Engagement – Steve Peters
• The Future of Alternate Reality Gaming – A Speech Blitz of 10 individuals with 3 minutes each (oooh)
• The Expansion of Alternate Reality Gaming into the international arena – Brian Clark, Patrick Moeller, Alexander Serrano, and Geneviève Cardin
• Long Live Unfiction – Sean C Stacey (who else?)
• Player to Puppetmaster – Michelle Senderhauf, Andrea Phillips, Lindsay Mills, Jan Libby, and Jonathan Waite
• Keynote address, The Story Inside: Making ARGs for Fun and Profit  – Dave Szulborski

For full details, how to sign up, where to go, and loads and loads of additional information and excitement, visit the official website: www.argfestocon.com

For other input and details that may not be officially listed (like konamouse’s ARG Museum), see the ARGFest Wiki.

To skip right to signing up (because you’re going to anyway, right?), go now, to the signup page, now!

I am personally arriving in Boston on Thursday evening, hoping to make it to the oh-so-famous Cheers inspiration (Bull and Finch Pub) on Beacon Hill, a few blocks from the official ARGFest hotel.

ARGFest events officially begin Friday night with the meet and greet at the hotel.

Hope to see you there!

Tags: argfest

Categories: ARGs General

A quick two-fer for those of you looking for something to look into, something mysterious, something life-changing?

I recently received a blog comment from haguruma, who links to his blog at kuromoritoshio.blogspot.com, including the following image:

The image also led to EklipseGlobal flickr account.  As a little background, haguruma is one of a number of aliases used by this person.  Pancito did a bit of research at Unfiction.

• Sign up and join in by visiting EklipseGlobal.com
• Follow the discussion at Unfiction

I also received an email from Tyler Mills earlier, simply reading:

Won’t you help me [decode] this, please?

It also included the following attachment

How does one decode a barcode?  Why, by scouring google for a barcode decoder, of course.  After a bit of searching, and trial and error, the linear decoder demo from Intelcom.ru came through very nicely.  The result?

www.deletedthegame.com

Time to go check it out!  The game itself hasn’t yet started, but launches August 15th and much has happened so far, setting the stage.

• Follow the discussion at Unfiction

Tags: deleted, eklipse

Categories: ARGs General

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…

Tags: d20, hellboy

Categories: ARGs General, Puppetmasters

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.

Tags: bungie, halo, ilovebees

Categories: Puppetmasters, Viral General