Infocult: Information, Culture, Policy, Education

Another ARG antecedent: Rennes-le-Château

Once we start reexamining cultural history for alternate reality game (ARG) antecedents, examples keep popping up.  Today's example is "ARG as a new model for Rennes-le-Château phenomenon", which reconsiders that French archaeological nexus as a protoARG. 

Mariano Tomatis Antoniono starts by noting the insertion of story documents into everyday life:

The absence of solid documentation about any treasure found by the priest led to the creation, by different groups of people, during the 20th century of a number of false documents, artifacts and apocripha [sic], for reasons upon which modern researchers still haven't reached a consensus.

The most frequently quoted example is the literary production of Pierre Plantard and Philippe de Chérisey, who created - and deposited to the French National Library in Paris - a great number of documents regarding the survival of a hidden Merovingian dynasty...

Tlön, Uqbar, Rennes-le-Château.  Antoniono then identifies the puzzle content:

the alternate versions of the history of Rennes-le-Château describe its priest Bérenger Saunière as a member of secret societies, a wizard of old egyptian cults, and the area is full of hidden tombs, chests full of treasures and clues on their trail, all linked through complex geometries, anagrams, and mysterious inscriptions; all the characters involved show a double personality: the public and the esoterical one.

The article also notes one ARG project or story management problem: other players becoming puppetmasters on their own terms, forking off new games.  This is one basic dynamic of open source storytelling (but not at automatic one: see here).

This reinterpretation bears comparison with another French hoax from a previous generation, the great Taxil scheme.

(via the Wikipedia ARG article)

Mysteries and stories for the Cloverfield sequel

A viral campaign or ARG for the Cloverfield sequel is appearing.  It consists of images resembling surveillance camera screenshots, like this one:

And a transcript page, consisting of redacted conversations:

ATSUMI: It went after them.

4767: (unknown)

Atsumi: Nothing. We even tried using the (unknown) remnants. We can’t get a link. It hasn’t…(unknown)...

4767: (unknown)

ATSUMI: What? I didn’t hear you? Oh, no, no! (screaming)

4767: (overlapping) (unknown)

ATSUMI: I can’t..(screaming)

Where are these found?  This directory has some, along with a domain name suggesting government work (USG) and secrecy.   A login and password has been found, too.  Filmofilia has more, and points to Unfiction.  And that Unfiction thread focuses on this blog, Missing Teddy Hanssen.

Another piece of the story: news stories about the mysterious collapse of a deep-sea oil rig.

Now for me to find time to follow this.  And actually watch Cloverfield.

(via io9)

Deep Chalk: an art game for the casual game world

Deep Chalk is an art game for casual games.  It's mysterious, requiring players to deduce rules by careful observation and exploration.  What's being observed is a whimsical alternate world, containing an alarming number of fishhooks, and across which a rotating crystal voyages.

Post-disaster mysterious game: The Fog Fall

The Fog Fall is a fine new casual game from Mateusz Skutnik. It takes place in an elaborate bomb shelter, apparently in an alternate history where the Cuban Missile Crisis led to an atomic exchange.  You assemble clues and items in order to get out.  Escape the bomb shelter, as it were:

(via JayIsGames)

ProtoARG Chesteron story podcasted

The classically proto-ARGish Chesterton story "The Tremendous Adventures of Major Brown" has just been podcasted by Librivox.  They also did the rest of the stories which appeared in the Club of Queer Trades (1905) collection.  Enjoy!

Another fine hoax story: Alternative 3

Has anyone seen Alternative 3?  This was a British tv hoax from the 1970s, with an excellent conceit.  It was the final episode of a non-fiction, fact-based science show, Science Report, and broadcast by the reputable Anglia Television.

The show opens on a tone of somber journalism, reporting on a previous story which fizzled, concerning Britain's "brain drain."  That serious tone is maintained throughout, never wavering, as the reporter unfolds a tale of possible abduction, reticent scientists, disappearing witnesses, environmental disaster, secret video tapes (and video decoder cards!), a mad astronaut, and apocalyptic US-Soviet collaboration.  It's like an X-Files episode from an alternate history, but bleaker, on a far lower budget, and aimed by the end squarely at the fourth wall.  Only the final credits, and the labeled broadcast date (April 1), bring us back from the edge.

In its full range Alternative 3 feels proto-ARG-like, as BlackBeltJones notes.  See, some viewers and people who read about the story became convinced that there must have been a cover-up.  In a recursive way, Anglia TV's program is to the actual truth what Apollo was to the Mars colony.  Books are out there, apparently, and of course websites.  There's even a YouTube video called Alternative 3, but containing different content (also on Google Video).

Still more goodies:

• Brian Eno contributed music.
• It was supposed to be shown on April 1st, but hit the airwaves later.
• This has got to be an influence on Warren Ellis' Planetary, issue 6 (like this, too).
• Wikipedia agrees with me, that this feels a lot like that episode of Dimension X, "Man in the Moon," where postwar Nazis kidnap scientists to populate a lunar base.

(thanks to BlackBeltJones!)

Questionaut, new whimsical game from Amanita

Questionaut is a sweet, easy adventure game, aimed at the younger K-12 audience.  Czech creative team Amanita has done other, related work, like the Samorost sequence (1, 2).

(via Jay Is Games)

New Bow Street Runner game episode: arsenic in the bagnio

The second part of the fine Bow Street Runner game is now online.  As we noted when blogging the first installment last month, this is a point-and-click adventure, browser-based, taking place in the eighteenth-century criminal underworld.  You play a detective working for Judge Fielding.

In part 2 you attempt to understand what happened to one George Harbottle, the autopsy of whose corpse starts the game.  Determining the nature of the crime, and who was ultimately responsible, requires a journey into gambling dens and bawdy houses.

As with the previous installment, gameplay is an excellent mix of full-motion video, good voice acting, exploring rooms, and minigames.  Said minigames are easier than in part one.  The final evidence game is easier to work than part one's, and more forgiving.

The attention to period detail is superb, from the layout of rooms to costumes, handwriting and language to hackney ads and euphemisms.  Like part 1, part 2 builds up a dark world, starting with a hands-on autopsy (you may decline this offer), heading into illegal prostitution.  I think it's the first game I've played which shows 18th-century condoms, unused and used.  Other characters are usually either ruthless or despairing, and the ultimate satisfaction of solving a mystery is mixed with a sense of dark futility.

What a splendid game!  Bravo,  channel 4.  Now to wait another long month until episode 3...

What can a level 5 Damiens do?

Jesse Walker wins best Dungeons and Dragons put-down of the week, in honor of Gary Gygax's death:

On one level it's a liberatory vision, one where anyone can create a world for everyone else to play in. But Gygax gave it a Foucauldian twist: In the end, each of those worlds is still a dungeon.

Yes, yet another Michel Foucault/Huey Long joke.  Even crueler than NPR's flip geek-bashing.

Get The Glass: Flash game audacity

This game uses Flash in very ambitious ways.  Get the Glass is an ad-game for the Got Milk? campaign, and features 3d animation, gorgeous art, multilayered soundtracks (music, voice acting, sound effects), a stack of minigames, charming designs, and a cast of characters.

(thanks to Andrew Connell!)