Gaming Visionary Creates ARG For New York Public Library

[ADDLibrarian]

That's pretty awesome, but I'm nowhere near NY. Moving ARGs from video games to libraries to get people a little interested in learning again....

Awesome. That picture is brilliant.

And yay for libraries doing cool things! Hope they have a good turnout.

 

[Queen Michael]

I love libraries, so huzzah for this idea! (I've got twelve library cards. How many do YOU have, eh?)

 

[HellsingerAngel]

So, apparently scavanger hunts are now ground breaking psychological ideas? I'm so utterly confused. I hate to break it to you, Ms. McGonigal, but my childhood would like a word with you on plagerism for those ideas you're claiming to be your own.

 

[Anton P. Nym]

So, apparently scavanger hunts are now ground breaking psychological ideas?

I suppose you could call this a scavenger hunt. I suppose you could also call Counterstrike "Cops and Robbers", for that matter, and add about as much to the discussion.

Try reading up on ARGs, or maybe even try one; I participated in a couple, and they felt completely different from (and much more involving than) scavenger hunts.

-- Steve

 

[HellsingerAngel]

So, apparently scavanger hunts are now ground breaking psychological ideas?

I suppose you could call this a scavenger hunt. I suppose you could also call Counterstrike "Cops and Robbers", for that matter, and add about as much to the discussion.

Try reading up on ARGs, or maybe even try one; I participated in a couple, and they felt completely different from (and much more involving than) scavenger hunts.

-- Steve

Ok, so I actually decide to indulge your request. I really don't know all that much about this, as you stated, so I got a basic grasp on how this stuff works. Please, correct this information if it's wrong, but this is what I've gathered:

* Puppetmaster - A puppetmaster or "PM" is an individual involved in designing and/or running an ARG. Puppetmasters are simultaneously allies and adversaries to the player base, creating obstacles and providing resources for overcoming them in the course of telling the game's story. Puppetmasters generally remain behind the curtain while a game is running. The real identity of puppet masters may or may not be known ahead of time.
* The Curtain - The curtain is generally a metaphor for the separation between the puppetmasters and the players. This can take the traditional form of absolute secrecy regarding the puppetmasters' identities and involvement with the production, or refer merely to the convention that puppetmasters do not communicate directly with players through the game, interacting instead through the characters and the game's design.
* Rabbithole - Also known as a Trailhead. A Rabbithole marks the first website, contact, or puzzle that starts off the ARG.
* Trailhead - A deliberate clue which enables a player to discover a way into the game. Most ARGs employ a number of trailheads in several media, to maximise the probability of people discovering the game. Some trailheads may be covert, others may be thinly-disguised adverts.
* This Is Not A Game (TINAG) - Setting the ARG form apart from other games is the This Is Not A Game aesthetic, which dictates that the game not behave like a game: phone numbers mentioned in the ARG, for example, should actually work, and the game should not provide an overtly-designated playspace or ruleset to the players.

So a dungeon master helps lead a set of adventurers through the city in an attempt to create and epic adventure, setting up plot hooks, obstacles and puzzles for the adventurers to solve...

You know what? This is rediculous. This particular person is literlaly trying to make a claim to fame through a game that's existed for almost fourty years! And from a handful of the playerbase which is segregated by the other portion of the playerbase at that! I'm not even sure how she's getting away with this. I suppose it's because LARPers are pretty nice people and they don't really care how you do it, just that you do it. As I said before, good to know Ms. McGonigal is such a braintrust that she needs to take concepts that have been around forever and then claim them as her own work.

 

[Anton P. Nym]

Ok, so I actually decide to indulge your request. I really don't know all that much about this, as you stated, so I got a basic grasp on how this stuff works. Please, correct this information if it's wrong, but this is what I've gathered:

What you've gathered isn't even wrong, to use the current vernacular. It's like describing baseball as a guy throwing a ball that another guy tries to hit with a stick... it's correct, as far as it goes, but vastly incomplete. You'll get a better feel for what an ARG is by reading up on individual games done in the past.

The Beast [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Beast_(game)], arguably the first full-scale ARG... a promo for A.I. that was better than the movie.

I Love Bees [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I_Love_Bees], the famous/notorious promo for Halo 2.

World Without Oil [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Without_Oil], a "serious game" ARG exploring the consequences of "Peak Oil".

Last Call Poker [http://news.cnet.com/Last-Call-Poker-celebrates-cemeteries/2100-1043_3-5963346.html] (link to cnet.com) was an ARG written by Walter John Williams as a promo for Gun, but also exploring how society copes with our mortality.

Why So Serious? [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Why_So_Serious#Marketing] promoting, well, three guesses...

Maybe there are elements of LARP in it... but what describing it as "just another D&D" misses is the scale, both in depth and breadth, of the games. That's why I said the comparison is as unfair as dismissing Counterstrike as just a fancy way to play "Cops and Robbers".

-- Steve

PS: In the interests of full disclosure I should say that I know people who've worked in some of the above ARGs.

 

[Simriel]

I want the piece of music used in that trailer. It was very good.