Alternate Reality Gaming

So, at the moment I'm working on the most exciting project imaginable! I am, with the aid of the group of geeks and creatives I've put together, developing an Alternate Reality Gaming campaign for the publisher Fahrenheit.

You might now wonder, what is this ARG stuff? I'll start by remarking that Alternate Reality Gaming (ARG) is completely awesome.

It's exciting transmedia storytelling, creating great and sometimes very complex collective experiences for anyone who plunges into it. Participants actively help each other patch together the story line from a myriad of clues, which can be gleaned from all kinds of sources both online and offline. So, it's sort of like a scavenger hunt were fragments of the story line is what you are hunting, using websites, social media networks, phones, newspaper articles, props, real live events and pretty much anything the Puppet Masters (that would be me and the gang) can come up with as sources and clues.

Here is an excellent explanation of how the concept works. A good example of an ARG game could be the first big mainstream one made, as a promotion for the Movie AI, a game better known as The Beast. Here's a description of how it was made and how it worked.

Now ARGs are sometimes made for fun, but often they serve a purpose. This purpose is typically drawing attention and interest to something... ARGS have been made to promote films (as in the case of the Beast), computer games and bands for example. Our current project is linked to the Danish release of a comic book series... but I shall say no more of this presently.

I shall blog endlessly on this subject, but for now ARGS ARE AWESOME! If one is very interested in ARGs I highly recommend the most informative forum www.argn.com and also these 3 books

"Reality is Broken" by our hero Jane McGonical
"This Is Not A Game: A guide to Alternate Reality Gaming" by  Dave Szulborski
"A Creator's Guide to Transmedia Storytelling" by Andrea Phillips

Enjoy!