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Contents
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Applying Specific Text-Style Formatting .. . . . .• .• ..• . . . . . .282 Working with Fonts . . . ..... . . . . . .. . . . .. . • • . . . . . . .282 Setting Italics .......................... • ........ 282 Bolding Text ........................... •.. ...... 283 Adjusting line Height . ..... . . . . . .. . . ...• . .. . . . . . .283 Setting Text Color and Text Background ..... • ........ 284 Aligning Text ..........................•........284 Underlining Text .......................... . ...... 285 Changing the Text Case ..... . . . . . .. . . ...... .. . . . . .285 Working with Absolute and Relative Positioning ...........285 Preventing Image Overlap ............................289 .290 Hiding and Displaying Elements ............... .291 Specifying the Foreground Color and Backg rounds . . Specifying Text Wrap Options ....... . .292 .292 A Complete Style Sheet Layout Example .300 Summary
Appendix A
Online ARG Resources . . . ... . .. . . .. . . .... • . .... 301 Gaming Web Sites ........... .. . . •.•• . . .. •.. •.. ...... 302 ARGN.com ..... . . . ..... . .. . •. • . . ...• ... .. . . . . .. 302 Unfiction.com .......... •. ..... ••. ...... • ....... .304 Other Gaming Sites ...... .. . .• . •.. . ... .. ... ...... 307 ARG-Related Resources .... . .. ..... . ••. . ... ... .. ...... 310
Index . ........ .... . . . . .. .. . . .. . .. . .. ... .. . .313
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INTRODUCTION
Are You Ready for an Alternate Reality? The following is excerpted from one of the best alternate reality gaming Web sites, http://www.unfictio n.co m:
After a fOllg day of surftllg the web, yOIl crash hard and sleep sOl/tldly. Bllt suddenly YOII are awakened by the persistent ringing ofyOllr phone. YOLI CU!Slver it. and the voice at the other end speaks sitl isteriy. "If yOIl know whM'Sgood for YOII, you'll back off YOII don't want this. you really don't." You're sitting in the dark at 3:00 a.m., staring at the 'low-dead pho/le, thinking to yourself, "What 1wve 1gotten into?" Tllen YOIl remember the strange web site you signed lip for enrlier tlUlI evening 011 a lark. YOII realize that whoever they are, they already know a lot more about yOIl lIlan you do about thelll. YOll'd better get cracking. Welcome to the world of Altemate Reality Gaming. Sound interesting? Well then. let me tell you a little sto ry. I was int roduced to alternate reality gaming as I was driving ho me fro m wo rk one Friday afternoon. Since driving can often lead to its own unique state of alternate reality as the miles open your thoughts to extended reverie, it's not surprising that I would have become so fasc inated with this to pic at first while behind the wheel. I have a one-way work commute of about forty miles, so I depend o n my radio to help pass the time. More specifi cally, and when I'm not listening to a favo rite CD, I have the radio tuned to the local National Public Rad io station because there is always something interesting being discussed. xii
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Introduction
As it so happened on this particular Friday aft ernoon, the program I was listening to was doing a story on "number stations," and the intrigue and mystery that has built up arou nd them. Number stations are shortwave radio broadcasts th at have mysterious vo ices reading off non sequiturs as their only content, followed by long listings of numbers. A typ ical broadcast migh t consist of something like, "Yankee Hotel Foxtrot ... Yankee Hotel Foxtrot:' fo llowed by a few electronic beeps and blurbs, and then a lo ng listing of numbers. These numbers don't appear to have any recognizable meaning, nor do the words and phrases that precede them. Some of the broadcasts occur at the same time each evening, while o thers are more random. And to make these broadcasts even mo re perplexing, the voice reading off the numbers is often of a different gender and accent, and sometimes the voices are even children. Again, it was a Friday afternoon as I was listening to this story, and alii really wanted to do was get home and relax with a favorite beverage after a long week of work. I was about to turn off the stat ion when the narrator of the story men tioned two things that really piqued my interest. First, that someone-a Mr. Akin Fernandez-had actually been cataloging and recording these broadcasts for several years, and had released them as a boxed set of recordings. And second, that one of my favorite bands, Wileo. had taken the ti tle of o ne of their recent CDs, Yankee Hotel Foxtrot, from one of these shortwave broadcasts. The story went on to say that the Wileo CD actually contained short snippets of these broadcasts. mixed in wit h (for that band) the sometimes atonal, cacophonic transitions between songs. This was a CD I had owned for two years and had listened to repeatedly. How could I have never noticed these mysterious "number station" excerpts? Probably because it never occurred to me that there was a hidden or oth erwise larger meaning to these strange sounds; I was just wai ting on them to be over and the next typically catchy song to begin. Arriving at home. I immediately went to my computer and did a search on the term "Conet Project," which is the name of the audio boxed set of number station broadcasts that M e. Fernandez had compiled and released. To my surprise, there were severallinks on the Web related to this topic, and the issue of "number stations" in general. O ne li nk in particular was a link to an August 2004 story in the Washington Post, which described Mr. Fernandez's interest and research with number stations, and more specific backgrou nd (and inte resting controversy) on the release of "The Conet Project."
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As mentioned in the sto ry:
"Conet" gives off a whiff of the vaguely forbidden: Maybe the govertlment doesn't want YOIl to hear this. And your parents won't get it. A"d ifYO Il listen today, it, the age of Code Orange, it actllally sounds a little sinister, with echoes of tl'e "chatter" the Blish administration is always warning us abOllt. What could be more frig htening that, "chatter"? "Conet," it, other words, delivers a couple of the slightly subversive thrills that rock could once deliver willlOut breakillg a sweat. It feels new, a little dangerous, a ticket into a subCIIllrlre of sorts. That's all experience yOIl don't find in record stores milch anymore, in part because rock has beet! around for 50 years-(ltId cat! atlytlling that old really feel dangerolls?-and in part because corporate America long ago figured alit there's gold ill the lmdergrolmd, and now mines and mass-produces ;t faster every year. III a way, "Collet" is a meaSllre ofjust how [ringeward yOIl need to head these days to find something that delivers the frissot! of th e margins. (Excerpted from, "The Shortwave and the Calling." http://www.washingtonpost.coml wp-dynlarticlesl A3 564 7-2004Aug2. html )
Not e If you can't load the story from the link provided here, you might want to first visit http://www.washingtonpost.com and (freely) register to the site. You can probably guess fro m my reference to Wilco that I am a music fan . Actually, I am a music junkie, and am dedicated to alJ ge nres of music. Rock, jazz, country, classical- music is my thing. In reading the Post story, I was intrigued by the idea that "The Conet Project" might rep resent a new direction in music, and I absol utely loved the idea that it might be something "slightly subversive," which translates to me as truly innovative and exciting. The fact that it also carried wi th it a sense of intrigue and perhaps something forbidden only made me want to lea rn more about it.
Note For more information on the Conet Project, as well as other links to and information about number stations, see http://WVvW.irdial.comiconet.htm. I will talk more about the Conet Project and its potential ARG implications in later chapters, so stay -tuned in - for morel
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Introduction
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Enter Alternate Reality Gaming Later that eve ning, after the usual Friday night pizza and movies with the fam ily, and after everyo ne else had gone to bed, I decided to do some more searching around the Web and see what else I could find about number stations. And at some point that night, as my interest in the mystery of number stations and what they might represent was at a fever pitch, I happened to click on a link that presented me, for the first time, with the term "alternate reality gaming," or ARG for short. I recall that at first I didn't think much of it. Actually, I assumed that it was just a reference to the use of digital avatars, in such games as Tire Sims, or on Web sites like the virtual tropic paradise there.com. But it was late at night, and I was in that won derfu l trance of discovery and wonder that "free-form" Web surfing can often induce, when the magic of hyperlinked texts leads you in directions you never imagined. $0 I went ahead and clicked on the link, and I was taken to the Web site for the Alternate Reality Gaming Network, or www.argn.com.whichis highlighted in th e figure below,
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Intro-1 The home page for the Alternate Reality Gaming Network (ARGN) Web site.
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•
._.
.. ,,, ..
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Introducti on
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and also happens to be the most definitive, com prehensive resource for alternate real ~ ity gaming on the Web. In looking at the definition of ARG, the argn.com site had posted the CNET defini tion, which is as follows:
{An ARG] is an obsession-inspiring genre that blends real-life treasure hunting. interactive storytelling. video games and online cOllll1l1mity .... These games are an intensely complicated series of puzzles involving coded Web sites, real-world clues like the IJewspaper advertisements, phone calls in the middle of the night from game characters. and more. That blend of real-world activities and a dramatic storyline has proven irresistible to many." Obviously, I was instantly fascinated by that definition, since it seemed to imply something that was mysterious, subversive, intellectual, and challenging, just like the number station topic I discovered earlier th at afternoon on my drive home fro m work. Most of all, it all sounded like a great deal of fun. In furthe r exploring the site, I quickly came to two conclusions: • Alternate reality gaming had been arou nd for much longer than I thought, and its origins came from a very unexpected source. As you will discover in this book, ARCing first really came into existence as part of the 200 1 Steven Sp ielberg film, Artificial Intelligence (A. I. ). While that film is st ill only a few years old, I had not originally anticipated that ARCs were anything that had been around for more than just a few months. • I was immediately and absolutely fascinated by the concept of ARCing and wanted to learn as much as I could about this truly original genre of computer gaming. If players had somehow managed to cross the line between the virtual and physical worlds as they played the games, that to me implied all kinds of interesting things to consider, not the least of which was the question: Is there a "danger" in blurring the line between the real and the imagined? If my memory serves me right (I wish I had kept a record of my discoveries that evening ... ), I stayed up for most of the night reading about ARCing. I was also pleasantly surprised to discover that others had started writing on the larger intellectual ramifications of ARCing. Civen that I wo rk in higher education , I had already begun to think about applying the concept of alternate reality gaming in the classroom, so the articles I found by other researchers immediately caught my attention (a few of these researchers will be discussed within the pages of this book).
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Introduction
I'm getting a bit ahead of myself here, as all of these issues will be explored and discussed throughout the pages of this book. But the point I'd like to make for now is that ARG ing is a multifaceted genre of computer gaming, and o ne that has the potential to blow the doors off the way we define computer gam ing, as well as our cu rrent views of the Web as a tool for communication and collaboration. And like the descrip· tion of number stations from the Washingtoll Post story, those currently engaged with ARG ing are very much on the "frisson of the margins" in terms of the thing they are interested in and the incredibly provoca tive and fasci nating di rection this "thing" might take them.
What This Book Is About If you just read that previous section and are concerned this is going to be some kind of dry, boring academic discourse, let me assure you that this is most certainly not the case! Not that I have anything against dry, boring academic di scourses (I men· tioned I work in higher education, right?), but I realize that they are not something that most people tend to pick up to read, especially those who are interested in computing gam ing. And I'm assuming (of course!) that you are interested in computer gaming, and by picking up this book you want to learn more about one of the most exciting recent developments in this area.
So. that said, the focu s of this book is not to prepare you to write an academ ic thesis on what an ARG means to the future of Western civilization. Rather, what this book is about is discovering what alternate reali ty gaming is all about, considering the very interesting implications (e.g., blu rring of lines between real world and virtual) that can arise from this discovery, and of course learning how to play and enjoy ARGing, thus the focus on the phrase, "A Guide To" in the book's title. As you read through its pages, you'll be presented with all of the fo llowing: • What is ARGing and what are its origins? Again, don't worry about this history being presented as dry facts. Rather, the (relatively brief) history of ARGing is as interesting a topic as anything on computer gaming, or anything technology-related, to be quite honest. Understanding the development of ARGing is essential to becoming a better player and useful in becoming more involved in the larger ARG phenomenon. • Learning how to play. As you now know, I first was introduced to ARGs through a radio story about number stat ions. Perhaps your first introduction to ARGs will be this book (which would be great). The question of how you
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Introduction
learn to play an ARG is nearly as interesting as the games themselves. Ultimately, to be a successful ARG player, the key skill you need to acquire is how to think critically: despite the difficult (boring?) overtone of that phrase. you wiU be pleased to discover that you are already a critical thinker, and that you just need to see how you can focus you r critical thinking skills (and your other interests) into an ARG context. You will see examples of this through a review of how an actual ARG was played out (Chapters 3 and 4), as well as by playing an ARG simulation yourself (Chapters S-7). • An ARG example. As you read in the CNET definition above. the most devel-
oped ARGs blend fact with fantasy, and include (as you will soon discover) players receiving actual phone calls, e-mails, faxes, etc., Chapters 5-70f the book will give you a taste for what ARGing is all abo ut. And, as you will soon discover. new ARGs are coming online every day, so there's plenty of opportunity to play for those who are interested.
How This Book Is Arranged This book is divided into four general sections: • Chapters 1-2: These chapters lay the groundwork for defining what alternate reality gam ing is all about, as well as strategies and techniques for learning to play and othenvise becoming involved in the genre. • Chapters 3--4: These chapters present a summary of how the granddaddy of aUARGs--the game developed to help promote the film A. I.-was played and eventually solved by a group of individuals who dubbed themselves the C/olldmakers. These two chapters will present not only the unfolding of the game's fascinatjng story line, but also highlight the unprecede nted (and perhaps unexpected) level of collaboration and "collective intelligence" that was utilized by the Cloudmakers to solve the mystery of the game. • Chapters 5-8: In these chapters. you'll get a chance to participate in a simu lated ARG (Route 66). which will allow you to experience some of the flavor and fun of being involved in an ARG. While the ARG presented here is primarily con tai ned with in the pages of this book. you will nevertheless have a chance to interact with actual Web sites, and-as your inte rest dictates- perform a great deal of your own self-exploration and discovery, as you seek to answer the meaning of the statement. "The old road is the new road." Your "virtual ARG" will take you from the steps of the Monument to Westward Expansion (the "Arch") in 5t. Louis, through the desert Southwest, and finally to the beaches of Southern California.
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Introduction
• Chapters 9-10: To quote from a fa mous e~mai l (which you will learn about) in "ARC history," these two chapters will give you a peek behind the cu rtain as you learn about ideas and techniques for developing your own ARC- related story lines and Web pages, if you want to consider designing your own game at some point in your ARC discoveries. I would stress that these chapter divisions are very informal, and that I will take liberties in mixing different topics from one section of the book to the next. Actually, you can really view this book as being organized under o ne big section with a title, " Learn About the Fascinating World of Alternate Reality Gaming!" So don't get hung up on these chapter divisions-I've mentioned them here just to give you a general idea of how the book is organized and arranged.
Who Should Read This Book? This book has three potential audiences, and none of th em with the possible exception of the third (although that is debatable), assume you have any prior ARG experience . They are as follows: • Those readers who aren't computer garners, but who are interested in alternate reality gaming. The question of whether or not alternate reality gaming can even be considered "computer gaming" is an interesting one, and will be explored in more detail in Chapter I. However, if you don't consider yourself a computer gamer in the traditional sense of that term, don't worry, because you r enjoyment and interest in ARCing is not dependent on you being on the Halo 2 mailing list. • Those readers who are experienced computer garners and who are intrigued by how alternate reality gaming might be a radical new extension of the computer gaming genre. For those of you who have been involved with computer gaming for some time, you will find much to be interested in with alternate reality gaming. As you will see thro ughout the book, there are many similarities between how an ARC is played and, for example, liveaction, role-playi ng games (discussed in Chapter I) and role-playing games in general. • Those readers who are interested in designing their own ARG storylines and Web sites. The term "p uppetmaster" is often used to describe those people who are behind-the-scenes or "behind the curtain" and develop the story lines of an ARC and various co mponents of it. While this book is primarily aimed at players and especially those who are new to ARCing. there is
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spec ific material in Chapters 9 and 10, as well as general tips, techniques, and strategies throughout the other chapters of the book that will be of interest to aspiring puppet masters.
Special Elements Used in This Book The following special elements are typical of what you'd find in any computer gaming/technology book. All of them have been designed to provide yo u with su pplementary (and sometimes critical) related information to the topic at hand. A brief description of these special elements fo llows here: Tip
Tips provide helpful shortcuts and tricks to assist you with the topic at hand.
Note
Notes provide you with additional information about the product or technology being discussed.
Caution
Cautions provide you with warnings of potential pitfalls/problems you might encounter along the way.
Sidebars Sidebars contain additional information that is not only directly relevant to the chapter but which you might find interesting or helpful during your learning process.
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, CHAPTER
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1
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1:;-
UNREALITY: HISTORY OF
A
I BRIEF
ARG
I L.
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T
he world of alternate reality gaming, at least as we know it now, is a relatively young world, dating back to the spring of 2001 . While there were many precursors (at least conceptually) to this world, the gaming genre really did begin back in the spring of 200 1 when an otherwise innocuous advertising campaign for a science fiction film caught t he eyes and imaginat ion of some savvy moviegoers. A few
month s later, a group of these folks had collectively dubbed themselves as the "Cloudmakers," and the fascination with alternate reality gaming began in earnest. Now, less than five years later, the term ARC is slowly but surely starting to enter the popular computer gaming lexicon, as more and more people are becoming immersed in this st range and fasci nating world. Fact or fiction? Innocen t, provocative fu n or something more sinister? Mani pulative corporate marketing or legiti mate gaming genre? These are all question s that h ave been (and are continuaJJy) asked when it comes to what, exactly, ARG means, wh ere it came from, and wh ere it is headed. This chapter will provide yo u with a brief introduct ion to the world of alternate reality gaming and will take a shot at addressing (but certainly not answering) the abovementioned questions, as well as others. If you are looking fo r definitive answers, you won't find them here. Then again, if you are the type who needs definitive answers to puzzles and mysteries, yo u probably won't enjoy the world of ARGing. But, if you're willing to let go of you r othernrise st ructured and rat ional view of what constitutes reality (or more specifically, what const itutes the p ossibilities of gaming), then read on as I th ink you are going to like what you discover.
1
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2
Cha pter 1 •
Unreality: A Brief History of ARG
ARG Defined Copyright © 2005. Course Technology, Incorporated. All rights reserved. May not be reproduced in any form without permission from the publisher, except fair uses permitted under U.S. or applicable copyright law.
So what exactly is alternate reality gaming? You might be asking yourself this question after reading the introductio n to this book with its talk of mysterious "number stations." the blurring o f the lines between the virtual and physical worlds, and strange references to Steven Spielberg movies. You also might have serious reservations about reading any fur ther. Let me put your fears aside and convince you that the world of alternate reality gaming is a world that is most definitely worth exploring. From experienced garners (computer or otherwise) to those who just enjoy a good mystery, perhaps the most enticing thing about ARCing is that. because of the content of the games and how those games are presented, th ey assume (indeed, demand ) interact ive collaboratio n betwee n several different players in order to solve the mysteries they contain. As you will see later in this chapter and especially Chapters 3 and 4, this level o f collaboration can be nothing sho rt o f mind blowing (a nd I use th at phrase in the best sense of the word )! And what's more, the collabora tive aspect of ARCing has already shown promise as a method of communication that can (and will) move out of the purely "game" arena and into other disciplines like academic. business, and marketing and any other area where p roblem solving and critical thinking are required. Note These -alternative- uses for alternate reality gaming will be discussed later in this chapter.
But getting back to the question at hand. what exactly is alternate reality gaming? I invite you to consider the following definition. as fo und on Wikiped ia.com:
An alternate rea lity game is a cross-media game tlrat deliberately blurs the line between tile in-game and ollt-of-game experiwces. While games may primarily be centered aralHld online resources, often events that happen inside the game reality will "readl Ol/t" into the players' lives ill order to bring them togeth er. Elements of til e plot line may be provided to the players in almost any form, some of those used have bew: • e-mail • Web sites, both those obviously connected with the game and those imlocent lookillg-often where the bulk of the game lies, these sites provide puzzles in many forms, e.g., cryptography
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ARG Defined
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• phone calls to a player's home, cell, or work phone • land mail • newspaper articles or classifieds • chat/instant messaging and so on-the games have been known to initiate conversation • IRe channels
• real-world artifacts related to the game in play • real-world events utilizing actors who itlteract with the players who attend These games often have a specific goal of not only itlvolving the player with the story mId/or fictional characters but of co1mecting them to each other. Many game puzzles can be solved ollly by the collective and collaborative efforts of multiple players. (Source: http://en.wikipedia.orgl wiki! Al terna te_reality...,game) If this sounds interesting, then you've come to the right place, because you will see some truly fascinating examples of these "elements of the plotline" throughout this book, as we take a dose look at how ARCs have been developed and played. However, I would emphasize th e dosing part of this definition , which suggests that because of the complex nature of the games, that solving them requires "the collective and collaborative efforts of multiple players." Understanding this issue of collective and collaborative team play is essential to understanding the meaning (and fun ) of alternate reality gaming. So, as you undertake the otherwise solitary, individual activity of reading this book, don't lose sight of how bein g involved in alternate reality gaming is anything but a solitary activity. Tip
Puppet master, defined: In ARG parlance, the puppet master is the person (or persons) who are behind the creation and execution of an ARG, and who are otherwise" pulling the stringsH in terms of rolling out the various clues and elements (like those listed above) that comprise the game's narrative flow. Figure 1.1 highlights the Wikipedia entry for alternate reality gaming. Note that in the highlighted section of the definition (shown in the figure), the various o nline and other references (many of which are discussed in this book) provide more information on this topic.
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3
4
Chapter 1 •
Unreality: A Brief History of ARG
..
~
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I '~ 0-·0
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Figure 1.1 The Wikipedia entry on alternate reality gaming is a great resource for continuing
your exploration of this topic. Now that you have some basic definition of what alternate reality gaming is, the best way to really illustrate what all the excitement is abou t is to prov ide yo u with an overview of what is still perhaps the most famou s ARG, from its development to the group of players who solved its central mystery. It all begins in the dista nt future and centers on a woman by the name of Jeanine Salla.
Beginnings: Paging Jeanine Salla It was the spring of 2001, and the Steven Spielberg film A.I. (ArtificiaI Illtelligence) was starting to make waves at the box office. The film, set in the distant future, fo l· lows the tale of a young robotic humanoid named David. Having tho ught they've lost their real son, Ma rtin, a young couple acquires David in an attempt to begin the healing process, hop ing that his presence will help them move o n with thei r lives.
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Beginnings: Paging Jeanine Salla
However, early in the film , their real son recovers from his near-dea th illness and returns home. Once there, it is not long before the robo tic David is quickly ignored and eventually left o ut in the world to fend fo r himself. The focu s of the movie is o n David's adventures through the futuristic world, in an atte mpt- not unlike a fu turistic Pi nocchio--to fin d some method of becoming a real boy. A.I. is a challenging film, both in terms of its ambitious conceptual scope and involved story li ne. Indeed, the last thirty minutes of the film alternatively pull o n your hea rtstrings, as well as your conscio us ability to follow what the ultimate point of the film really is meant to represent.
However, we are not concerned here with reviewing the film , but rather what it has to do with the birth of alternate reality gaming. As it turned o ut, the connection between the film and ARG was very subtle, at least initially. There was nothing done to consciously announce the presence of any type of game (ARG or otherwise) related to the film , but rather it was left up to attentive movi egoe rs to notice a few "hidden dues" that were st rategica lly, and in retrospect, ingenio usly, placed in advertisi ng material for the fi lm. Tip
The AI ARG was commonly referred to ominously as the ~ Beast. · What were those dues? So me moviegoers noticed that, on the backs of posters for the film , some of the lettering o n the posters was circled in curious ways. While this would become of interest later, this clue in and of itsel f certainly wouldn't grab the attention of most people, and perhaps not even those who were actively looking for a mystery. Rather, it was a mysterious name that appeared in the fi lm's credits that served as a much more intriguing ind ication that something else might be go ing on. Fo r those who happened to notice, a credit in the film was given to a Jeanine Salla. with her role in the film being that of "sentient machine therapist." Those curious enough to find out more about Ms. Salla quickly found that, not surprisingly, she had a presence on the Web, as shown in Figure 1.2. O ne of those who noticed these strange dues revolving around th e film was a person by the name of Cabel Sasser, a computer programmer from Oregon. Sasse r was curio us as to whether o thers had also noticed these dues and what might be behind all of the mystery. In an attempt to solve the puzzle, Sasser formed the "Clo udmakers," a Web-based discussion forum that had as its sole intent (at least initially) to solve
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5
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Chapter 1 •
.. . --- ... ~
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Unreality: A Brief History of ARG
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Figure 1.2 Jeanine Salla, who turned out to be a seminal figure in the world of alternate reality gaming.
the mystery of the A.I. riddle. Who was Jeanine Salla? Did those strangely circled let" ters on the movie posters have some sort of deeper meaning? What other clues might be unveiled by digging just a little deeper? These questions were the focus of the Cloudmakers' efforts. And soon (very soon, actually about 48 hours) after launching the Cloudmakers' discussion forum, there were over 150 other curious individuals who had joined the discussion. When the game ended in July of2001 , the group boasted over 7,400 members. Figu re 1.3 high" lights the Cloudmakers' Web site. as it can be accessed today. While the work of the Cloudmakers will be discussed more in this chapter, as well as Chapters 3 and 4, it's worth noting at this early point in our discussion what being a Cloudmaker represented, at least in several cases. Given the intrigue and mystery sur rounding this very unique and strange "game," the addiction to solving it became just that: an addiction. While you can attach various connotations to that word addic lion. the bottom line is that, for many of the Cloudmakers, the involvement in the game and in the larger collective group that comprised the Cloudmakers represented a truly unique and consuming experience. Reports of lost sleep, lost friendships, and lost jobs were not uncommon, as tremendous energy and devotion was put forth in 4
4
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Beginnings: Pagi ng Jeanine Sa lla
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0- '
-index
-----------_._------------_. __..._..__ .. _---_ .... -- . ....-._---. -----_.- ---_ . _-_ .. _-_ _--------------------_ -----_. _ _--_ ...---_. --.... -.. ... -.--.__ .....-_... ..._.,__---------_ .._. ---_ ..__ _.. ._ .... _-- .. _.. _._----_. -_........._..__-,.._._---_ ...
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Figure 1.3 Visit cloudmakers.org for a complete history and overview of the group's work on discovering and solving the Beast. trying to discover the answer to the q uestion. "Who killed Evan Chan?" (Chan was, as in itially tho ught , the mysterious character that had bee n murdered and was at the center of the game's mystery.) Tip Although referenced elsewhere in this book. be sure to read the article. "This is Not a Game: Immersive Aesthetics and Collective Play " by Jane McGonigal, University of California. Berkeley. The article provides an overview not only of the Cloudmakers' work. but also a discussion of what the group's work might mean in terms of the larger power and possibilities of "collective intell igence," not just for solving games, but also. potentially, for solving real-world problems. You can read this article online at: http://www.seanstewart.org/beastlmcgonigal/notagame/paper.pdf
Eventually, the Cloudmakers d id solve the mystery, and the A.I. ARG, mo re popularly refe rred to th en (and now) as the Beast, was history (although as shown in Figure 1.3, their journey of discovery through the A.I. ARG remains very well documented, not to mention summarized in Chapters 3 and 4).
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Unreality: A Brief History of ARG
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But what (or rather, who) was behind the Beast? And why did they go to such extreme levels to design a game to help market a movie? Read on ...
From Turkish Newspaper to Iowa Dinner Table The origins of the development of the Beast are nearly as interesting as the process that unfolded in solving it. Early in January of 2001, a group of talented writers and Web designers met within the Microsoft gaming development group (you knew Microsoft was going to come into this sooner or later, right?). One of these writers, Sean Stewart, has a terrific Web site devoted to his experiences with the Beast, as well as other projects he is involved with (all of which are interesting and worth checking out). Figure 1.4 highlights Sean's Web site (www·.seanstewart.orglbeastlintro.html) and the section devoted to the Beast. As Sean describes it. he and others involved in the development of the game were given the fo llowing des ign directives from Jordan Weisman, who was the head of development for the game (you can read more about this on the Web site listed in Figure 1.4). • The narrative of the game would not be presented in a structured. linear fashion but rather should be broken into fragments so that players would have to reassemble those fragments into a more cohesive whole. • The game, if it were to be solved, would require an unprecedented level of cooperation and "collective intelligence," made possible through the collaborative possibilities of the Web. • The game would be more interesting if the players really didn't have any idea of who or what was behind the game. including (as Sean Stewart points out) other Microsoft employees! • Finally, the game would be more interesting and engaging if information about the game were presented to players in a variety of formats, incl uding Web sites, e-mails, phone calls, newspaper clips, telev ision spots, and so on. lt is that second bullet here that is perhaps most important to draw attention to in this early discussion. The idea of using the Web as a large-scale collaboration tool was certainly not a new idea to those involved with designing the Beast. Indeed, the conceptual fram ework for large-scale collaboration has been in existence. in other forms. for many years. However, the Web through its unique format and popularity has raised the possibilities of this type of collaboration to an entirely new level. at least in terms of what had been perceived o riginally prior to this event. The game designers knew this, and wanted their game to be a refl ection of this collaboration. As Sean
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From Turkish Newspaper to Iowa Dinner Table
.....
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Figure 1.4 Sean Stewart's Web site and his discussion of his involvement with the Beast. Stewart comments on his site: " If we put a clue in a Turkish newspaper at dawn, it would be under discussion in a high school kid's basement in Iowa by dinner time." Also of interest is the co ncept that the game should not admit itself as a game. As the Beast developed through the late spring and early summer of200 1, television advertisements for the A.!. film actually started to carry the tag line, "This is Not a Game" for those who had become immersed in solving the mystery of the Beast. And as the ga me also sought (per the fourth bullet above) to deliver its content in new and unusual ways, players did, in fa ct, receive "real-world " clues through various realworld mechanisms, such as e-mails and phone calls. The concept that your "game" might call yo u at work was revolutionary and wi ldly successfull y. Speaking of that success, and by evidence of this book's existence (that is, the popularity of ARGing), the game designers we re successful beyond their wildest expectations. When the Beast ended in July of 2001, in addition to the 7,400 Cloud makers' membership, there were over 42,000 messages that had also been posted abo ut the game. Moreover, those people behind the production of the game estimated that more than one million people from around the world had played the game. Not bad statistics for a game that denied up until the very end that it wasn't a game!
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Unreality: A Brief History of ARG
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Note
So, why call it the Beast? As legend goes, one of the first content inventories of the game exposed the fact that there were 666 pieces of information. Given that the number 666 is known in various religious eschatology as the devil's favorite number, the moniker of the Beast was given, and ended up sticking to, the game.
But ... ls It All Just a Marketing Trick? The title of this section is. admittedly, a bit of a loaded statement. Personally. I want to become interested and involved in something (gaming or otherwise) thro ugh my own free will and not because I have been manipulated or otherwise duped into thinking my foc us of in terest is not what it appears to be. That being sa id, you could look at the Beast and indeed all ARGs as nothing more than very elaborate marketing gimmicks. And to some degree, that's exactly what they are. One term that has been used to desc ribe the seductive power of ARCs is the concept of viral marketing. Simply defined, viral marketing refers to any concept or strategy that encourages (and especially makes viable and possible in a uniq ue way) individuals to pass o n an arguably marketing-specific message to others. In the process, this has th e ability for that message to reach an exponentially large number of people, as the message, o r more precisely the process in wh ich the message is communicated, acts like a "virus," infecting the thoughts and buying hab its of those "infecte d" by the virus (as least that's what the companies doing the marketing hope will happen). Note
for a concise, informative overview of the concept of viral marketing (including examples), see the article, ~ The Six Simple Rules of Viral Marketing ~ (http://www.wilsonweb.comlwmtS/ viral 'pri nciples.htm). Those who are very active within the ARG commun ity would (a nd do) ada mantly deny being under th e influence of any dastardly marketing plot. or at the very least are qu ite voca l in sayin g that while they might see the marketing aspects of being involved in an ARG. that the games are, for them, ultimately much mo re than just a clever way of tricking them into buying a video game, seeing a movie. and so o n.
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But... ls It All Just a Marketing Trick?
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On What Side of t he ARG Marketing Fence Sh ould Vou Sit?
Ultimately, I would suggest that as you make your decision on where you stand on th is ~ debate ~ that. ultimately, you don't take the issue too seriously. I say that from the simple viewpoint that if you find something that gives you enjoyment, and-if while enjoying that something you aren't hurting anyone else, hurting yourself, or breaking the law-then that thing (whatever it is) probably is doing you more good than harm, and is something to continue to explore. And, ultimately, if you think for even one microsecond that you are immune from the effects of our media-crazed culture, where advertising jingles and campaigns often transcend the very thing that is supposedly the focus of interest (think: Super Bowl ads), that is a viewpoint I would most certainly spend a fair deal of time and energy arguing against! There is simply no way that anyone can escape the influence of mass-market culture and advertising. By that statement, I am not suggesting that you can't be aware of that influence (and in turn, try and gauge the level to which you are influenced by it). But to suggest that you are immune is. I would argue, not possible. But getting back to our specific discussion of ARGs, there is a tremendous amount of fun you risk losing out on if you take too critical of an outlook on the ~ bigger meaning ~ of ARGs. Don't forget that in all this conceptual and academic talk (much of which I am guilty of pandering to also, a nd-admittedl~f which I have included at least a bit of in this book), there is a key word that you simply cannot forget, and that word is. of course, GAME. Agame, by its very definition, is something to be enjoyed. Be it poker, chess. basketball, or an alternate reality game. That being said, I would suggest that this talk or • argument - over what percentage of ARGs are legitimate, exciting gaming and what percentage is marketing baloney has been overstated. Yes, the Cloud makers might have ultimately been yet another in a long line of unsuspecting folks who fell victim to yet another variation of the Microsoft juggernaut. but judging from their experiences, they had one heck of a good time, and their experiences with the Beast have led to some fa scinating new avenues of both gaming and exciting new ways of utilizing the Web. So, in bringing this discussion full circle and repeating the title of this section: Marketing ploy or gaming genre? Who cares, as long as you have fun being involved with ARGing! lecture over.
Gosney, John W. Beyond Reality : A Guide to Alternate Reality Gaming. Boston, MA, USA: Course Technology, Incorporated, 2005. p 11. http://site.ebrary.com/lib/drexel/Doc?id=10087001&ppg=32
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Unreality: A Brief History of ARG
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Tip
There are many discussion threads on this topic of whether ARGs are something in and of themselves or just the latest in a series of never-ending marketing gimmicks by our marketobsessed culture. For an example of one of the more interesting discussions, see the thread devoted to this topic on argn.com, available at: http://www.argn.com/forums/ viewtopic.php 1t=878 Despite how you may fee l about marketing, there is an undeniable marketing component to alternate reality gaming. And, as with all things related to ARG ing, how that compo nent has developed is a very interesting story in and of itself. It all starts back in 1999 with a little fllm about a nasty witch who lived on the outskirts of a small Maryland town. That same town/film is our next destination as we travel the road of ARG history, so let's go there now.
From Witches to Mind Control: The Immersive Marketing Connection In the summer of 1999, fans of horror/thriller films began to take notice of advertisements for a new film entitled The Blair Witch Project. The film , as it was billed, was the true account of three college st udents who had decided to make a film based on the legend of a witch who lived in the woods of Burkittsville, Maryland. What was so intriguing (and frightening) about the film was not just that it was a "true story," but that the film had been "found"-that is, the students had taken their cameras into the woods to film their documentary, and they were not heard from again. Three years later, footage of their expedition into the woods was d iscovered, which included segments of them preparing for their expedition and, very unsettlingly, their apparent final moments. Given this was 1999 and use of the Web was commonplace, it was not su rprisin g that a Web site was established to provide curious moviegoers wi th more information about this unnerving film. Figu re 1.5 illust ra tes the home page of www.blairwitch.com. Exploring this Web site reveals some very unusual information, most notably the lack of any kind of typical promotional material. There are no "actor bios," links to other studio fi lms, or any other information that would ident ify this as being a Web site devoted to a film. Instead, the site is constructed to give more detailed information about the events surrounding the fllm, so as to make it appear as if it were a true story.
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From Witches to Mind Control: The Immersive Marketing Connection
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·Fill
Figure 1.5 The Blair Witch home page. Note the lack of usual marketing detail that would mark this as a typical film promotional site. Figure 1.6 highlights the "Mythology" link that gives a detailed timeline of events surrounding the legend of the Blair Witch. Notice, too, in Figure 1.6 how many of the items that are listed are hyperlinked. If you click on these, you can see additional supporting information (often in the form of actual photos) that details the specific event/location in question. Figures 1.7 and 1.8 are two examples, allowing visitors to the site to gain a more thorough understanding of the story that the film itself details. Again, as you explore the site, there is nothing to indicate that this is not, in fact, a true story and a detailed overview of the events surrounding the disappearance of the students. Police reports, stills from the discovered film, and interviews with the missing stude nts' families can all be found within the site. If you are reading this and are becoming intrigued by what the story represents, then congratulations for you have fallen into the world of immersive marketing, which is both a critical element of the best ARGs. And, if you want to hop in your car and drive to Burkittsville, Maryland to take a little hike into the woods yourself, then even more kudos are in o rder as you clearly are of the ARG mindset.
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13
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Chapter 1 •
Unreality: A Brief History of ARG
Figure 1.6 A detailed timeline of events leading up to the disappearance of the three students and the subsequent discovery of their film.
But before you gas up the car, you need to know something about the Blair Witch, the disappearance of the students, and the subsequent discovery of their film- none of it is true! When TIle Blair Witch Project was first released back in the summer of 1999, it fright· ened a great number of people (myself included). The film was not "gory" in the tra· ditional horro r film sense of the word. but rather presented an ingenious twist on the horror ge nre: by shooting the film in pseudo-documentary fashio n, it gave the illu· sian of being an act ual accoun t of real even ts. The film 's studi o, Artisa n Entertainment, decided to further play up th is illusion by constructing the Web site you've seen illustrated in the previous figures, and otherwise treating the film as if it were a true story.
Gosney, John W. Beyond Reality : A Guide to Alternate Reality Gaming. Boston, MA, USA: Course Technology, Incorporated, 2005. p 14. http://site.ebrary.com/lib/drexel/Doc?id=10087001&ppg=35
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From Witches to Mind Control: The Immersive Marketing Connection
Figure 1.7 ~Coffin Rock, ~ the site of many gruesome events surrounding the legend of the BlairWitch .
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.
Figure 1.8 The discovered remains of a car belonging to one of the student filmmakers.
Gosney, John W. Beyond Reality : A Guide to Alternate Reality Gaming. Boston, MA, USA: Course Technology, Incorporated, 2005. p 15. http://site.ebrary.com/lib/drexel/Doc?id=10087001&ppg=36
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Chapter 1 •
Unreality: A Brief History of ARG
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N ote
Another interesting earlier example of larger ARG concepts was the classic 1938 radio broadcast of the H.G. Wells classic, The War Of The Worlds. For a few terrifying hours, there were many listeners who were not aware they were only listening to a fictional broadcast. and as a result they honestly believed the Earth was being invaded by some very nasty Martians with very bad attitudes. For a comprehensive (and very interesting discussion, especially in the context of ARGing) review of this classic moment in radio broadcasting, see http://members.aol.com/jeffl070/wotw.html as well as http://members.aol.com/jeffl070/ script.html for a complete transcript of the original broadcast.
Benefit s (and Drawbacks?) of Immersive Market ing An extraordinary number of people bought the story of the Blair witch as true-and for good reason. I remember getting into a rather heated argumen t with a fri end who was absolutely convinced the story was true. This friend was adamant that her "evidence" (including the Web site highlighted above) was proof that the story was real, and she pointed to the large numbers of Web forums devoted to a discussion of the Blair Witch legend. All of this leads to an interesting question, which I've al ready presented in earlier chapters of the book. That question is this: Is it unethical or potentially dangerous to present this type of"immersive marketing" (and ARCs in general) as real, even if the majority of those people involved are able to separate fact from fiction? And, for the discussion here, just how effective is all this as a marketing tool? An answer to that last question is difficult to ascertain. While the number of players of both the Beast and " ilovbees" has been fai rly well-supported, the effects of these ARGs on the number of tickets sold to the film A. I. or the number of purchased copies of Halo 2 are more difficult to measure. Still, it is clear that immersive marketing is here to stay. Moreover, the complexity of the marketing does not have to rise to the level of the Beast in order to be effective. Indeed, several exam ples of immersive marketing techniques, most involving films , offer no more than a single Web site. But on these sites the interested visitor can become part of the larger fi lm experience in a number of intriguing ways, usually through playing some type of multimedia-rich game that is themed around the film itself. Clearly, the Web site developed to promote The Blair Witch Project was an early pioneering example of the entire concept of immersive marketing. And more recent examples (that is, ARCs) have taken the concept to an entirely different level.
Gosney, John W. Beyond Reality : A Guide to Alternate Reality Gaming. Boston, MA, USA: Course Technology, Incorporated, 2005. p 16. http://site.ebrary.com/lib/drexel/Doc?id=10087001&ppg=37
From Witches to Mind Control: The Immersive Marketing Connection
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The immersive marketing used to promote the 2004 remake of the film The Manellurian Candidate is of particular interest. Figure 1.9 illustrates th e home page for the film itself. ,
~ ___
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.-"
Figure 1.9 The Web site for the film The Manchurian Candidate
Compare this home page to Figure 1.5. Clearly, Figure 1.9 is promoting a fi lm, as we can see indications of film reviews, information on tickets, and show times, as well as the MPAA rating given to the film. However, take a look at Figure 1.10, which illustrates the home page for the com pany Manchurian Global (http://www.manchurianglobal.com). As I'm sure you've guessed, there is a connection between the film and this Web site for "Manchurian Global." But, just as with the Blair Witch site, there is no indication in Figure 1.10 that Manchurian Global is not a real company. Indeed, the site is full of very realistic, legiti mate-appearing info rmation. Figures 1.11 and 1.12 highlight the level of detail the site designers have gone to in order to make Manch urian Global appear as if it is were an actual company.
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Cha pter 1 •
Unreality: A Brief Hist ory of A RG
Figure 1.10 The otherwise unremarkable Web site for the Manchurian Global company.
.
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Figure 1.11 Detailed information on the company's mission, as well as quotes from its senior management, can be found on the site.
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else? A link to the company's Mprivate extranet. •
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From Witches to Mind Control : The Immersive Marketing Connection
~
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Figure 1.12 A bio of the compa ny's CED, "Mr. Walter Stevenson:
Notice th e callout in Figu re 1. 11 to the "Private Extranet." When you click o n this li nk, you are presented with a typical secure login prompt, asking for a username and password, as shown in Figure 1. 13. This is an actual secure login prompt, because just entering any username and password (unless they are the correct ones, of course! ) will result in you seeing a typical "access den ied" page. What sec rets lie buried within Manchurian Global's extranet site? As expec ted, a thread was established on argn.com to try to break the secure login. Figure 1. 14 illustrates a snippet of that discussio n. Tip
To read the full argn.com discussion thread on Manchurian Global, see the following link: http://forums. unfiction.comtforumsfviewtopic.php?p=49252
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Cha pter 1 •
Unreality: A Brief History of A RG
Figure 1.13 Proper security credentials are required in order to access Manchurian Global's extranet.
__ .. _----,-_ __...--..__...__ ---_ ......_ . _---_ ...__._---._--_ ._.-. ... _ _-_ ..._......._----_. . __. _--_._--_ ..........-.-_ ....--...... ...-.---_--_ -....... ....... __.......--__---_ ...._._........ . . . ---------_ - .._._...._- ....__._.... -_---..__...... ...-._--_ ....... __...... ..-_-_
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Figure 1.14 So what's the username and password for the Manchurian Global extranet? Oh yes, I can give you that information. It's ...
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From Witches to Mind Control: The Immersive Marketing Connection Note
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For a nicety organized list of various film-related immersive marketing campaigns. as well as other great discussion on the entire topic of immersive marketing, see the following link: http://www.miramontes.com/studioslmuseumlbytitJe.php
What's the final consensus on these types of immersive marketing techniques? Well , to the consumer, I think you'd be hard pressed to say that , at Ihe very least, they are entertaining supplements to the larger product. And at the risk of editorializing, the immersive marketing techniques (that is, such Web sites as described above) are often more enterta ini ng and engaging than the films they have been developed to help promote. Ultimately, I would suggest that to answer the question of how effective these immersive marketing techniques arc really depends on what side of Ihe commercial fence you happen to find you rself. As a consumer (and by consumer I also mean ARG player), I think these types of marketing techniques are great. Personally, I didn't think The Manchurian Candidate was that great of a film , bu t the larger mystery of the "Manchurian Global" Web site was fascinating , and I found myself easily taken in by my interest in discovering what was hidden within the company's "private extra net." By default, this type of interest is going to lead to some related discussion of the film. For example, imagine that I'm discussing with friends my work in cracking the security code to access the Global Manchurian extraneI. Inevitably they are going to ask me how my interest in this came about, and-inevitably-I'm going to mention the fi lm itself. This is a great example of the "viral marketing" concept that was discussed earl ier in this chapter, since I have now referenced the name of the film and thus "infected" my fri ends so that the next time they are at the video sto re, wondering what DVD to rent, The Mallchurian Candidate might pop into their head. But how does all this play from a marketer's perspective? Or more spec ifically. what is the perceived value of immersive marketing, including fully-developed ARGs. from the company who is trying to sell their product, be it a film, video game, etc.?
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Chapter 1 •
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To answer this q uestion, you would probably want to conside r the fo llowing informat ion: • How complex or involved does the immersive marketing concept reaUy have to be in order to be effective? • What exactly is being promoted via the immersive marketing concept? • How can you differentiate publicity generated by the immersive marketing concept versus publicity generated about the concept? • Finally, what is the total temporal scope of the concept; that is, should it be designed to last for several months (or longer) o r would a "quick answerlsolution" be sufficient? (from "Exocog: A case st udy of a new genre in storytelling" by Ji m Miller. http://www. miramontes.co m/studios/exocoglindex. html) Again, you may be asking you rself why you, as an ARG enthusiast, need to be concerned with a marketer's perspective. I'd answer that comment, in an admittedly tongue- in-cheek way, by using an old saying, " Know your enemy." I don' t think it belittles or o therwise reduces your enjoyment of the ARG experience by keeping in mind that what you are playing is just a game, and one that has been developed, in many cases, to market a product. I would also suggest that the more you think about and become familiar with immersive marketing techniques, the more effective of an ARG player you will become. lust watch out for witches who live in the woods and presidential candidates with a weird gleam in their eyes .... Note
While the idea of viewing an ARG as a viral marketing technique is admittedly a bit distasteful, there are nevertheless some very interesting (and less nefarious) marketing implications of ARG concepts, which are leading to what may prove to be another type of communication that is not quite a full-blown ARG but at the same time more than just simple marketing. While this topic is discussed in more detail in Chapter 10. take a look at http://www.miramontes.com/studioslmuseum and the examples of immersive techniques" that have been collected there. Figures 1.15-1.17 highlight one example you can access from that site, which is the immersive game that has been developed for the film The Grudge (you can also access this site directly by visiting http://www.sonypictures.com/homevideo/thegrudge/index.html and click on the link. ~ Enter the Site"). Word to the faint of heart this is a vetyunnervingWeb site. combining the best design elements of the Web (did someone say marketing component of the Web 1) to deliver an engaging. albeit very creepy. Web experience. Check it out! M
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From Witches to Mi nd Control: The Immersive Marketin g Connection
'., -- -- - -
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~
-_.
- . --- .-.
.
..
.Figure 1.15 The site allows you to upersonalize wyour experience by entering your first name and last initial.
, ---.----_._-----
Figure 1.16 Furthering the personalization factor, you are presented with instructions.
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.
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Chapter 1 •
Unreality: A Brief History of A RG
Figure 1.17 Here you are inside the house, and you immediately get the feeling you shouldn't be there.
A Heist, a City, and a Bunch of Bees There are new ARGs coming online all of the time. How do you find the rabbit hole that leads to the inside? The best way to become involved with the world of alternate reality gaming is by visiting the Web sites and d iscussion forums devoted to the topic. Figure 1. 18 highlights the argn.com site, illustrating the breaking ARG news and updates that are frequently updated on the site.
Tip Rabbit hole, defined: In ARG parlance, a rabbit hole is the initial site, page, clue, posting, and so on that provides an entry to an ARG. Discovering a rabbit hole can be by chance, by paying very close attention to things which seem out of the ordinary (e.g ., the ~sentient machine therapist~ credit in the A.I. film), or-more than likely-by being well-connected with the larger community of players and Web sites devoted to alternate reality gaming.
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A Heist. a City. and a Bunch of Bees
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~
.. .
- .~
-----_. ==..-
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Figure 1.18 If you are interested in alternate reality gaming. you need to bookmark argn .com Tip
For a general reference guide to online ARG resources, be sure to check out Appendix A. "Online ARG Resources." At the time o f th is writing. the two major ARGs in play are known as "The Heist" and "Perplex City;" however. mo re are certainly in development and will be launched after this book goes to p ress. Bo th of these ARGs are pushing the bo undaries of the genre. and not witho ut some cont roversy (controversy that will be explo red in more detail in Chapter 2). In terms o f recently concl uded ARGs, the "ilovebees" ARG was yet another elabo rate and heav ily produced ARG, which was developed to help p romote and launch the Microsoft video game. Halo 2. Figure 1.1 9 highlights the home page o f ilovebees.com. The ilovebees ARG was a bi g hit and ended up winning several awa rds, not th e least of which was the 2005 Webby awa rd for best ga mes- related Web site. What was intriguing about this ARG was its significant use of real-world act ion (i.e., asking players to ventu re in to th e real world to search fo r d ues and to utilize geocaching and
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2S
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Cha pter 1 •
Unreality: A Brief History of A RG
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.. - _ .GeE)
Figure 1.19 Hot ARG wax flies at www.ilovebees.com.
other "real world" techniques to search for clues). Of course, the Web still served as a central tool for collabo ration and communication about the ARG, but this physical world component brought a new dimension and interest to the game. The "ilovebees" ARG, as well as "The Heist" and "Perplex City," will be discussed in more detail in Chapte r 2, as we look at the specific d irections these"second generation" ARGs are moving towards, and once again the potential controversies and concerns they may be generating. Tip
Geocaching is an interesting subject in its own right, as well as how it is being integrated into the world of ARG. For more information about geocaching, see http://www.geocaching.com/ faql
ARG Ancestors: An Extended History In addit ion to my work with technology, I teach literature at the college level. Of particular interest to me is twentieth century American and European literature. And of even more specific interest are the writings of a group of American writers from the
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ARG Ancestors: An Extended History
1950s, who are known collectively as "the Beats." Including such notable authors as Jack Kerouac, Allen G insberg, and William Burroughs, these individuals attempted to express in their writing the anxiety and desperate search for individualism that resulted in the years following the end of World War II and the onset of the Cold War. Much of their writing almost takes on a stream·of·consdousness style, as ideas and concepts Oow from one sentence to the next (or simply flow in one long sentence that can take up nearly an ent ire page of text). What do the Beats have to do with alternate reality gaming? In fact , they have quite a bit in common. Well, they have a lot in common if you are willing to look for the co nnections. but since I'm interested in both the Beats and ARGing, I've had no prob· lem making that connection , and I'd like to use it to illustrate the provocative impli· cat io ns of how ARGs can be used as powerful educational components that allow students to lea rn and have a great time while they learn. The following sections will describe this ARG·Beat connection , as well as high light other educational concepts that show a direct connection to alternate reality gam ing. Along the way, I will also highlight some classic novels that either have strong ARG overtones or could easily be used as a basis for a new ARG. So listen up aUyou aspir· ing puppet masters-if you're looking for content for your ARG. you might want to visit your local library and check out some of the titles I'm going to discuss here.
Pulling the Puppet Master's Strings The development of the term "puppet master" is interesting in and of itself, and worthy of its own consideration. Where did the term come from, at least in regard to how it is used within alternate reality gaming? As with most ARG terms, it has its origin in the Beast. Since the story line contained Pinocchio references, when those people behind the creation of the game revealed themselves, they were nicknamed "the puppet masters.· While that might be the official history, there are other interesting avenues to explore, in learning more about the larger implications of the term for ARGing. For example, what might be the connections between the term and the · puppet-play · described in Keith Johnstone's Impro: Improvisation and the Theatre (1981P In that work, Johnstone describes four ways of role-playing, one of these being puppet-play or ~ the manipulation of a character primar· ily as a puzzle·solver or token : Another interesting reference to check out is Paul Mason's ~ In Search of the Self: A Survey of the First 25 Years of Anglo-American Role·Playing Game Theory " (see hnp:llwww.ropecon.rilbrap/chl.pdf).
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Chapter 1 •
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finally, for another interesting consideration of not only "puppet mastering" but of the entire ARG concept, you might want to check out Antonin Artaud's classic essay on the theatre, The Theatre and Its Double. In that work, Artaud describes his concepts of breaking down the tra· ditional walls that separate the performer from the audience, and thus creating a more immersive (and powerful) context for experiencing art (and as a result, the real world, too) . And if you really want to go back in your " original ARG" analysis, you might want to consider Plato's Republic. and his various ruminations on the dangers of art. especially when used as a mimetic (representative) device for reality.
Taking ARG " on the Road" The sample ARG you will play in Chapters 5-8 is based o n the concept of taking a road trip across America. Not coincidentally, the road trip was an essential thematic concept in many Beat writings. For example, Jack Kerouac's classic On tile Road, which is considered by many to be the definitive Beat novel, saw its characters experiencing road trips as methods of self-discovery and personal freedo m, and no t simply lo ng rides in a car. Figure 1.20 highlights one of many Web resources devoted to this classic novel and its author.
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Figure 1.20 The National Public Radio (N PR) Web site and their show .. Morning Edition" have provided an excellent overview of Kerouac and On the Road. See http://www.npr.orglprogramsimominglfeaturesipatc/ontheroad/
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ARG Ancestors: An Extended History
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I teach a course on the Beats and have integrated an ARG component into the course structure. The concept of the ARG, and how I utilize it , are described below: • I utilize traditional material for my course, including novels and textbooks. However, I also ask that my students have direct access to a computer with Web access, so that they can connect the course's Web site. • At the beginning of the course, I assign my students into groups of four. The students will stay in these groups for the course of the entire semester. • Working in th eir groups, the students are presented (on the first day of the course) with a directive to take a road trip from 51. Louis, Missouri to Los Angeles, California. However, this isn't an actual trip, of course, but rather a virtual trip. Util izing carefully selected Web sites that correspond to various locations, the students will pass through an actual journey from 51. Louis to Los Angeles. The ARG requires that they "chart" their journey by finding clues o r making connections between these sites and the larger context of the course. • What is that larger context? Again, a recurring motif within Beat writing was the road trip (or more specifically, the concept of being mobile). In an attempt to give my students a taste of the Beat expe rience, I use this virtual road trip as a way of highlighting and otherwise clarifying the other course material they are studying. The ARG, then, is this journey and the subsequent learning issues are what they develop on their own and within their group, as they seek to define their own attitudes and impressions of the Beats (and in the process, of themselves). • Finally, the "answer" to the ARG is their term paper, which is a su mmat ion of everything they have learned throughout the course of the semester. I ask the students to write it in the form of a diary, chronicling their journey from 51. Louis (or the first day of the course) to their arrival (last day of the course) in Los Angeles, and everything they have learned through their experiences along the way. Admittedly, all of this is a very academic discussion of the benefits of utilizing an ARG in the classroom. But I think it highlights just how far-reaching and positive the impact and influence of ARG can and will be on areas outside of just the gaming world. While I don't want to hop up on a soapbox, I would suggest that, too often, the classroom environment can be a bit, shall I say, staid. Today's students have been raised on technology and are extraordinary media-savvy. They are capable of processing vast amounts of information coming at them from a variety of sources (television, the Web, radio, print). Given the culture they have been raised in, why not
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Cha pter 1 •
Unreality: A Brief History of A RG
exploit it so that the learning environment of st udents is a direct reflection of their culture? Put simply. if they are techno-savvy and strong interpreters of multimedia. then why not use these skills to help them learn? To me. all of this has obvious connections to alternate reality gaming. and it justifies ARGs both as things in and of themselves. as well as legitimate learning tools.
Using ARG to Develop Critical Thinking Skills I've already mentioned (and will mention throughout this book) that the ability to think critically is an essential skill for any successful ARG player. You need to think "outside the box" if you are to not only be a successful ARG player. but also to enhance you r enjoyment of the entire ARG genre. Of course. developing critical thinking skills is a central mission of education and especially so at the post-secondary (college) level. Again. it's already been suggested that the ARG process could be employed to tackle real-wo rld problems. For example. the Cloudmakers thought, momentarily, to try to use their collective intelligence to answer the multitude of questions that arose in the immediate aftermath of the 9/11 terrorist attacks. Clearly, viewing game-playing techniques as a method of addressing a problem as real and multifaceted as terrorist attacks implies quite a few things. To many people, these implications are not positive, nor are they to be encouraged. It takes a real sense of bravado on the side of the player in thinking that he can view a serious, real-world problem in "game" terms. Moreover, there have been suggestions (also discussed earlier in the book) that those who become too heavily involved in ARGing lose their ability to differentiate fact from fiction. and thus are in danger of becom ing lost in a fantasy world that might be nothing more than a clever marketing gimmick. On the other hand, the re are those people, of which r am one, who think that the implications of ARG techniques are not only legitimate fo r problem solving, but are perfect for use within the classroom. I should state here that I agree with the conclusion that was quickly reached by the Cloudmakers not to view 9/11 as a "game" to be solved. r believe that while their intentions were good. and that they wanted (legitimately) to see how far their collective intelligence could take them with regard to realworld problem solv ing, the scope of the event, not to mention (at the time) the infancy of their group would probably have combined to lead to more problems than solutions. Nevertheless, the idea that a group of people can pool their skills and resources via a medium such as the Web is just too fascinating and applicable an idea not to continue to explore it. One method of exploration that I think is of particular legitimacy
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ARG Ancestors: An Extended History
(which holds great prom ise) is applying the critical thinking skills required to play an ARG with in the classroom setting. While it's very possible I could have a wonder· ful cou rse o n the Beat without the above·described ARG compo nent, the benefits of integrating this compo nent, both in terms of the students' enjoyment of the class and their potential to learn , is too great not to explore. And since critical thinking ski lls are at the center of any ARG experience, it makes even more se nse to subversively exploit those skills in the classroo m (in the sense that students don't realize how much they are using their own innate talents to learn, i.e., if this "critical thinkin g" compo· nent were dryly and very directly forced upon them. they probably wou ld be much less open to it ). Not e
Problem·based learning (PBl) is an increasingly popular, student-centric teaching methodology for the development and implementation of critical thinking skills. For a concise yet comprehensive introduction to PBl, see the following link: http://www.otlf.com/html/pi/ 9B l 21pbl_l .htm.
A Novel ARG Concept As a kid I used to love the "Choose Your Own Adventure" book series. These were known as "game books" and were written so that at the end of each chapter you were given a choice as to what direction you wanted the plot of the story to head. For exampic, at the end of a chapter, you would be presented with the following:
If YO" decide to wait for tile bus to pick you up, trim to page 4. If you decide to ride your bike to school, tum to page 10. Depending on which o ption you selected, the story wo uld develop in a different manner. These books we re great because they engaged young readers with the text and were diffe rent (well, at least for a few times until you fi gured out the threc o r four possible plot lines) each time you read them. Not e
In some ways, the ·Choose Your Own Adventure Mbooks might be considered some of the ea r· liest versions of ARGs. For more information on this interesting (but admittedly nostalgic) series of books, see http://en.wikipedia.orglwikifChoose_Your_Own--Adventure. Predating the MChoose Your Own Adventure books by at least two years. you might want to consider the solo role-playing games, including M Adventure Mand · Zork · text-based computer games. For more information 00 these early ARG ancestors. see: http://www.csd.uwo.callnfocomiArticlesltimeline.html and hnp:/lwww.csd.uwo.ca/lnfocomiArticieS/NZT/zorkhist.html M
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Chapter 1 •
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I mention these books in the context of this chapter because, to me, they represent yet another way of approaching the "ARC mindset"-to be a success ful player, and to enjoy the gaming p rocess, you reaUy do need to open you r mind to the possibility o f not just multiple solutions to a problem, but how all of those solutio ns mighllink together to fo rm a more holistic, complete picture. Ultimately, the references I've discussed in this section may be of grealer interest to ARG designers and puppet masters than the average player. O n the other hand, all of these references highlight concepts, ideas, and techniques that are very much utilized by ARG players. Also, all of th ese references predate the emergence of alternate reality gam ing by several years. which in my opinion make them worthy of consideratio n and fur ther study. If enjoying and being successful at alternate reality gaming requires you to keep a critical eye fo r otherwise hidden or (on the surface) unrelated d ues/connectio ns, then being familiar with related ARG concepts, wherever those concepts m ight be fo und, is cri tical. That said, as you explo re these references and others, be aware of the larger ARG-related concepts that can be fo und within. Wh ile these novels, Web sites. games, and th eories m ight not necessarily lead you to the next rabbit hole, reading them in an "ARG state of mind" (a critical thinking state o f mind) will make them more enjoyable and satisfying.
Future ARG Directions In this chapter. we've looked at the larger implications of alternate reality gaming in such diverse areas as immersive marketing and educatio n. b ut those are just the tip of the iceberg. I'd like to d ose this introd uctory chapter to ARGing with a discussio n of what is perhaps the m ost intriguing d irection that ARG- related concepts might take us, and that is the po tential ability o f these games to be used as inst ruments of positive social change. O ne person who is already anticipating these larger ideas is Howa rd Rh eingold. A noted autho rity on the larger societal implications of technology, Rheingold has written extensively on to pics as diverse as virtual reality, smart mobs, and blogging. Note
To learn more about Howard Rheingold, visit his Web site at http://www.rheingold.com.
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Future ARG Directions
I-I o~
II'
-... -. . _. N__ .........__ '-"-"--_ _._--------_ ..----_.-_._-_ ... -_ .._--_......---'---"-'--::.::._---_ ._ _-. ==--=E .._... ....--_._---_ -_._---_._._---..... -_ --._--_.__._.......-..._-_ _.-
---
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c_
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~
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One of the more intriguing projects that Rheingold is involved with is the Institute for the Future (IFfF: http://www.iftf.org). The home page fo r the Web site is illustrated in Figure 1.2 1.
I"'_~
____ .
___
. __
•
•.
..••
Figure 1.21 Home page for the Institute for the Future. As a project for the IFfF, Rheingold has con tributed to "The Cooperation Project." The Project has as its stated goal the synthesis of knowledge through intellectual cooperation, and cooperation facilitated through a technological interface. However, the Project doesn't want the gathering and synthesis of this knowledge to be its final goal. Rather, it is ho ped that knowledge gathered in this more holistic, comprehensive fa shion can then be used to find new solutions for a variety of today's most pressing and difficult problems. This is heady stuff, and suggests methods of looking at technology o n a scale th at has, up to this point, been largely igno red.
Note Read more about The Cooperation Project at hnp:llwww.rheingold.comlcooperationICooperationProjecC3_30 OS.pdf.
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33
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34
Chapter 1 •
Unreality: A Brief History of ARG
What does this have to do with ARG? Quite a bit. actually. Remember how the Cloudmakers seriously considered using their collective intelligence to address the questions surrounding the 9/11 terrorist attacks? The power of organized groups (and organized through a technological interface like the Web) is becoming more and more apparent. I've suggested at various points in this book that the larger concepts involved with alternate reality gaming have obvious and relevant connections to what would be otherwise unrelated areas (such as. education, business, and so on). The Cooperation Project is yet another extension of this idea. in that the coll aboration and sharing of ideas/knowledge that are so critical to being involved with an ARG also have very practical applications. As it continues to evolve as both an exciting new genre of computer gaming. as well as having its underlying concepts applied to a broad spectrum of areas and topics, the future of alternate reality gaming is sure to be an engaging and fascinating one. Ultimately. a well-designed ARG is yet another example of the tremendous. fa r-reaching implications of how technology can help to faci litate unprecedented levels of communication on a global scale. If you just want to playa game and not think about the larger scope of ARG as discussed in this chapter, that's perfectly fine. of course. But. on the other hand. if you wan t to keep an open eye for where this topic might be headed in terms of an age nt for real social change. you might be surprised to find where it takes you. The futu re of ARG is indeed a bright one, and one that is full of intrigue, possibilities, and ... fun.
Summary This chapter presented an overview of the history and development of alternate reality gaming, with specific emphasis on the development of what most consider the first real ARG, which was the game, later to be termed the Beast. which was developed in conjunction with the film A.I. The chapter then moved to a discussion of the larger implications of alternative reality gaming by considering its (negative?) connotation as an example of "viral marketing," as well as its ability to utilize the Web in a truly groundbreaking fashion in terms of group collaboration and collective intelligence. Finally. the chapter concluded with a short discussion of recent games and a preview of what issues (some of them controversial) these new ARGs are presenting. both to those who develop and those who play them.
Gosney, John W. Beyond Reality : A Guide to Alternate Reality Gaming. Boston, MA, USA: Course Technology, Incorporated, 2005. p 34. http://site.ebrary.com/lib/drexel/Doc?id=10087001&ppg=55
, CHAPTER
-
2
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1:;-
I BEYOND
REALITY:
ApPROACHING
AN
ARG
I L.
-
N
ow that you have an idea of what alternate reality gaming is all about (or at the very least, a better idea of the history of this exciting new gamin g genre), you're probably wondering about the status of current ARGs-after all. the Beast was four years ago, so surely there must be something else going on. The good news is that ARGing is really starting to come into its own, and that at the
time of this writing is starting to show up on the larger computer gaming radar. Clearly, the success of the Beast and ilovebees has generated interest in the genre; however, so me recent (and, at the time of this writing, st ill ongoing) ARGs are moving things in an entirely new direction, with the games blending the virtual and physical worlds in unprecedented new ways.
This chapter will follow one of those new directions, as we explore the ARG known as, "The Art of the Heist." This ARG, which began in the spring of 2005, is blending virtual gaming (Web sites, e-mails) with clues and interactions in the real world. What is more exciting is that Heist is not alone in how it is app roaching this mix of the virtual and physical, as more ARGs have bee n announced that will do the same thing. We'll take a look at a few of these add itional games within this chapter, too. So, view this chapter as a kind of "rabbit hole" to the entire genre of alternate reality gaming, as you move from discovering an ARG to learning more about it to actually becoming involved in the game. The chapter is fra med in sequen tial order so as to try and duplicate the p rocess described above: • First, we'll pay a visit to a few of the well-known ARG-related Web sites, to see how ARGs are announced and how we can find out mo re information about them. 3S
Gosney, John W. Beyond Reality : A Guide to Alternate Reality Gaming. Boston, MA, USA: Course Technology, Incorporated, 2005. p 35. http://site.ebrary.com/lib/drexel/Doc?id=10087001&ppg=56
36
Chapter 2 •
Beyond Reality: Approaching an ARG
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• Second, we'll pick one of the current (again, as of the time of this writing) ARGs from the list of identified current games in play and see what resources are available to Jearn more about th e game. • Next, we' ll review the information posted about the game and explore some of the Web sites and other supporting information that details the history and status of the game. • Finally, and as a preview to Chapter 4 (where you'll learn more about specifi c tools you can use to enhance your ARG experience ), we' Ulook at how you can become involved, as quickly as possible, in an ARG of interest. Caution It is commonplace in entertainment-related magazines to have a big ~Spoiler Alert! · icon at the beginning of a movie review, so as to warn those readers who would othelWise want to be totally surprised by the film that by reading deep into the review, they may come across details that would give away or othelWise spoil the outcome or central surprise(s) of the film in question. While this chapter in and of itself does not contain any specific ·spoiler· information, you might nevertheless proceed with caution in exploring the Web sites that are mentioned, lest you get too far ahead of a game that you would might othelWise enjoy exploring completely on your own.
Tip
Keep in mind that new games are constantly being developed, so be sure and keep a close eye out for those emerging rabbit holes by frequently visiting www.argn.comandotherARG· related Web sites!
Finding an ARG I have mentioned (a nd w ill con tinue to mention ) the Alternate Reality Gaming Network (www.argn.com ) many times th roughout this book. The reason is simple: the site p rovides wha t is perhaps the most direct, well-o rganized and freq uently updated listing of ARG- related news and information that is to be found. In fact, you can think of the site as a kind of "ARG portal" because it links to other ARG-related Web sites and general information abou t the gaming genre. As we begin our initial introduction to the world of alternate reality gaming, let's start our journey by paying a visit to www.argn.com. Within the site (which is illustrated throughout this book), you can find news and information on the latest ARGs as well as general links to ARG-related information.
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Introducing "The Art of the Heist"
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If you can imagine reading this chapter "in real time"-that is, reading it in a manner as if you were actually going through the processes described-you would see on the argn.com site a listing of current ARGs that are in play. For this chapter, I want to take a look at the recent ARC, The Art of the Heist (or just the Heist for sho rt), and to specifically highlight the various informational postings and "quick start" guides that have been posted about the game. In reviewing this kind of supporting material for Heist, I have two major goals: • First, I want to highlight how you can quickly and easily get involved in the game that interests you most. And at this po int, I'm indeed assuming that you are interested in alternate reality gam ing. • Second, and by working through the process of getting involved in a game, I want to also highlight no t only the vast amo unts of available information regarding some of the bigger games, but also to preview the actual ARC game-playing process, including critical thinking and specific tools yo u can use to enhance your gaming. Now, click over to wW\\I.argn.com and look at the direct link to Heist (which will actually take you http:/w\vw.stolena3.com.a site discussed in more detail later in this chapter). Let's begin by learning more about the origin of the ARC and what it's all about.
Introducing "The Art of the Heist" If you visit http://soogees.com/stuff/heist/. you will find a detailed introduction to the Heist ARC. Figure 2. 1 highlights this page. I'd like to draw your attention to the following excerpt from th e o pening text of this page:
Heist is what we like to cal1 an Alternate Reality Came (ARC). Simply pllt, it's an interactive story told using real life events, character i1lteract ions, and In/erflet websites. We know tiJ(lr Heist is spollSored by Audi, bUI don't tlliflk of il as a marketing campaign. Take it for what it is--{l very filii and enjoyable game which you can participate in for free. Heist is also unique in that elements from real life afld the game are seamlessly blending together. Some of the charaders are real people with realI/ames, others might be actors. Eve1lts could unfold i" front of our eyes itl real life. and differe1lt e1ltities who exist i" real life are preset/ted as part of the Heist universe. That is why this guide will make tlO disti"dion between which elements are real or fake.
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37
38
Chapter 2 • Beyond Rea lity: Approaching an ARG
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• D,
Th. Art of The Heist·
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Figure 2.1 A true quick-start guide to The Art of the Heist. Clea rly the Heist is an ARG, and it's important to denote th is immedia tely at the beginning of the page, if for noth ing else than to help those who are fam iliar with ARGs to realize this is an objective informatio n site and not, perhaps, part of the game itself. If that stateme nt sounds too obvious to even both er mentio ning, I would challenge you to reconsider you r thoughts on this issue after you've had more experience in the world of alternate reality gaming. Wh ile it can be great fun to "suspend your disbel ief" and immerse yo urself in a game, it can also be refreshin g to know (and know fo r certain) that a site is what it appears to be and not a clue to something else.
Gosney, John W. Beyond Reality : A Guide to Alternate Reality Gaming. Boston, MA, USA: Course Technology, Incorporated, 2005. p 38. http://site.ebrary.com/lib/drexel/Doc?id=10087001&ppg=59
Introducing "The Art of the Heist"
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Note It's probably worth mentioning that ~ an ARG about an ARG ~ surely can't be far away; as the genre seeks to further confuse (in a good way, of course) the division between the virtual and physical worlds. However, for the time being and as you begin your journey into the world of alternate reality gaming, it is indeed worth mentioning that sometimes it's in your best interest to approach a Web site just for information and to not assume that everything you come across is part of an ARG. That said, though, the idea of approaching various non-game-related problems from an ARG mindset (so to speak ... J is certainly worthy of further exploration. We mentioned this possibility in Chapter 1, with the brief discussion of how, immediately after 9/11 , some Cloudmaker members wanted to view that day as a puule to be solved. There are two other very interesting points in this text excerpt: • "We know that Heist is sponsored by Audi."'n case you don't know, Audi is a car manufacturer and their products (that is, their automobiles) figure predominantly in the ARG. While this sponsorship might lead some people to view the ARG as nothing more than a subversive marketing tactic, in my opinion it's in your best interest to view the ARG as what it implies-a game that you can greatly enjoy without worrying if an Audi is going to be your next car. • "Heist is also unique in that elements from real life and the game are seamlessly blending together." To me, this is the most fascinating aspect of alternate reality gaming, in that ARGs like Heist really are creating an "alternate" reality, by blending the virtual with the physical. Clearly, this type of blending requires some advanced planning and development, but it does lend itself to a truly original gaming experience. Note As a quick counterpoint to the earlier comment that ARGs might be nothing more than slick
marketing gimmicks, it's worth noting that the most developed (and interesting) games were, in fact, supported by some major corporate entities. The Beast was developed through Microsoft and OreamWorks studios; ilovebees was yet another Microsoft-based ARG (used to help launch its Hal02 video game); and now with Heist, we see a major automobile manufacturer entering the ARG arena. The point here is not to argue definitely on one side of the ARG-as-marketing-ploy debate, but rather to point out that corporate backing (and funding) can lead to some very interesting, engaging games. Enough said.
Gosney, John W. Beyond Reality : A Guide to Alternate Reality Gaming. Boston, MA, USA: Course Technology, Incorporated, 2005. p 39. http://site.ebrary.com/lib/drexel/Doc?id=10087001&ppg=60
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Chapter 2 • Beyond Reality: Approaching an ARG
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When the Unreal Becomes .. .Too Real? Back in October, 2004 there appeared in my local newspaper an Associated Press story with the title, "Game Not All Fun After Bomb Scare." I was heavily into researching the ARG phe· nomenon at that time, so naturally the story piqued my interest (you can read more about the story by checking out the following Iink:http://www.newslinkindiana.com/newsJ 00000004649.html). In a nutshell, the "Web game " in question was not really an ARG, but rather a geocaching game. One of the participants in the game had placed a small box underneath a train as part of the typical "scavenger hunt" component of geocaching. However, local authoritiesunaware of the game-treated the box with extreme suspicion, fearing that it contained some type of explosive device. When interviewed, the local sheriff indicated that in an age where even authorities of small towns are getting CIA and FBI briefings on terrorism, a game that requires its players to hide suspicious-looking packages under railroad tracks might not be the best idea. In fact, the sheriff was quoted in the story as suggesting that formal charges could have been brought against the man who placed the package under the tracks. While it is not my intention to scare you off or otherwise make you paranoid, I think it's worth pondering this situation for just a few minutes. Imagine that one fine Sunday morning you are reading an interesting story in the "Entertainment" section of the paper that details the geocaching craze. You've always been interested in technology as well as puzzles. and think that geocaching might be right up your alley. So, a few weeks later, you go out to you r local technology supply store, buy a GPS device, and become involved in the local geocaching club. Eager to be involved, you decide that a great place to hide one of the packages is underneath a railroad track. And then. just like that. thinking that you were only becoming interested in a new hobby, you find yourself sitting in a sheriff's office facing a potential terrorism charge! Admittedly, this is an extreme example. But, it did happen and other related incidents are occurring as well. For example, a person in Jacksonville, Florida who claimed to be innocently discussing (via a phone conversation) details about a game of "Grand Theft Auto" he was playing found himself under arrest on a felony bomb threat charge (see http://www.jacksonville.com/tu-online/stories/052604/me,-15701637 .shtml for more details).
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Introducing "The Art of the Heist"
Now, with these two examples in mind, imagine how local authorities might react if they overheard you discussing details of a typical ARG, especially if they had no idea that what you were discussing was a game. To be fair to authorities (or anyone, for that matter, who is unfamiliar with the genre), if the situation were right and their normal, everyday Nreallife « accidentally crossed paths with your alternate reality path, at the very least some confusion might result; or, at the very worst, you might find yourself in an interrogation room at your local police station, trying to explain that the murder you are investigating isn't a real murder, but rather just a game. Actually, the above scenario sounds like a great setup for an ARG! Seriously, while I wouldn't suggest you have to fear the Department of Homeland Security is going to come knocking on your door for being involved in alternate reality gaming, there is nevertheless something to be said for realizing that, especially since that fateful day in September, 2001, we are living in a very different age. In my opinion, ARGs represent yet another example of the wonders of technology and how that technology is leading to incredible breakthroughs in communication and collaboration (isn't it interesting these breakthroughs are coming in the form of games?). That said, you might keep in mind that while you don't have a problem suspending your disbelief in order to enjoy a game, others who aren't so ARG-savvy might not see it the same way. Definitely something to keep in mind, but at the same time definitely not something to discourage you from getting involved in the world of alternate reality gaming!
As is also stated on this page, the point for garners is to simply enjoy the game. And that is certainly the view I will take not only in this chapter, but throughout this book, too.
Discovering the Heist If you read through the opening text of Figure 2. 1, you can see that a link is provided to one of the earliest announcements of the existence of the Heist. Figure 2.2. highlights this announcement as it originally appeared on the argn.com Web site. Clicking on the link provided (http://www.virgilkingofcode.com) takes you to the Web site of Virgil Tatum, an apparent video game designer. This Web site is illustrated in Figu re 2.3.
Gosney, John W. Beyond Reality : A Guide to Alternate Reality Gaming. Boston, MA, USA: Course Technology, Incorporated, 2005. p 41. http://site.ebrary.com/lib/drexel/Doc?id=10087001&ppg=62
41
42
Chapter 2 •
----
~ "'''''.'
.....
1r!' 1·1
••0-' 0 Copyright © 2005. Course Technology, Incorporated. All rights reserved. May not be reproduced in any form without permission from the publisher, except fair uses permitted under U.S. or applicable copyright law.
Beyond Reality: Approaching an ARG
".,
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Figure 2.2 One of the early announcements regarding Heist. Not e
At this point in our discovery of Heist. there is nothing that leads us to believe we are going to be dealing with a stolen automobile or that this site (or ARG in general) is in any way associated with Audi. And for me, that is what is so great about alternate reality gaming, as it is a wonderful example of the marvelously capricious and unexpected manner in which, on the surface, unrelated subjects can be so neatly tied together. This is very similar to typical Web surfing in general, where clicking on one link can quickly take you to something completely unrelated but at the same time, something that makes sense in connection with the initial link, too. It's an interesting way to playa game, and an even more interesting way to approach information management and problem solving, as originally discussed in Chapter 1. As you enter the site, you are presented with a wealth of information about the designe r, including. as you can see in Figure 2.4. details about his latest foray into game design: "The Nisha Chronicles, Volume I."
Gosney, John W. Beyond Reality : A Guide to Alternate Reality Gaming. Boston, MA, USA: Course Technology, Incorporated, 2005. p 42. http://site.ebrary.com/lib/drexel/Doc?id=10087001&ppg=63
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Introducing "The Art of the Heist"
Figure 2.3 The home page of lNWW.virgilkingofcode.com.
QIo .- .~
Figure 2.4 A link to the -Nisha Chronicles, Volume I- provides a clue too tempting not to explore!
Gosney, John W. Beyond Reality : A Guide to Alternate Reality Gaming. Boston, MA, USA: Course Technology, Incorporated, 2005. p 43. http://site.ebrary.com/lib/drexel/Doc?id=10087001&ppg=64
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44
Chapter 2 •
Beyond Reality: Approaching an ARG
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Note
Even though it might be tempting to skip over the introductory material since it has been so well documented, you should take the time, for a game you are interested in, to start at the beginning lest you miss out on some truly interesting background information, not to mention great Web design, as Figures 2.2 - 2.4 clearly highlight. Maybe you didn't know that Nietzsche said, ~Art is essentially the affirmation, the blessing, and the deification of existence: I know I didn't, but I do now thanks to reading through the text on this site l Clicking on the link to "Nisha Roberts" (identified as a close fri end of the game designer) takes us to the Web site of " Last Reso rt Retrieval," as illustrated in Figure 2.5. Note again the design of the site, the information provided, and the "real world " address given at the bottom of the page, as shown in Figure 2.6 .
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Figure 2.5 The home page of ~ Last Resort Retrieval. "
Gosney, John W. Beyond Reality : A Guide to Alternate Reality Gaming. Boston, MA, USA: Course Technology, Incorporated, 2005. p 44. http://site.ebrary.com/lib/drexel/Doc?id=10087001&ppg=65
.......
-.
........ -.
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Introducing "The Art of the Heist"
... . _._---_ ... __ .---_ ._".... _.... _--... __.. _. . _ -....._ _-..--_ _ ..... _ . _--_ -_ ..._ ----,,----.. -_--_ . _---_ _...._ ... _." ... ...... . ... _
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Figure 2.6 Note the Mreal worW address as well as e-mail links for
~Nisha~
and "' lan. M
While the site is visually appealing, it is nevertheless rather ordinary in content. But if you do a little clicking around, things start to get interesting very qu ickly! Notice in Figure 2.5 that there are name and password fields at the top of the page. If you simply click in the "Name" field, an "error" occurs that changes the text box to a drop-down menu, as shown in Figure 2.7. When you select "client" from the drop-down list shown in Figure 2.7, the password field is automatically completed. Then, by clicking on login, you are presented with the screen highlighted in Figure 2.8. If you go back to the home page of the site, click within the Name field, but this time select either "Ian" or "Nisha" and then login, you are presented with much more in formation, as shown in Figure 2.9.
Gosney, John W. Beyond Reality : A Guide to Alternate Reality Gaming. Boston, MA, USA: Course Technology, Incorporated, 2005. p 45. http://site.ebrary.com/lib/drexel/Doc?id=10087001&ppg=66
4S
46
Cha pter 2 •
Beyond Reality: Approaching an ARG
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.. -_.GeE)
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Figure 2.7 The rabbit hole gets a little deeper by clicking within the ~ Name · fie ld.
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Figure 2.8 "Logging in " to the Last Resort Retrieval Web site presents you with .. . what?
Gosney, John W. Beyond Reality : A Guide to Alternate Reality Gaming. Boston, MA, USA: Course Technology, Incorporated, 2005. p 46. http://site.ebrary.com/lib/drexel/Doc?id=10087001&ppg=67
Introducing "The Art of th e Heist "
.... _._--
1__ H09_ ...... "
~ "· I
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••0-' 0
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Figure 209 Apparently, you now have access to a wealth of information/correspondence between Ian and Nisha.
If you start browsing through the links, you will realize there is a tremendous amount of information presented here. More interestingly. several of the messages have file attachments. including pictures, audio. and video files. Caution
Spoiler alert! Spoiler alert! While the following information doesn't necessarily give away any great secrets of Heist it does nevertheless quickly summarize information that you might otherwise enjoy reading and working through on your own. So proceed in reading this chapter at your own risk!
Gosney, John W. Beyond Reality : A Guide to Alternate Reality Gaming. Boston, MA, USA: Course Technology, Incorporated, 2005. p 47. http://site.ebrary.com/lib/drexel/Doc?id=10087001&ppg=68
47
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48
Chapter 2 •
Beyond Rea lity: Approaching an ARG
Wh ile it is certainly wo rth yo ur time to go through this information on your own, for the interest of this chapter let's skip back to http://soogees.co m/st uff/heist/ (see Figure 2.1) for a quick summary pointer. After reading through all this information, yo u discover th at on April 1, Ian received an e- mail from his friend, indicating that, "He's ready for their party at the car dealership on Park Ave after 7 PM." See Figure 2.10 .
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Fig ure 2.10 The virtual world meets the physical world at a real location in New York City is introduced as part of the ARG.
Gosney, John W. Beyond Reality : A Guide to Alternate Reality Gaming. Boston, MA, USA: Course Technology, Incorporated, 2005. p 48. http://site.ebrary.com/lib/drexel/Doc?id=10087001&ppg=69
Introducing "The Art of the Hei st"
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Mixing the Virtual with the Physical As you can see in Figure 2.10, there are actual photos of an Aud i car dealership in New York City. And th is dealership has apparently suffered a break-in , resulting in the theft of a new auto mobile. Now, suddenly, we have an ARG that is incorporating real-world physical elements (in this case, an actual car dealership) as part of the game. Great stuff, but what are the implicat io ns of this "mixing" of the vi rtual and physical worlds? Probably the most important thing to consider, at least in regard to this specific ARC, is that if you don't hap pen to live in close proximity to NYC, this would be one poten tial due that you couldn't actually follow up on, but would otherwise be required to rely o n other ARC garners to go out and explore, and then post what they find (which is exactly what happened). To me, this represents a terrific example of the interact ivelcollaboralive element of alternate reality gaming. And, from a marketing standpoint (remember, this game is sponso red by Audi), it represen ts a significant leap of faith on th e part of the sponsor in that they assume this type of collabo ratio n and sharing of ideas will actually transpire. And it has! At this point, the Heist really starts to get interesting. Again, in the interest of summarizing the info rmation presented at this early stage, we' ll reference the quick start gu ide at http://soogees.com/stuff/heist!. Bydoingso,wediscover the fo llowing important details: • Within the actual NYC dealership, actual fl yers were being distributed with the picture of a person wanted for questioning. As it turns o ut . this person is act ually Ian from Last Resort Retrieval. • Further exploration of the logs on the Last Resort Retrieval site (see Figu re 2.9 above) also highlights a press pass that Ian has apparently used for access to the 2005 New York International Auto Show. However, the name on the pass is not lan's but rat her John McGill 's. as shown in Figure 2. 11 . • Some intrepid ARG garners paid a visit to the Auto Show (as documented at http://soogees.com!stuff/heistl) and discovered that . where an actual Audi A3 wou ld normally be displayed. there was a poster requesting that anyone with in fo rmation regarding a speci fic 2006 Audi A3 (the VIN is listed o n the poster) should contact Audi of America via the listed phone number. Aft er further exploration . another Web site was di scovered that has as its focus th e tracking of the stolen A3. This Web si te. www.stolena3.com. is highli ght ed in Figure 2.12.
Gosney, John W. Beyond Reality : A Guide to Alternate Reality Gaming. Boston, MA, USA: Course Technology, Incorporated, 2005. p 49. http://site.ebrary.com/lib/drexel/Doc?id=10087001&ppg=70
49
SO
Chapt er 2 • Beyond Rea lity: Approachi ng an ARG
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... -_.GeE)
Figure 2.11 The ~press pass credentials of lan, but under the name of John McGill, journalist. W
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Figure 2.12 The www.stolena3.com site, devoted to tracking the apparently stolen Audi A3.
Gosney, John W. Beyond Reality : A Guide to Alternate Reality Gaming. Boston, MA, USA: Course Technology, Incorporated, 2005. p 50. http://site.ebrary.com/lib/drexel/Doc?id=10087001&ppg=71
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Introducing "The Art of the Heist" Is this a real site? At thi s point, the issue is more of what information can be found there, and the answer is plenty. Additional exploration points to the actual Audi Web site (www.audiusa.com). and the link under the section "New at Audi" that says, "Missing 2006 Audi A3': When you click on this link, you are presented with a screen similar to Figure 2.13. Note the callout concerning the stolen car.
Figure 2.13 Just as in other places, those with information regarding the stolen car are encouraged to call the listed phone number. By clicking further through the links on the Audi Web site, you are eventually presented with Figure 2.14, which presents several additional information links regarding the missing car, as well as video messages detailing the case (see Figure 2.1 5).
Gosney, John W. Beyond Reality : A Guide to Alternate Reality Gaming. Boston, MA, USA: Course Technology, Incorporated, 2005. p 51. http://site.ebrary.com/lib/drexel/Doc?id=10087001&ppg=72
51
52
Chapter 2 •
Beyond Rea lity: Approaching an ARG
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- .~
Figure 2.14 Updates. news, and even a video dip from an Audi dired:or!
Figure 2.15 A video dip from an Audi director specifically asks that individuals with information pertaining to the case contact-who else ?-last Resort Retrieval!
Gosney, John W. Beyond Reality : A Guide to Alternate Reality Gaming. Boston, MA, USA: Course Technology, Incorporated, 2005. p 52. http://site.ebrary.com/lib/drexel/Doc?id=10087001&ppg=73
Introducing "The Art of the Heist"
Moving Ahead with the Heist
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At this poi nt in your exploratio n, let's assume that you are full y and completely hooked as to where this mystery might take you and your fellow ARC garners. Where do you go from here? If you return to the q uick start site that is refe renced throughout this chapter, you can see links to other sites fo r information/summaries regarding the "case"/game, as shown in Figure 2. 16.
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Figure 2.16 The Heist quick start guide ends with, not surprisingly, an encouraging invitation to join in on the fun of being involved in the ARG.
It's impo rtant to note here the friendly, inviting nature of the links and text that are illustrated in Figure 2. 16. The welcoming and collaborative spirit of those involved with the alternate reality gaming genre is, to put it sim ply, infect ious and if nothing else is a treme ndous example of the collaborative spirit and fun that being involved in this genre presents. If you are even the slightest bit interested in explo ring it, I would
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53
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Chapte r 2 • Beyond Reality: Approaching an ARG
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definitely encourage you to jum p right in! While you might be at first intimidated by the shear wealth of information and interest with ARGing, th at shou ld only serve to fur ther your interest in what this genre of gaming has to offer.
Summary Th is chap ter presented you with a detailed overview of how you m ight become involved in a speci fic ARG (in this case, the ARG "The Art of the Heist"). To highlight the process of discovery, we first visited argn.co m to see what information was available about existing ARGs in play, and we chose to explo re The Art of the Heist furth er. In doing so, we discovered an excellent quick-start tutorial to the ARG, which provided essent ial backgro und information about th e game, as weU as highlights (given this ARG mixes rea l-world situations with virtual clues) from other ga mers who we re able to visit actua l physical locatio ns involved in th e ga me, take pi ctures/notes, and repo rt back to others involved in the game. All of this information is posted on the qu ick-start site for easy reference. As we worked thro ugh the quickstart guide, we also examined some of the actual Web sites involved in the Heist ARG, highlighting the wonderful complexity of the game, as well as seeing the implied marketing effort by Audi (sponsor of the ARG), which is arguably very risky. Of course, as mentioned in the chapter, the "real world details" of the genesis behind the ARG need not concern you, as you can simply-if you wish- focus in on the ARG as a game and enjoy it as just that.
Gosney, John W. Beyond Reality : A Guide to Alternate Reality Gaming. Boston, MA, USA: Course Technology, Incorporated, 2005. p 54. http://site.ebrary.com/lib/drexel/Doc?id=10087001&ppg=75
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CHAPTER
PAST
3
REALITY:
ANNOTATED
AN
ARG,
PART
A
s you now know, the first of the well-known ARGs was the one developed for the film A. I. back in the sp ring of 2001. T his ARC, co mmonly referred to as the Beast, drew an unexpectedly large response, and also was the impetus for the fo rmation of the Cloudmakers. certainly the most well-known collabora-
tive ARG grou p and. as we have also discussed in ea rlier chapters. a group that , through its collect ive and collaborative problem-solving abilities, poi nted the way to implications of ARCing that went well beyond a simple game. But what was it about the Beast that made it such an irresistible pull for so many people? And how was it that a Web game developed into something that become not only so unique as a gaming genre, but, at least to some degree, so controversial? This chapter as well as Chapter 4 will seek to present an abridged overview of just how involved th e Beast really was by reviewing the long, winding (b ut fascinating) road that was necessary for garners to travel in o rder to solve the ga me. While the intent of these two ch apters is not to provide an exhausti ve ana lysis (the ana lysis found on the Cloud maker's Web site is the most complete analysis, and it is referenced later), the chapters do highlight several things about this seminal and in flu ential ARG . • The rich complexity of ARG design. Admittedly, the Beast was the product of some very powerful resources, most notably Microsoft Corpo ration and DreamWorks studios. Regardless of the fund ing and resources that were made possible in developing the game. it is still worth noting, fou r years on, the wonderful complexity and simply ingenio us design that went into not only the Web sites that made up a large component of the game. but also the
ss
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S6
Cha pter 3 •
Past Reality: An Annotated ARG, Pa rt I
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"real world" elements (that is. actual phone calls. e· mails. and faxes which players received). as well as the sto ryline itself. • The level of critical and collaborative thinking required to solve the ARG. It wo n't take you very long to realize that the Beast was not a puzzle that was going to be solved by only one person. Indeed, the very nature of ARG ing, as we have already discussed, is the collaborative and "team effort" that is requi red. Through their own formation and collective/collaborative game play, the Cloudmakers-that is, the organized group of players who estab· lished themselves as such an organized group in o rder to solve the mystery of the Beast- represented a turning po int in not only how Web· based games were played, but also how those games might lead to more provocative, non· game·related issues . • The larger implications (that is, beyond gaming) that being involved with alternate reality gaming represents. As mentioned in the point above, what the Clo udmakers were able to represent as a collective "thinking entity" was impressive enough in solving the puzzle of the Beast. However, the level of critical thinking they employed, and their ability to maximize the collabora· tive communication possibilities of this thing we call the World Wide Web, just might prove to be their greatest triumph, as well as the most beneficial and tantalizing outcome of this first ARG. Without further hesitation, then, let's jump into the mystery of the Beast and discover what may prove to be the most famous and ca ptivating storyline in the history of alternate reality gaming, both for now and well into the future.
The Evolving Mystery of Evan Chan We begin ou r review of the Beast by referring back to the rabbit hole for th is ARG, which was the credit in the film A .I. for Jeanine Salla and her role as a "sentient machine therapist." Ifhe r name is "Googled," a long listing of related Web sites is pre· sented, as shown in Figu re 3.1. Cli cking on the first link that is presented brings us to a page we're already famil· iar with: Salla's bio page, as it is part of Bangalore World University, as shown in Figure 3.2. While there is nothing especially spectacular about this page from a design page, the very interesting little piece of information, of course, is the date in which the uni· versity was founded-2028! Even if you didn't know this page was part of a game,
Gosney, John W. Beyond Reality : A Guide to Alternate Reality Gaming. Boston, MA, USA: Course Technology, Incorporated, 2005. p 56. http://site.ebrary.com/lib/drexel/Doc?id=10087001&ppg=77
The Evolving Mystery of Eva n Chan
~
.. .
- .~
--_""'=...
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- e~· _ ,,·
Google ~::
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Figure 3.2 Jeanine Salla's bio page on the BangalorWorld University site.
Gosney, John W. Beyond Reality : A Guide to Alternate Reality Gaming. Boston, MA, USA: Course Technology, Incorporated, 2005. p 57. http://site.ebrary.com/lib/drexel/Doc?id=10087001&ppg=78
date.
57
58
Chapter 3 • Past Reality: An Annotat ed ARG, Part I
this future date would probably give you reason to pause and co nsider what might lie beh ind the page's otherwise ordinary facade.
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Note This overview of the Beast that is presented in this chapter, as well as Chapter 4, is an "abridged" version of more complete descriptions that are available on the Web. One of the best. if not the definiti ve guide to the Beast, can be found at http://'NWW.cloudmakers.orgl guide. The material presented there is neatly divided into individual chapters. as well as larger periods of time during which the game was actively being played, as shown in Figure 3.3.
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Figure 3.3 The complete, fu lly annotated guide to the Beast, as found on the cloudmakers.org site.
Gosney, John W. Beyond Reality : A Guide to Alternate Reality Gaming. Boston, MA, USA: Course Technology, Incorporated, 2005. p 58. http://site.ebrary.com/lib/drexel/Doc?id=10087001&ppg=79
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The Evolving Mystery of Evan Chan
Further exploration of the Bangalore University site leads to some interesting read ~ ing. not the least of which is the news story about a Bangalore alumn i. Martin Swinton. who creates homes that are completely run by artificial in telligent beings. or simpl y Als. This news story. found at http://bangaloreworldu-in.co. cloudmakers.orglbwu_news_3 .html. is highlighted in Figure 3.4.
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Figure 3.4 A write-up of a famous Bangalore alumni and ... a clue to something more?
Gosney, John W. Beyond Reality : A Guide to Alternate Reality Gaming. Boston, MA, USA: Course Technology, Incorporated, 2005. p 59. http://site.ebrary.com/lib/drexel/Doc?id=10087001&ppg=80
"
.....
59
60
Chapter 3 •
Past Reality: An Annotated ARG, Part I
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If you were to read through Jeanine's entire page and call the phone numbers listed, you would be made aware of the funeral arrangements for a dose friend of Jeanie. a Mr. Evan Chan. Apparently, there is quite a bit of controversy over Evan's death. It doesn't take much brainpower to assume that all of this detail must be of some
importance, so a Google on "Evan Chan" is in order. One of the links points to the Chan family home page, as shown in Figure 3.5. Given that we know at this point that Evan died on a boat, it is perhaps a little cu rious he would meet his fate in this manner, given that he was a "man of the sea"(as shown in Figure 3.5).
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Figure 3.5 Evan's page. as part of the Chan family Web page.
Gosney, John W. Beyond Reality : A Guide to Alternate Reality Gaming. Boston, MA, USA: Course Technology, Incorporated, 2005. p 60. http://site.ebrary.com/lib/drexel/Doc?id=10087001&ppg=81
-',
••
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The Evolving Mystery of Evan Chan
In exploring the page, a number of interesting things are discovered, not the least of which is that Jeanine SaBa was not only Evan's past classmate, but also his close friend. We also learn that Evan has a son, Derrick, married to someone named Lucy. The last bit of news that is posted on the site, dated February 2, 2142, indicates that Evan is goi ng on a four-day trip on his boat Tile Clolldmaker. Not e
In case you missed the significance of the name of Evan's boat, this is the same name, of course, that was adopted by the organized group of players who banned together to solve the Beast.
Connections: Visiting the Salla Family Homepage Given the obvious connection between Evan and Jeanine, it makes sense at this point to visit the Salla homepage. This site is illustrated in Figu re 3.6.
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Figure 3.6 The Salla fami ly homepage.
Gosney, John W. Beyond Reality : A Guide to Alternate Reality Gaming. Boston, MA, USA: Course Technology, Incorporated, 2005. p 61. http://site.ebrary.com/lib/drexel/Doc?id=10087001&ppg=82
ee ·" .. -,
,
61
62
Chapte r 3 • Past Reality: An Annotated ARG. Part I
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Clicking o n the SaBa Family Homepage sectio n of the page, and then clicking on the subsequent link fo r Jeanie, you are presented with Figure 3.7, a page rather strangely entitled, " Four Women."
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Figure 3.1 The -four women - page. with a link to Eva n in the middle. Clicking o n Evan's link, we are taken to an "In Memoriam" page, as shown in Figu re 3.8. Note the ghostly images of Evan that are superimposed (?) over otherwise real ph otos, and the somewhat bizarre epithet of "He was a super swimmer. He was a wonderfu l sa ilor. He died on the boat who loved him wit hin site of land ." What is most interesting about Figure 3.8 is the blurb in the lowe r right-hand corner:
Tlvo 1I0llrs before [l1eard about t" is "accident," and withollt Mepl/ista's kllowl· edge, tllis page appeared ;n my site.... and now t"is.
Gosney, John W. Beyond Reality : A Guide to Alternate Reality Gaming. Boston, MA, USA: Course Technology, Incorporated, 2005. p 62. http://site.ebrary.com/lib/drexel/Doc?id=10087001&ppg=83
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The Evolving Mystery of Evan Chan
M
Figure 3.8 The Hln Memoriam page for Evan Chan with, of course, some additional clues for further exploration.
Who is Mephista, and is there significance in the page appearing two hours before word came of Evan's death? If you click on the "this page" link, you will see Figure 3.9, which at first glance seems to be just a collection of symbols and element names. This page/puzzle will be revisited later. However, if you click the back button of your browser, a sudden, weird pop-up window appears (Figu re 3.10) that first fl ashes out, letter by letter, strange messages ("Get out. Deep Water. You would drown." and "Get out. Dark Dream. You will not wake up."). These messages evolve into a brief image of Evan's dead body, and then the window closes. Very strange, if not a bit creepy, as well. Tip If you have the Windows (or other) pop-up blocker active, you will not see the window that is illustrated in Figure 3.10.
Gosney, John W. Beyond Reality : A Guide to Alternate Reality Gaming. Boston, MA, USA: Course Technology, Incorporated, 2005. p 63. http://site.ebrary.com/lib/drexel/Doc?id=10087001&ppg=84
63
64
Chapter 3 • Past Rea lity: An Annot ated ARG, Part I
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...
- .~
Figure 3.9 The simple fact that each symbol and element name is ~ added ~ together (note ~ + ~ sign between each one) must indicate this is an equation of some kind.
Figure 3.10 Even clicking on the lead to more interesting clues!
~ back~
Gosney, John W. Beyond Reality : A Guide to Alternate Reality Gaming. Boston, MA, USA: Course Technology, Incorporated, 2005. p 64. http://site.ebrary.com/lib/drexel/Doc?id=10087001&ppg=85
button in your Web browser can
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The Evolving Mystery of Evan Chan
Returning to Figure 3.7 and clicking on Laia's link, we see a variety of links, images, and text (note the reference to "Mann Act 2," which suggests that legal rights be given to sentient property, or AIs). Also found on this page is a link to ino urimage.org, which is highlighted in Figure 3.11. ,~
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Figure 3.11 The inourimage.org site calls for the · abolition of slavery in the modern era, · with specific emphasis on freedom for Als. At th is point, we dearly have a mystery on our hands, and it seems to be developing more and mo re as the mystery surrounding Evan Chan's death. Was his death an accident, or was there something more? Clearly, the strange pop-up (Figure 3. 10) with the om ino us wa rnings and the image of Evan's dead body seem to suggest othe r motives or actio ns in play. And the strange collection of links found within the Salla home page, from the "element puzzle" (Figure 3.9) to the link to inou rimage.org and the call for "abolition of slavery in the modern era" (Figure 3. 11 ), seem to suggest a larger mystery. Where is all this leading? Read on.
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The Deepening Mystery of Evan Chan Copyright © 2005. Course Technology, Incorporated. All rights reserved. May not be reproduced in any form without permission from the publisher, except fair uses permitted under U.S. or applicable copyright law.
If Evan C han was a mysterious figure to begin the game, at this point he is even more of an enigma. An exploration ofDonu Tech, Evan's employer, lends itself to more information about Evan. Figure 3. 12 highlights the Donu Tech home page.
Figure 3.12 Doou Tech, or Evan Chan's employer.
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The Anti-Robot Militia
If you were to have been actively involved in the o rigi nal game, you wou ld have had the opportun ity to receive e- mails and oth erwise make mo re "real world" contact with the ga me in order to acquire clues and inform ation about where to go next. While you can read a much more detailed listing of th is in fo rmat ion on the c1oudmakers.org/guide site listed earlier in this chapter, for the sake of moving quickly, here is a summary of the information that is now known about Evan Chan at this point: • Evan is in a relationship with someone name Venus. • This Venus person is also the companion of Evan's acquaintance, Enrico Basta. • At some point in the past, Evan has had a relationship with Laia Salla. • A strange e- mail has been discovered that is from "Mother" and is addressed to "Not Evan." Th e e- mail makes reference to a specific pass code, and an allu sio n to Alice in Wonderland ("And I made the looking glass"). Moreove r, the e- mail seems to imply that whoever "Mother" is they know tha t we (that is, the players o r those now involved in this ARG) are snooping around, trying to find out mo re about the deepening mystery surrounding Eva n's death. Not e As mentioned here, this review of the Beast is a (very) condensed retelling of the events surrounding the initial game. As you know from reading Chapter 2 and the overview of The Art of the Heist ARG, actively playing one of these games can lend itself to a tremendous amount of information, both in the virtual and physical world. Clearly, the future of alternate reality gaming will be more in line with the Heist fonnat, involving not just Web sites and television ads. but staged real-life events. Is it any surprise then that the Cloud makers formed to bring their collective intelligence and overall collaborative abilities to bear on solving the Beast? If you aren't impressed yet with the level of design and complexity that goes into a major production ARG, you soon will be.
The Anti-Robot Militia What would a futu re wo rld fu ll of sentient machines be without a group of individuals wanting no thing more than to smash them into little pieces of useless metal? OK, perhaps it isn't quite to that extreme, but there's clea rly some anti-robot sen timent to be found on the Anti -Robot Milit ia (ARM) Web site. On the fro nt page of this site is a link to th e Sentient Crime Property Bureau, as shown in Figure 3. 13.
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Chapter 3 •
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.... _._--
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••
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Figure 3.13 The homepage of the Sentient Crime Property Bureau. When the page was originally viewed (that is, back in the sprin g of 2001 when the game was actively being played) , there was a news story titled, "Crazed Sex Robot Slays Scientist." The scientist, of course, was Evan Chan, and while the story implies there was not great mourning over Evan's death (he was coined a "robosexual" and thus deserving of the fate which befell him), the story went on to say that it wasn't a good thing that a dangerous robot was loose and in the wild. Note
If you decide to read the fully annotated history of the Beast as found on cloudmakers.org/guide (and I encourage you to read it), you will notice that some of the links are now broken or otherwise changed. Figure 3.14 and the information it now "gives awa( is evidence of this, as at this point in the original game, the players did not know that Venus was indeed a robot. This information shouldn't discourage you from following along with the game as it originally developed, but keep in mind that things change quickly on the Web, let alone pages developed for a game that was first played over four years ago!
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The Anti-Robot Militia
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If you look at th e page now illustrated in Figure 3.13, dick on the "News a nd Information" link, and scroll down midway in the page, you are presented with info rmation abo ut "Venus," as shown in Figure 3. 14 .
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Fig ure 3.14 Venus. we now know. is a robot and a dangerous one at thatl Scanning through the news bulletins, we find that: • The robot is wanted in the killing of Evan Chan . • Although initially captured by the Sentient Crime Propert y Bureau (SCPB), it has once again escaped. • Enrico Basta, the apparent owner of Venus, was found dead at his home, the victim of an apparent house fire from which he could not escape. Recall from earlier that Enrico Basta was an acquaintance of Evan.
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69
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70
Chapter 3 •
Past Reality: An Annotated ARG, Part I
There are a cast of other characters that have become visible at this point in the o ri g~ inal game, including names like the Red King, Foxtra, Fertor, Beate Bosch, Kate Nei, Sophia, and others (many of these nam es have associated Web sites, so a Google search would lead you to more information as well ). In a nutshell, the major issue at this point is that there are apparently several "rogue" AIs on the loose, and they may be working with militant, "pro" AI groups. The Red King is clearly pro-AI, and he is more than likely militant. Did he have anything to do with Evan Chan's death? And finall y, who is "Mother:' per the mysterious e-mail that was described previously? Lot of questions with few answers. Yet a still very confusing issue is the "Elemen ts" puzzle (see Figure 3.9). The solving of this puzzle was ingenio us, and where it leads to is even more interesting, so let's return to that now.
Solving the "Chemistry Elements" Puzzle As noted in the Cloudmakers guide notes for the game, a reference guide for shorthand names to all the chem ical elements provides the key piece of information that, ultimately, leads to the solving of this particular element of the larger game puzzle. Figure 3. 15 highli ghts this page, which is a typical guide to the elements (one of many that can be found on the Web). ~,.---
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Fig ure 3.15 The short name of the elements, not their atomic weight, is what turns out to be the key piece of information for solving the puzzle presented earlier in Figure 3.9.
Gosney, John W. Beyond Reality : A Guide to Alternate Reality Gaming. Boston, MA, USA: Course Technology, Incorporated, 2005. p 70. http://site.ebrary.com/lib/drexel/Doc?id=10087001&ppg=91
Solving the "Chemistry Elements" Puzzle
By replacing the full names of the elements shown in Figure 3.9 with the abbreviated name for each, we are presented now with the following:
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Co + (Rb-B) + 0 + N + E + R +5 + W + (Ce-c) + B + 0 + (Be-B) + (Hg- H) If you solve this "equation" (first performing the subtraction within the parentheses, so that, for example Rb-B becomes simply R), you are left with the following: ~+ R + O +N+ E + R +S+W+ E + B + O + R +G
This is a Web address: coronersweb.org Although this page is no longer active on the Web, it originally presented a form where you could enter a specific name to see if there was a specific case file associated with that name. When Evan Chan's name was entered, the following information was returned: • He died on March 8, 2 142. • Based on the final diagnosis report of his death, he died due to excessive head trauma. He had consumed no alcohol or drugs at the time of his death, and he had not drowned. However, his body had been in water near Durham, N.C. • He was 75-years-old and in otherwise good health.
• Upon investigation of his fingernails, scrapings of Dolce Vita IV, "a proprietary synthetic skin patented and manufactured by Belladerma" (reference from c1oudmakers.orglguide site) was found. • Other investigations of his body indicated that he had been involved in some type of sexual activity shortly before his death. What's up with Belladerma and what are they aU about? Figure 3. 16 highlights their home page. What was so amazing about the original duration of the Beast was the real-world interaction that it allowed with players. For example, on the Bellderma ho me page, if you clicked on the Contact Us link and followed the associated links through, you would have eventually come to a page that allowed you to enter your fax number. If you did this, you actually would have received a fax from the company! Again, this is testament to the inherent "cool factor" of being involved in the alternate reality gaming genre, not to mention the level of co mplexity and production that went into an ARG such as this one.
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Chapter 3 •
Past Reality: An Annotated ARG, Pa rt I
.... _._--
~ "· I
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Figure 3.16 The Belladerma home page. At this po int in the original game (that is, without knowing the information presented in Figure 3.14), it was obvious that Ven us was a robot, a rogue robot at that, and a robot that Belladerma desperately wanted to reclaim (Enrico Basta was also still assumed to be alive at this point, when the game was originally played). All of this was very in teresting, and there was obviously a mystery surrou nding Evan's death, but whe re to go next? Let's move on and see what di rection the Clo udmakers decided to head when faced with an apparent d ead -end.
The Mystery of Kent Whitman It really is u nfortun ate that all of th e original elements of the Beast, includ ing the real-wo rld interaction (for exam ple, receiving actual e- mails, voicemails, and faxes), are no lo nger possible. It would be terrific to be able to still play the game as if it were happening fo r the first time.
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The Mystery of Kent Whitman
On the upside, a game as complex as this one was, might be in the long run, best served by having some of its larger mysteries neatly summarized. This section represents one of those summaries, given that much of the in formation presented relates details we now know. Nevertheless, it is interesting to follow through o n these links to see how they fit into the larger framework of the game. The " Rogue Retrieval" o rganization was a name that was often mentioned in the ea rly stages of this ARG. Upon closer investigation, a Web site was discovered that was di rectly related to the organization (the site is no lo nger active). O n this site, a case fil e o n a Kent Whitman, an apparent bystander who was killed by anothe r rogue AI named Pasqual, leads to more quest ions. Kent's case fil e is illustrated in Figure3.l7.
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Figure 3.17 Pan American Coroners Office (PACO) file on Kent Whitman.
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._
0 -
..
... -
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Chapter 3 • Past Reality: An Annotated ARG, Part I
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Kent Whitman was part of some type of larger group o r o rganization, and he was apparently friends with Jenny Thompson, a robot. However, after Kent was killed, Jenny (who is probably the rogue robot Venus) remained elusive and evaded capture by Rogue Retrieval. Where to turn next? What followed in the actual game was yet ano ther interesting connection back to a real-world object, or in this case something that appeared o n the original movie posters for the A.I. film. (Remember that movie? All of this was a result of that fi lm!) Let's see what exactly that object was and how it proved to be a valuable connection in moving the Cloudmakers' investigatio n even furth er alo ng.
Riddles and Martin Swinton Designs During the timefra me when the game was originally played, updates to the various game- related sites (such as the Bangalore World Un ive rsity pages) were frequen t. Du ring on e of these updates, the following riddle was presented o n o ne of th e Bangalo re pages: After thc su mmer Ovcr th e moon And between the nets Sounds fairly innocuous, but as you probably are thinking at this point, nothing is innocuous (or at the very least, trivial) when it comes to being a po tential clue in this ARG.
So, how to solve th is riddle? In one of the original movie trailers fo r the A. I. film , the number "323" was visible aft er the words, "Summer 2001," and over the moon in the Amblin logo, and between the two visible Internet addresses. Note
Amblin refers toAmblin Entertainment which is Steven Spielberg's production company (A.I. was a Spielberg film).
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Riddles and Martin Swinton Designs
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As it turns out, 323 was the answer to the above· listed riddle (pretty cool, isn't it)? What information does this riddle ultimately lead to? After following a variety of links and other e·mails, we now know the following: • Venus has been captured by the SpeB. • Game·related Web sites (in the game universe, that is) have seen an increase in the number of times they have been hacked into. • AI·enhanced houses are starting to act very strangely (more on this later, via Martin Swinton Web site), and Martin has been asked in at least one case to remove an AI from a house. • On the home page for Metropolitan Living Homes (or sentient homes, or AI homes, or the types of homes designed by Martin Swinton), there is a news bul· letin fo r the"AnnuaiIASAlMLH Debutante Ball" (mo re on this later, too). What does this mean exactly, and who is the competition fo r? See Figure 3.2 1 below. There are other interesting riddles that are still active on the Web. One such example is on the home page fo r Martin Swinton designs. You will recall from Figure 3.4 that Swinton was described earlier in a news report on the Bangalore Web site. Swinton is an alumni of the university, and he designs exceptionally equipped AI·houses. As it has turned out (and has been seen/mentioned at various points in the game up to this po int), some of Swinto n's ho uses have suffered from "Mad House Syndrome," where the Als have gone hayvvire and trapped their owners inside (not unlike the sus· pected fate which might have befallen our friend Enrico Basta). See Figure 3.1 4. At any rate, some of the above·mentioned pu zzles and riddles are access ibl e on Swinton's home page, and are, in fact, different from when the game was first played. Figure 3. 18 illustrates the home page of Swinton Designs. If you click on either the sun or moon icons in Figure 3. 18, you will be presented with the pop·up screen as shown in Figure 3.19. The quote, "Alas, Poor Yorick!-I knew him, Horatio" is a lin e from Shakespeare's Hamlet. The rest of the line is, "a fellow of infinite jest, of most excellent fa ncy." Typing in this entire response in the field in Figure 3.19 doesn't work, but shortening it to just "a fellow of infinite jest" does the trick, as is evidenced by Figure 3.20.
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Chapter 3 • Past Reality: An Annotat ed ARG. Part I
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.;
..
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Figure 3.18 Home page of Swinton Designs.
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-
Figure 3.19 A random quote or a clue to give further access to the site?
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..
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Riddles and Martin Swinton Designs
Figure 3.20 The correct response leads to Martin's diary. There is more to be discussed regarding Martin's diary and Web site, but we'll get to this sho rtly. For now, consider the above path as yet another example of the ingen uity of the game. as well as how. even after four years. it is still interesting to work through (even if you know the outcome). Finally, and as mentioned previously, the home page for Metropolitan Living Homes is referencing some type of competition, known as the "AnnuaIIASA/M LH Debutante Ball," as shown in Figure 3.2 1. Where will the game go from this point? What is the ultimate mystery behind the death of Evan Chan ? What "real world" events (that is, events related to the game which took place in the physical world) were planned during the original timeframe of when the game was played, back in th e spring/early summer of 2001? All of these questions and more riddles will be discussed in Chapter 4, as we move on to Part II of our abridged overview of the history of the Beast!
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Chapter 3 • Past Reality: An Annotat ed ARG. Part I
~
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. -----
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- e ;).
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Figure 3.21 News announcement for the IASAlMlH Debutante Ball.
Summary This chapter is the first of a two-part abridged summary of how the original A.I. ARC (better known as the Beast) in itially unfolded and was played/solved by the Cloudmakers back in the spring of 200 1. A fully documented and more detailed history of the game can be found at http://c1oudmakers.orgtguide. At this point, we know there is a great mystery surrounding the death of an Eva n Chan, and that, apparently, there are various rogue sentient beings (that is, Als or robots by any other name) roaming wild and causing mischief. Various AI factions, both for and aga instlhe freedom and liberation of Als, are clea rly factors in this mystery, and both sides have factions that are militant in natu re. If solving Evan's death is the pinnacle of understanding the game, then so be it; however, it is clear that, once that riddle is solved, a much larger riddle (conspiracy) will also come into light, with ideally its answer not far behind. Chapter 4 will continue our review of the Beast as we move forward in understanding and solving th e game's deeper mysteries, moving ultimately towards the answer to the penultimate questions of "Who killed Evan Chan?': "Why d id they kill him?': and perhaps most intriguingly, "What else will we understand when we answer these questions?"
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CHAPTER 4
PAST
REALITY:
ANNOTATED
AN
ARG,
PART
II
T
hiS chapter continues the discussion of how the original ARC, the Beast fo r the A. I. film , was played out and solved by the Cloud makers. While there is no inherent requirement that you read the chap lers of this book in specific order, it's probably in your best interest. at least wit h these two chapters, to read Chapter 3 fi rst, followed by this o ne.
What will you discover as you read ahout how the puzzle that was the game was eventually solved? To begin . you will see that the game entered the real world when the puppet masters staged actual events in the real, physical world. While this is becoming mo re of a commo n occurrence in ARGs that are being played o ut today (most no tably, of course, the spectacular production of "The Art of the Heist," which you read about in Chapter 3), this concept was still very new in the spring of200 1 when th is game was unfold ing. $0 read o n 10 discover the continuing, developing mystery thai was the game, as well as how il was solved ultimately!
Caution
Spoiler alert! If you've already read Chapter 3, you know that while several Web sites that were related to the game are still active, many have been discontinued. That said, it is still possible to work through or ~ pla ( the game by following the complete guide notes available at WINW.cloudmakers_orglguide. So proceed through this second chapter with caution if you do want to try and ~solve~ the game itself, as there are several spoilers that might otherwise give away large pieces of information you could have fun discovering on your own.
79
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Chapter 4 •
Past Reality: An Annotated ARG, Part II
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Note The Cloudmakers guide is the most exhaustive resource for reading every detail about how the game originally unfolded. However, given the length of (real) time that has passed since the game was originally played in 2001, as well as the transient nature of Web pages in general. you should not be surprised if some of the Web sites referenced not only in these Beast chapters but for others, too, no longer exist. To that regard, we have enlarged several figures in the text for easier reading, so that even if the original Web pages no longer exist, you can still read the content. In fact. •original Web pages· is somewhat of a misnomer, as you will notice many of the URls for the game-related Web pages have been archived within the Cloudmaker site/guide (note the appearance of • cloudmakers- in many of the URls).
The Game Enters the Real World At this po int in the game, events started to happen in th e real physical world, whi ch were beyond the Web pages and online clues. Those who were involved in playing the game now had a chance to interact with it on an entirely different level, o r at least in Los Angeles, Chicago, and New York. A brief description of these events is as follows: • On Sunday, May 6, 200 1, the Los Atlgeles Times ran an advertisement for the A.I. film. As an example of just how detailed several elements of the game were, the "clue" that appeared on the advertisement consisted of an arrangement of letters in one corner of the advertisement. What might have appeared as a meaningless piece of information quickly turned significan t if you drew a box arou nd the lines using the available corner lines. When you the divided this box up into an 8 x 8 grid, the letters fit perfectly within the grid. (I told you thi s was detailed.) Chess notation seemed to be implied , because the letters-"P", "N': " K"-all had corresponding chess piece relationships-that is, "P" for pawn, "N" fo r Knight, and UK" for king. • O n the evening of the 6th in selected clubs in New Yo rk, Los Angeles, and Chicago, specific "A RM (anti-robot militia) Rallies" had been planned. According to the Cloud makers guide, approximately 40 people turned up for the "rally" in New York, 20 in L.A., and a dozen in Chicago. Each person who attended was given a leaflet and a bandana. The leafl ets contained va rious markings. What was more interesting, though, was that the events were actual events actively happening at that time for those who came to observe and participate. Terms and phrases (like "Fall in" ) we re being repeated to those in
Gosney, John W. Beyond Reality : A Guide to Alternate Reality Gaming. Boston, MA, USA: Course Technology, Incorporated, 2005. p 80. http://site.ebrary.com/lib/drexel/Doc?id=10087001&ppg=101
The Game Enters the Real World
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attendance. Classic works o f science fi ctio n involving robots (Colossus, TIle Robots of DaMI) were being d istributed to those who attended the rallies. Of course, the books were marked up to contain potential clues and o ther gamerelated info rmation as well. As a result of these rallies, the ARM Web site (see Figu re 4.1) was updated on a regula r bas is. The site remain s active, so you ca n view in fo rmat ion as it o ri gin ally appeared.
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Figure 4.1 The Anti -Robot Militia (ARM) Web site. It was no ted at the time by several players how cool they tho ught it was to have actual
real-world events staged for the game. While actual telepho ne calls, e- mails, and faxes had been part of the game since it began, the types of events that occurred in the cities listed above clearly took the involvement of the game to a new level, and pointed to where th e genre of gaming could eventually lead (a directio n it clearly has fo llowed, given the pheno menal real-world elements of an ARG like The Art of the Heist),
Gosney, John W. Beyond Reality : A Guide to Alternate Reality Gaming. Boston, MA, USA: Course Technology, Incorporated, 2005. p 81. http://site.ebrary.com/lib/drexel/Doc?id=10087001&ppg=102
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An Escape, a Temple, and a Tearoom While no sho rt descriptio n (for example, this chapter and Chapter 3) can really do justice to the sense of involvement and fun the Cloudmakers initially experienced in playing the game when it was o riginally unfolding, I hope that by reading through these chapters you'll get a sense of the level of involvement of the game and what was requi red to solve its many puzzles. Keeping that in mind, some of the descript io n provided in these two chapters can only strive to be general summaries of the multitude of clues and events (both real and virtual) that occurred during the initial run of the game. Keeping th is in mind and in o rder to con tinue to move our discussion fo rnrard, consider the fo llowing as a very abridged synopsis of an involved stretch of the game: • If yo u recall from Chapter 3, Venus the "killer robot " had been captured by the SPCB. At this point in the game, players were so mewhat surprised to learn she had escaped . While the SPCB is apparently no t making a distinctio n, at this point the idea was suggested that Venus had o nly been "programmed" to kill Evan Chan. • Altho ugh we know (as readers of the history of the ga me) that Enrico Basta is now dead, at this poi nt in the game this fact was not known. Add itio nal clues about his actio ns led players to believe that he might have more of an involve· ment in the death of Evan than othernrise anticipated. • We know that some of Martin Swinto n's "smart homes" (to put it mildly... ) are having problems, because some of them are malfunctioning and being diagnosed as su ffering from "Mad House Syndrome." News updates were posted o n the Metro politan Living Homes Web site, as illustrated in Figure 4. 2. • If you go all the way back to the beginning of o ur discuss ion in Chap ter 3, one of the first fi gures was of the now famous Jeanine Salla bio page on the Bangalo re World University site. It was noticed at this poin t in the game that if you scrolled all the way to the bottom of her page, in the lower left -hand co rner a small set of eyes would rando mly appear. Of course, these eyes were a hyperlink and when clicked would take you to a Web site called Sophia's Temple. Unfortunately, while the eyes still randomly appea r o n th e Jea ni ne $alia bio page, the link is no longer active. Still, we will follow with the ori ginal descri ptio n of the game to see who (or what) Sophi a was all about.
Gosney, John W. Beyond Reality : A Guide to Alternate Reality Gaming. Boston, MA, USA: Course Technology, Incorporated, 2005. p 82. http://site.ebrary.com/lib/drexel/Doc?id=10087001&ppg=103
An Escape, a Temple, and a Tea room
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Figure 4.2 Players became suspicious at the ~ unnatural ~ death of another Swinton home.
• Finally, at this point in the game players also discovered a Web site named Eliza's Tearoom. This site presented yet anothe r confusing puzzle, but ultimately led to perhaps a more overriding question: Who (or what) is Eliza? Is she a real person or an AI? As noted in the Cloud makers guide to the game, it was speculated at this point that Eliza is an AI therapist at the "Catskills Seaview Clinic." Of the in fo rmation presented here, the Sophia's Temple Web site would prove to be the most telling. The Cloudmakers event ually solved the riddle of Eliza's Tearoom, and when they did the Sophia's Temple site changed so that two dosed eyes, along with two text boxes, we re presented. After some investigatio n, it was lea rned that the first box corresponded to a name, while the second box corresponded to an emot ion. Depending
Gosney, John W. Beyond Reality : A Guide to Alternate Reality Gaming. Boston, MA, USA: Course Technology, Incorporated, 2005. p 83. http://site.ebrary.com/lib/drexel/Doc?id=10087001&ppg=104
83
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Chapter 4 • Past Reality: An Annotated ARG, Part II
on the name and emotion entered, different responses would be generated. Again, a tremendous amount of information was uncovered concerning relationships of several characters (Basta, Kate Nei, Martin Swinton houses, and Venus). As to the identity of Sophia, that is still a mystery at this point, but it is speculated that she is also anAl. Note The cloudmakers.orglguide site offers, along with all aspects of the game, a terrifically detailed analysis of the various responses that the Sophia's Temple site gave to the various name/emotion word pairs. For a specific review of this wonderfully innovative aspect of the game (not to mention the savvy collaborative play of the Cloudmakers), see hnp:llcloudmakers.orgl guide/index2.shtml#6.0sophia. This discussion also contains direct links to the original discussion posts so you can follow along (if you decide to become a member of the Cloudmaker group) and read the original notes on this aspect of the game.
The Death of Enrico Basta and Cybertronics Corporation While you've known it since Chapter 3, the players only now originally learned of Enrico Basta's death. As usual, his coroner's report was posted on the PANO Web site, as shown in Figure 4.3. As many updates and discoveries were made from this point fornrard, I want to condense this period of the game (from May 23 through June 19 of the original game timeframe, as noted on the Cloudmakers guide). Specificall y, I'll highlight the emergence of the Cybertronics Corporation and how they will factor into the mystery of the game. Figures 4.4 and 4.5 show their Web site. From the Cybertronics page, there is a link to 7 to l.net, which will prove relevant both for the game itself and from a (real-life) historical perspective. Figure 4.6 highlights the 7 to l.net home page.
Gosney, John W. Beyond Reality : A Guide to Alternate Reality Gaming. Boston, MA, USA: Course Technology, Incorporated, 2005. p 84. http://site.ebrary.com/lib/drexel/Doc?id=10087001&ppg=105
The Death of Enrico Basta and Cybertronics Corporation
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- .~
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Figure 4.3 Coroner's report of Enrico Basta .
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Figure 4,4 Flash-based intro to Cybertronics Web site.
Gosney, John W. Beyond Reality : A Guide to Alternate Reality Gaming. Boston, MA, USA: Course Technology, Incorporated, 2005. p 85. http://site.ebrary.com/lib/drexel/Doc?id=10087001&ppg=106
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...
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Figure 4.5 The main home page.
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Figure 4.6 Home page for 7 to 1.net (http:lntol .cioudmakers.org/).
Gosney, John W. Beyond Reality : A Guide to Alternate Reality Gaming. Boston, MA, USA: Course Technology, Incorporated, 2005. p 86. http://site.ebrary.com/lib/drexel/Doc?id=10087001&ppg=107
More Ma rti n
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Note the text that appears on this page:
Can a collection of gears arId programs trilly be said to be "alive!" Should machines be given "rigllts" at tile expense of your family? Reasollable people can disagree Oil tllis crucial issue. Wllat is not open to debate is that tile curre1lt Maml Act. as written, is a deeply flawed and poorly tllOugllr·ollr piece of legisla· rioll. While its supporters are no doubt in a rIlslI to correct wllat they see as an "injustice," tlte rest of I/S mllst be Sllre that any law which will fimdametJtally and irrevocably change the balance of political and social power i" Ollr 1Iation lias been pllt toget/ler with a great deal more thol/ght. Whether yOIl are "For" or 'j\gainst" tile emancipatioll of Als, YOIl need to vote NO on the Malin Act Referendum. This is interesting text, both fro m th e perspective of a clue, as wel l as further high· lighting the way the designers of the Beast so skillfully intertwined rea l history with various fa cts and aspects of the game. Indeed. this is relevant because the Mann Act is. in actuality, real legislation that was passed in 1910. The brief Wikipedia desc ri ption (http ://en.wikipedia.orgl wikilMann_Act) of the legislation is as follows:
The Mmm Act of 1910 prohibited so·called wllite slavery-the practice of Euro· pean girls working in American bordellos. It also banl1ed the interstate transport offemales for immoral purposes. Its primary intent was to address prostitutioll and immorality. It's not su rprising then that the "new" Mann Act would seek to essentially give rights and freedoms to Als. We'll come back to thi s page at the end of th is chapter (as it fac· tors into the conclusion of the game). For now, note this obvious "a nti·A I" sentiment of those behind the 7 to l.net page, and-sin ce the page is directly lin ked from Cybertronics-what it implies about the ultimate feel ings those at Cybertron ics have for Als.
More Martin Martin Swinton is clearly o ne of the more interesting and relevant characters within the game. After all, it is his AI · enhanced homes that have not o nly been killing them· selves but. as speculated, are also killing others (Enrico Basta perhaps the most promi· nent example).
Gosney, John W. Beyond Reality : A Guide to Alternate Reality Gaming. Boston, MA, USA: Course Technology, Incorporated, 2005. p 87. http://site.ebrary.com/lib/drexel/Doc?id=10087001&ppg=108
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As the game continues to unfold at this point, Martin has several connections that make him someone to keep an eye on: • There is speculation at this point that possibly Cybertronics Corporation ordered the assassinatio n of Martin's houses (described earlier, both in this chapter and Chapter 3) to stop Martin from investigating the death of his AI brother, David. Apparently, David was a failure and made by-who else?Cybertronics. What is interesti ng, though, is that it is probably not Martin doing the snooping around but rather someone who has stolen his identity. • Martin's Al by the name of Brutus is in contact with a high-ranking member of ARM, and this member is aware that his son has been talking with Brutus. • Martin's mother has been a patient for several years at the Catskills Seaview Clinic, and has bee n speaking with someone by the name of Jane Sutter, a long-standing (and powerful) employee of Cybertronics. Indeed, quite a bit of the game clues, or at least the characters themselves, seem to be revolving around the character of Martin Swinton is some fashion or another. Martin's Web page and diary were first highlighted in C hapter 3 (see Figures 3. 18-3 .20). Martin was, at this point, updating his diary once agai n and makes a reference to o ne of his homes named Origen. As yet another example of the tremendous level of creativity, planning, and thought that went into the design of the Beast, walk through the following path of discovery: l. O riginally there was a link/infor mat ion about the Origen house on the Met-
ropolitan Living Homes Web site; however, if you read through the complete Cloudmakers gu ide to the game, you can find a direct link. Figure 4.7 illustrates a picture of the Origen house. 2. Nothing overly spectacular about this, right? But, what happens if you save this picture and then open it in a text editor like Notepad? Why would you want to do this, you ask? Normally yo u wouldn't, of cou rse, but this is the Beast and there are clues everywhere (some more conspicuous than o thers, of course). When you save the picture and open it in Notepad , you are presented with what looks like code, as shown in Figure 4.8.
Gosney, John W. Beyond Reality : A Guide to Alternate Reality Gaming. Boston, MA, USA: Course Technology, Incorporated, 2005. p 88. http://site.ebrary.com/lib/drexel/Doc?id=10087001&ppg=109
More Ma rti n
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Figure 4 .8 Gibberish ... or once again a clue to something bigger?
Gosney, John W. Beyond Reality : A Guide to Alternate Reality Gaming. Boston, MA, USA: Course Technology, Incorporated, 2005. p 89. http://site.ebrary.com/lib/drexel/Doc?id=10087001&ppg=110
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3. What does this mean? Consider the following quote from the Cloudmakers guide ( http://cloudmakers.orgl gu ide/index3 .sht ml #8.04 martin):
The 'rk' stands for Red King, 'Domicide' speaks for itself and 'Esspeeseebe' is SPCB. There are also lots of 8s either side of the line. Putting this altogether in our brain and giving it a bit of a stir, we might eventually come to the conclusion tflat we are supposed to go to http://www.spcb.org/8domicide8. And if we do go there, then we get a page full of the same easy code that we've seen the Red King use several times before. 4. So, if we visit the link described above, we are presented with Figure 4.9. What is the significance of Figure 4.9? This is code that had been translated earlier in the game, and points to additional clues (and points not surprisingly in the direction of Martin Swinton's diary), describing further characters and actions that seem to, at this point, contin ue to implicate Cybertro nics as having deeper connections in this evolving mystery.
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Figure 4.9 An intriguing, but confusing method of presenting information.
Gosney, John W. Beyond Reality : A Guide to Alternate Reality Gaming. Boston, MA, USA: Course Technology, Incorporated, 2005. p 90. http://site.ebrary.com/lib/drexel/Doc?id=10087001&ppg=111
-•
News Updates
You've seen many examples of how, during the course of the o riginal game play, various "news updates" were p rovided, usually in the form of specific Web sites being updated o n a weekly basis, but also changes and developments in characters' actions that caused them to either make new "posts" to their Web sites (for example, Martin and his diary entries) o r the delivery of new e-mails, and so on to players of the game. At this point in the game (which, incidentally, was nearing the end of the game in the summer of2001), th ere were several news updates. While perhaps none of them presented any critical information to players, they are interesting to highlight here if, for noth ing else, to show how the designers of the game went to such great lengths to develop such a cohesive (and complicated) narrative. Figures 4.10--4.13 highlight these "updates" as they originally occurred.
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Copyright © 2005. Course Technology, Incorporated. All rights reserved. May not be reproduced in any form without permission from the publisher, except fair uses permitted under U.S. or applicable copyright law.
News Updates
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Figure 4.10 The first of two news stories. this one describing interstellar travel. Note the attention to realistic (7) detail in the style of the writing.
Gosney, John W. Beyond Reality : A Guide to Alternate Reality Gaming. Boston, MA, USA: Course Technology, Incorporated, 2005. p 91. http://site.ebrary.com/lib/drexel/Doc?id=10087001&ppg=112
91
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Chapter 4 •
Past Reality: An Annotated ARG, Part II
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Figure 4.11 Initial story about Mann Act II being introduced into U.S. Senate.
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Figure 4.12 More news on the Mann Act. but nothing new.
Gosney, John W. Beyond Reality : A Guide to Alternate Reality Gaming. Boston, MA, USA: Course Technology, Incorporated, 2005. p 92. http://site.ebrary.com/lib/drexel/Doc?id=10087001&ppg=113
News Updates
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Figure 4.13 A semi·interesting news story. but containing gold to any Cloudmaker: a new Web site (Clinique de lille) to explore I Again, while interesting. the news stories didn't particularly lead to any great revelation with the game except the final one, which contained a new Web site (to be explored next). While perhaps superfluous to the game, these sites nevertheless once again are testament to the level of detail utili zed in the game design, as well as how perseverance and critical reading skills were required by those who played the ga me, in o rder to catch those news stories that did include important information (for example, Figure 4.13 and the link to a new Web site to explore).
Tip
Clearly. the Cloudmakers had a very large amount of information to work through on all of these Web sites. and the ability to read efficiently and critically was a key component of their work. You'lI gain a more complete understanding of how ARG-related Web sites are (onstructed in Chapters 9 and 10.
Gosney, John W. Beyond Reality : A Guide to Alternate Reality Gaming. Boston, MA, USA: Course Technology, Incorporated, 2005. p 93. http://site.ebrary.com/lib/drexel/Doc?id=10087001&ppg=114
93
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Past Reality: An Annotated ARG, Part II
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Clinique de Lille and Watchtower Security Clinique de Lille turns out to be a Web site completely in French, and it is an impressively and intricately designed Web site. However, what is perhaps more interesting in our narrative at th is point is how, a bit later in the game (that is, after the Clinique de Lille site was discove red), there appeared on th at page a link to Watchtower Security. Figures 4.14 and 4.15 highlight the Clinique de Lille home page (illustrating the Watchtower Security link) and the Watchtower Secu rity page, respectively. Based on additional information gathered over the course of the game play, it was discovered that access to the Watchtower Security "Private Files" could be gained through the use of a password ("intrepid"). This site and functionality is still active, as illustrated in Figures 4.16--4.19. Full details about how the "intrepid" password was gained and the meaning of the clouds can be found on the Cloudmakers guide site. Suffice it to say that the information presented gave additional critical details on character development and led players to further speculate as to the intricacies of the game .
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,Figure 4.14 Home page for Clinique de Lille.
Gosney, John W. Beyond Reality : A Guide to Alternate Reality Gaming. Boston, MA, USA: Course Technology, Incorporated, 2005. p 94. http://site.ebrary.com/lib/drexel/Doc?id=10087001&ppg=115
.-
Clinique de lille and Watchtower Security
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...
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Figure 4.15 Home page for Watchtower Security.
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Figure 4.16 Secure login for Watchtower Security.
Gosney, John W. Beyond Reality : A Guide to Alternate Reality Gaming. Boston, MA, USA: Course Technology, Incorporated, 2005. p 95. http://site.ebrary.com/lib/drexel/Doc?id=10087001&ppg=116
a
• •
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95
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Chapter 4 • Past Reality: An Annotat ed ARG. Part II
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"
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Figure 4.17 login successful! like many sites for the game. there is a real sense of entering a -5e
Figure 4.18 Once in. more intriguing (if confusing) information is presented.
Gosney, John W. Beyond Reality : A Guide to Alternate Reality Gaming. Boston, MA, USA: Course Technology, Incorporated, 2005. p 96. http://site.ebrary.com/lib/drexel/Doc?id=10087001&ppg=117
Moving Towards Mann Act II
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Moving Towards Mann Act II At this point in the game it is (was) dear that the passing of the Mann Act II was going to be a critical (if not the critical ) focus of the game. Anoth er news story appeared indicati ng that the Mann Act II had passed in the Senate (see Figure 4.11 ) and that a referendum would now be held on "July 20. 2142" (in game world time) to determine if. in fact, sentient beings (that is. Als) would be granted their equal rights. Figure 4. 19 highlights this news story as it appeared on the AIT Web site. On a related note, there was an assassination attempt on Senator Julia Mann. The assassin was captured. based on informat ion given to officials by Brutus (Swinton's AI). Figu re 4.20 highlights the news story as it occurred. Note the great quote at the end of the story. att ributed to the would-be assassin, "Well, I guess I must have malfun ctioned." Also, note the information posted on the Coali tion for Robot Freedom Web site, which instructs readers on how to respond to the arguments made by the 7 to I group. See Figure 4.2 1.
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Figure 4.19 Countdown to freedom for Als?
Gosney, John W. Beyond Reality : A Guide to Alternate Reality Gaming. Boston, MA, USA: Course Technology, Incorporated, 2005. p 97. http://site.ebrary.com/lib/drexel/Doc?id=10087001&ppg=118
97
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Chapter 4 • Past Reality: An Annotated ARG. Part II
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Figure 4.20 A wicked sense of humor is a trait that apparently continues in the future. ..-.~
Figure 4.21 Guided responses for arguing in favor of robot freedom!
Gosney, John W. Beyond Reality : A Guide to Alternate Reality Gaming. Boston, MA, USA: Course Technology, Incorporated, 2005. p 98. http://site.ebrary.com/lib/drexel/Doc?id=10087001&ppg=119
The Death of Jeanine Salla
The Death of Jeanine Salla Copyright © 2005. Course Technology, Incorporated. All rights reserved. May not be reproduced in any form without permission from the publisher, except fair uses permitted under U.S. or applicable copyright law.
It's probably not that terribly surprising th at Jeanine would meet her demise. Figure 4.22 illust rates. albeit somewhat graphicaUy, the usual PACO autopsy repo rt.
Figure 4.22 Given the bruising marks, which are evident in the photos. Jeanine probably didn't experience an easy or peaceful demise. With the fir st and perhaps most famous character in the game now dead, where are things leading, and is there any way to take stock of what might be around the corner? At this point in th e actual game play, a great d eal of activit y was ongoing as th e endgame was rapidly approaching and players sensed a resoluti on to the puzzle that had so intrigued them for several months.
Gosney, John W. Beyond Reality : A Guide to Alternate Reality Gaming. Boston, MA, USA: Course Technology, Incorporated, 2005. p 99. http://site.ebrary.com/lib/drexel/Doc?id=10087001&ppg=120
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Chapte r 4 • Past Reality: An Annotated ARG. Part II Note
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The following really is a very brief summary of a very large amount of information. Again. see http://www.cloudmakers.orglguide for complete and detailed notes on how the game originally unfolded.
To quickly summarize what was otherwise several pages of detailed notes from the Clo udmakers' guide. we now know the foll owing: • Evan Chan, as an employee of Donu Tech, had been assigned to help administer a critical business merger contract. Evan discovered impo rtant details that wo uld have sto pped the merger from going forward. • A cowo rker of Evan's discovered this, informed o ne of the principal groups (the Dalangs) involved in the merger, and this group had Eva n killed. • Another one of these members is also behind th e killing or "assignat io n" of the vario us Martin Swinton ho uses, which were described ea rlier in Chapter 3. • Interestingly, it appeared that the same member of the Dalangs who was orderi ng the killing of the Swinton houses might also have been the one member of the group to oppose the order to have Evan Chan killed. As such, there is evidence that this same person has been giving dues about th e real story behind Evan's death. • As mentioned by the title of this section. Jeanine Salla is dead. Did the same group that had Evan killed also kill Jeanine, given their dose relationship and the fear that what Evan knew (or was looking into) might soon fu ll into someone else's hands? Possibly... The ultimate development and proof of all the above points again involved a great deal of critical and collaborative thinking by the Cloudmakers. But at this point, the endgame is most certainly very near (as also noted in the Cloudmakers' guide), so let's move o n to see what , exactly, the conclusion to the game amounted to.
Game Over: The Passing of the Mann Act As you might expect, the game reached its climax with the referendum vote on th e Mann Act II. Figure 4.23 shows the results.
Gosney, John W. Beyond Reality : A Guide to Alternate Reality Gaming. Boston, MA, USA: Course Technology, Incorporated, 2005. p 100. http://site.ebrary.com/lib/drexel/Doc?id=10087001&ppg=121
Game Over: The Passing o f the Mann Act
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Figure 4.23 The Mann Act II passes, through a vote of 58% to 42%'
Anti-climactic? Hardly. When you consider the eno rmous breadth of detail and effort that went into the game, both from a puppetmaster and player perspective, it remains easy to see-four years later-why this experiment in Web-based collaborative play quickly became something far more than its designers (or perhaps it s players) even envisio ned. As was discussed briefly in ea rl ier chapters (and will be revisited in Chapter 10), th e level of collective intelligence/collaborative play that was demonstrated by the Cloud makers most certainly took this game beyo nd the realm of a simple advertising gimm ick. I mention that o nly because th ere are many people who still fee l th at ARGs are nothing more than just that-advertising gimmicks. Perhaps, ultimately, the advertising world is where these games find thei r ge nesis, but th e people who play them are most certainly taking these "ads" and claiming them- and making them- as thei r own.
Gosney, John W. Beyond Reality : A Guide to Alternate Reality Gaming. Boston, MA, USA: Course Technology, Incorporated, 2005. p 101. http://site.ebrary.com/lib/drexel/Doc?id=10087001&ppg=122
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Chapte r 4 • Past Rea lity: An Annotated ARG. Part II
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To quote the e-ma il received by players from the puppermasters themselves, once the game concluded: From : themanbehindthecu rtain
Subject : Surfacing Date: Tue, 24 Jul200 1 10:25:23 -0800 Dear Players: Now ou r play is ended. We have drawn aside the curtain, and let it drop for good. But we wan ted to write o ne more time, to say again what a profound pleasure and extrao rdinary privilege it has been to wo rk with you. We had a magical team to put this thing together. How lucky we were to find a team every bit as magical on the other side of the curta in! Your passio n and energy and intell igence has kept us going through more d ire emergencies and long nights than yo u can imagine. We always thought a community could form arou nd this project, but never dared to hope for an aud ience so engaged and so resourceful. You demanded that we expe rimen t, and were generous enough to stick with us when some of those experiments didn't work out quite as we had hoped. You made us work really hard. Which was only fair. The best audience an artist can hope fo r is one that fo rgives error but never cynicism; that demands you r best work and then appreciates it; that co ntributes energy and ideas to create something better than you could have ever made on your own. At this moment, we believe we have been blessed with the best, smartest, most passionate audience imaginable ... We think that all of us, puppetmasters and players alike, have been given a chance to be part of a truly original and groundbreaking experiment. There will be other projects that attem pt to use the web as a distinctive artistic medium, ones with bigger budgets and larger audiences: but we here were first. O nce again, ou r profound thanks. It was dazzling, wasn't it? The PMs (http://c1oudmakers.orglguide/ index4.shtml#1 O. 2pu ppet)
[email protected] FROM: The Travelers SUBJECT: Are you on the bus? The road to excess leads to the palace of wisdom. But the old road leads to a new destina tion in the golden state. Are you on the bus or off the bus? Please decide quickly. The Travelers Note[email protected] . No, this isn't a real e-mail address (really! ) so please don't try and send messages to it! A mysterious c-mail . no doubt about it. One thing to note. tho ugh. is that "golden state" is most certainly a reference to California. as that state's motto is "the golden state." But what is all this talk of being on the bus? A search on Yahoo of the phrase "on the bus" gives the followin g typical results. as shown in Figure 5.1 2. All of this or at least one specific link that is presented in the sea rch results could be significant. but where to begin? Clicking on the alternate sea rch phrase. "Get on the bus" results in Figure 5.13.[email protected] FROM: ars-player_2@somewhere. net SUBJEcr: Martin Blackford Hello! I received your e-mail address in a message from some group calling themselves "The Travelers." Have you by chance sent your e-mail address to the Martin Blackford Web site? I did, and received some cryptic message about being on the bus or off the bus, and it included your e-mail address as someone who might be able to help with "the journey?" If any of this makes sense, please drop me a line. OK, this is a little freaky. What do they mean by having you r e-mail address included in the message that came from the Travelers? Clearly, whoever is behind this little mystery is also behind the Martin Blackford Web site, or at the very least has access to it in order to send your e-mail address along to someone else. Still, you are intrigued enough with this e-mail that you've received that you decide to write back and let them know that, yes, you did enter your address at the Blackford site, and have been trying to figure out the meaning of the "on the bus/off the bus" issue. A few hours later, after responding to ars-player_2 (again, this is an obviously fake e-mail address, used just for illustrating the game), you get this response:[email protected] FROM: ar~ pl [email protected] Copyright © 2005. Course Technology, Incorporated. All rights reserved. May not be reproduced in any form without permission from the publisher, except fair uses permitted under U.S. or applicable copyright law.[email protected] FROM: The Travelers SUBJECf: Are you on the bus? The bus is getting ready to leave. Do you have yo ur ticket? Are you o n o r off the bus? Please se nd a message to travelers@;ourney. net, leav ing the subject line blank and including your fax number in the message body, in this format: (xxx}-xxx-xxxx Directio ns for purchasing your ticket will follow. The Travelers Upo n receipt of this e- mai l, you send a message to you r (at this po int) mysterious "ars.-player_2 " collaborator, asking if they, too, received this same e- mail. They write back indicating that yes, they did receive it and have already respo nded with their fax number. When they did, and about an hour after sending the message, they received the fo llowing fax: Fa ncy poultry, parts sold here Backs are cheap and wings are nearly free Tickets are free, too, ;ust like the ride on the blimp. The blimp! The blimp! The Mothership! The Mothersh ip! The captain knows best. Even if it is just a replica. Now go back to the starting point and buy your ticket! You go ahead and respond to the Travelers message with your fax number, and sure enough you receive the same fax about an hour later. Sa me quest ion : What does it mean? Fancy poultry? References to blimps? Nothing is clear at this poin t, but it is definitely intriguing. Having learned from sea rching on the phrase fro m the o riginal Travelers e-mail, you do a search on the o pening tex t of this message, and find that these are lyrics to a song by the artist Suzanne Vega. See Figure 5. 15.[email protected] FROM: The Travelers SUBJECT: Mugwumps Date: July 29, 1974 The bus has left St. Louis, but don't worry- you are on it. Our next stop is the ranch. Remember: mugwump is not spelled with three w's. but if it were it would be in the middle. This is not a California Dream. The Travelers[email protected] SU BJECT: This is a long shot, but ... If you do a sea rch on the term "mugwump California d ream" you get a list of so me obvious music/band references (Led Zeppel in, Eagles, Little Feat) . But if you do th is search o n Yahoo, about a half dozen links down the page you'll see a link to " Dream a Little Dream: That Was the Mugwumps." Check it out.[email protected] FROM: The Travelers SUBJECT: Charlie's Good Tonight They should have hired real Police, as the Angels couldn't handle the crowd. In the end, it's all just words in a paper cup. Or a bucket. Find the key, get your kicks, and get some shelter: WWl.... blackford.html As the group begins to discuss this e- mail, the foll owing points are decided upon as being relevant: • Given the reference again to the Beatles lyric, but this time (in the e- mail, that is) as a rather off-handed remark, it seems that this reference has been placed just to possibly mi slead the group. Someone else remarks that since the phrase "Or a bucket" is differentiated and placed on its own, that maybe it is significant. But the majority of the group feels this is not the case. • The fact that the wo rd "Police" is capitalized seems to give credence to the fact that the lung/Synchro nicity reference was most definitely pointing in the direction of making a connection to the band's "Synchronicity" album. You report what your group found in this regard, and based on your work, the rest of the group is confid ent this is indeed a relevant reference. • The reiteration of the last sentence as compared to the fax is of interestclearly, the Travelers are trying to make some point that this line is important. There is one difference between the fax and the e- mail, and that is the inclusion of the phrase "get your kicks," which was not originally included in the fax. • Finally, what is up with that weird subject line? Who is "Charlie?"[email protected] FROM: [email protected] SUBJECT: Traveler's "Charlie" e-mail I've been thinking about your "Angels" reference, and how that might be a reference to something more specific than just a general utilization of the word. Anyway, I've been thinking about the context of how it is used in the email and I was reminded that, in December of 1969, the Rolling Stones gave a free concert (somewhere on the West Coast, I think) where they hired the Hell's Angels to act as sec urity. Anyway, if memory serves, the concert did not go well, and I think someone was killed by members of the Angels. Maybe this is what that line, "They should have hired real Police, as the Angels co uldn't handle the crowd." was meant to reference? Also, if this is some kind of reference to the Rolling Stones, they had that song "G imme Shelter," which is also referenced in the Traveler's e-mail and fax. As you sit drinking your morning java, pouring over th is post, you can't believe what you are reading. Once again, the "collect ive mind" has hit upon something that, from the sound of it, must be true! Calling in sick to work (this stuff is far more interesting than work), you do the usual Google search on the term "Angels Rolling Stones:' the results of which are illustrated in Figure 7.1.[email protected] FROM: The Travelers SUBJECT: The Brujo is watching Fellow travelers, you are neari ng the end of your journey. The Brujo is watching, and waiting for your arrival. Knowing things that are useless is not power, nor is it knowledge. Clean yourself of the filthy lucre and see the blast muse um: this will remind you that your ultimate destination is one of purity of mind and spirit. Your only altered state will be your clear mind. See you on the pier.. This is where most of your HTML code is placed; as such, it corresponds to the body of your Web page content. Copyright © 2005. Course Technology, Incorporated. All rights reserved. May not be reproduced in any form without permission from the publisher, except fair uses permitted under U.S. or applicable copyright law., , <TITl£>, and opening and closing tags are presented within this template (see the following code listing). Take advantage of this template to remind yourself to include these important tags within your document (in other words, don't delete them)! In the following code, you ca n see a document template that is often produced by default in HTML editors. This template outlines the use of the primary HTML tags. <meta http-equlv·"Content-Type" con tent-" t ex t/html : charset-windows-1Z5Z "> <meta name-"GENERATOR" content-"Hic rosoft FrontPage 4.0"> <meta name-"Prog ld" content-"Fron t Page .Editor .Oocument "> New Page l <Jhtml> This example was produced using Microsoft FrontPage. (Note the FrontPage-specific tags, which I wi ll discuss later. ) This template presents all of the major document tags (both opening and closing) and also a default page title. When you create your own pages, don't forget to include these tags, and be sure to title your page (using the tag)- hopefully somethin g mo re descriptive than " New Page 1." TipThis text is left aligned .(/p>
tag simply puts a paragraph break between each line. Style sheets and DHTM L (Dynamic HTML) allow for more exact placement of text on your Web pagc. You will explore both of these issues concepts in Chapter 10.
The following are all good things t o have for a picnic:
Plastic utensils A picnic basket Bug repellant( /li> A blanket A nice bottle of wine The following are the top five great things about summer :
<01> Goi ng swimming The smell of freshly· cut grass The Fourth of July <1i>Vacat ions! <11 i > Going to see a baseball game Figure 9.2 shows the result of this code in a Web browser.and closing tags. Then you surround each item yo u want to individually bullet with o pening and closing and closing tags to denote them. However, just like the hulleted list, you use opening and closing tags to individually number each item. You might want to nest a numbered list within a bulleted list or vice ve rsa. This is eas ily accomplished hy specifying the placement of your opening and dosing and <01> tags, respectively. For example, take a look at the following code listing.The four seasons of the year , with the top five th ing s about ea ch season: Going swimming
The smell of freshlY'c ut grass The Fou rth of July Vaca t Ions! <11 D <1 1>Goi ng to see a baseball ga me Fa ll <J1D <1 Dill nter Figure 9.3 illustrates this code in action. In the preceding code, notice the placement of the closing tag for the summer bullet. The opening <01> tag (for the numbered list) immediately foll ows the open· ing <11> tag (fo r the bulleted list). This nests the numbered list within the bu lleted list. Then once the numbered list is complete, the closing tag is immediately fo l· lowed by the closing <11 i >tag, so that the next bulleted item (in this case, " Fall") will not appear as an item of the numbered list. tag. You can set th e attribute to one of two values . • You can literally use the name of a color. In this case, you can set the color to one of 16 defined colo rs, such as . • You can use the hexadecimal value of the color, which allows you to select from literally hundreds of color combinations. Each color has a hexadecimal value; by tweaking this value, you can tweak th e color. For example, the hexadecimal for basic red is FFOOOO. However, a slightly lighter shade of red is FF3 11 8. In your HTML code, you use these hexadecimal values in the color attribute. For example, to use the hexadecimal for red, you would type tag and its att ributes contain most of what you need to know in terms of basic image manipulation. That said, this chapter will focus on the explo ration and discussion of this tag. and how you can util ize it most effectively. The following code listing ill ustrates the use of the Working with Images in HTML
Note Working with Images in HTML</titl e> </hea d> <body> <p align·"cente r" Hb>Working with Images in HTML</b></p> <hr> <p align·"center "> <img border· ·O· alt·"We sell this compute r, as well as all accessor ies , hardware and software . Take ti~e to exp lore our site and all we have to offert· src·· /j02S5750.wmf· width·"192" height·"l IS") </body> </htlll> Figure 9,9 illustrates the use of the alt attribute, as demonstrated in the preceding code listing. Tip<br />
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The al t attribute can be an interesting place to -hide- information about your game, or otherwise make said information a little less conspicuous to locate (for example, make the players work just a little bit harder to find it).<br />
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Strategies for Loading Images Quickly Players will quickly grow impatient if they have to wait ve ry long for you r Web pages to load, so always take that into consideration with your design. There are several ways you can avoid having th is fate befall your Web site, ranging from simply scaling down the size of yOUT images (via the width and height attributes) to creating thumbnail links to larger images. The following sections will discuss these issues and show you how to best implement them in your pages.<br />
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Gosney, John W. Beyond Reality : A Guide to Alternate Reality Gaming. Boston, MA, USA: Course Technology, Incorporated, 2005. p 215. http://site.ebrary.com/lib/drexel/Doc?id=10087001&ppg=236<br />
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Chapter 9 • Web Design for Puppetmasters, Part I<br />
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Copyright © 2005. Course Technology, Incorporated. All rights reserved. May not be reproduced in any form without permission from the publisher, except fair uses permitted under U.S. or applicable copyright law.<br />
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Figure 9.9 You can provide valuable supplementary information about the image, your page, your Web site, or your entire organization via skillful and creative use of the it 1t attribute,<br />
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Creating an Equally Accessible ARG One major reason for the use of the AlT tag is to allow Web pages to comply with the Americans with Disabilities Ad (ADA) requirements. Imagine, for example, that a blind person wants to play an ARG. If he can't see the textlimages on the Web page, there needs to be an alternate format for him to interpret or access this information from within the Web browser. To summarize this law: The ADA was signed into law in 1990, and it ~prohibits discrimination on the basis of disability in employment programs, and services provided by state and local governments, goods and services provided by private companies. and in commercial facilities.Having an ADA·compliantARG (at least in terms of your Web pages) is an engaging concept and one that might allow some truly outstanding players access to your game, who might not otherwise have been able to play. For more information on the ADA, see http://www.usdoj.gov/crt/adaJadahoml.htm.<br />
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Gosney, John W. Beyond Reality : A Guide to Alternate Reality Gaming. Boston, MA, USA: Course Technology, Incorporated, 2005. p 216. http://site.ebrary.com/lib/drexel/Doc?id=10087001&ppg=237<br />
<br />
Essentia ls of Web Design<br />
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Copyright © 2005. Course Technology, Incorporated. All rights reserved. May not be reproduced in any form without permission from the publisher, except fair uses permitted under U.S. or applicable copyright law.<br />
<br />
Changing the Width and Height of an Image As you saw in Figure 9.6, you can use the width and height attributes of the <img> tag to change the size of your image. A good way to experi ment with different width and hei ght attributes is to get your image info rmation directly from your Web browser. Figure 9. 10 illustrates image information being displayed in Internet Explo rer.<br />
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2. From the menu that appears, select Properties. The Properties dialog box shown in Figure 9.10 will appear. Note how the image width and height attributes are the same as those set in the <img> tag.<br />
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Gosney, John W. Beyond Reality : A Guide to Alternate Reality Gaming. Boston, MA, USA: Course Technology, Incorporated, 2005. p 217. http://site.ebrary.com/lib/drexel/Doc?id=10087001&ppg=238<br />
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Cha pter 9 • Web Design for Pu ppetmasters, Pa rt I<br />
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Copyright © 2005. Course Technology, Incorporated. All rights reserved. May not be reproduced in any form without permission from the publisher, except fair uses permitted under U.S. or applicable copyright law.<br />
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Don't overlook the image file size information, also shown in Figure 9.1O. ln this example, the file size is S, 186 bytes, or just a linle over SK. Such an image would load very quickly, even via a slower dial·up connection. Experimenting with the width and height attributes is a great way to decrease the load time of your Web pages . However, keep in mind the image distortion th at can occur (refer back to Figure 9.6). You might find that a better way of dealing with multiple or large images is to provide thumbna il links t hat load the larger image when clicked.<br />
<br />
Creating Thumbnail Links to Images I'm sure yo u have visited many Web pages where multiple images are displayed in smaller form so you can click on an image to display a larger version of it. These smaller images are known as thumbnails, and they are a terrific way of presenting all you r visual content in a manner that allows for much faster loading of your images. Take a look at the following code listing, which highlights the use of a thumbnail for the computer graphic I have used throughout this chapter.<br />
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<html> <head> <title>Work ing with Images in HTH L< / t i t le> <I head> <body> <p align··center "><b>Working wit h Images in HTHl</b></p> <hr> <p align··center"><a href·"j0285750 .gif " rel="nofollow"> <img border-"2" alt·"We sell this computer , as well as all accessories , hardware and software . Take time to explore our site and all we have to offer! " src· "I j0285750_sma 11 . gi f" wi dth·"100 " hei ght·"61 "<I a )(/p> </body> </html> If you look at the <img> tag in this code list ing, you will notice a few things that allow for the use of a thumbnail version of the image:<br />
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Gosney, John W. Beyond Reality : A Guide to Alternate Reality Gaming. Boston, MA, USA: Course Technology, Incorporated, 2005. p 218. http://site.ebrary.com/lib/drexel/Doc?id=10087001&ppg=239<br />
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• First, there is the use of the <a href rel="nofollow"> tag prior to the <img> tag. The <a href rel="nofollow"> tag is used to create hyperlinks, which you will learn more about later in this chapter. In essence, the <a href rel="nofollow"> tag and its corresponding <fa> closing tag allow you to point to a file that will load in the Web browser when the hyperlink is clicked (in this case, when the smaller thumbnail image is clicked) . • Within the <img> tag, notice how the width and height attributes are different than in previous code listings-both values are smaller. Also notice how the src attr ibute is now pointing to a diffe rent file. This file is the smaller, thumbnail version of the larger graphic. Put simp ly, there are now two images-the thumbnail, which first appears when the page is loaded, and the full-blown image, which is linked via the <a href rel="nofollow"> tag. Figures 9. 11 and 9. 12 illustrate the use of a thumbnail. These pages represent the preceding code listing as it would look when loaded in a Web browser. :1 ......... "",. ........ "", .. ,.~._, ' '' ......,'_. ....'<br />
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Gosney, John W. Beyond Reality : A Guide to Alternate Reality Gaming. Boston, MA, USA: Course Technology, Incorporated, 2005. p 219. http://site.ebrary.com/lib/drexel/Doc?id=10087001&ppg=240<br />
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Figure 9.12 When the thumbnail is clicked, the figure to which it points (in this case, the image of the computer with its original height and width attributes) appears on screen . In reality, the use of thumbnails involves two images (one thumbnail image and one larger, complete image), as well as the <a href rel="nofollow"> tag to turn the thumbnail into a hyperlink to the complete image. Again, you wiU learn more about hyperlinks later in this chapter. Using Low- and High-Resolution Images A somewha t nefarious method of capturing readers' atten tion while they wait patiently for an image to load is through the skillful use of the low- and high-resolution attributes of the <img> tag. The following code listing highlights how you can use a combination of two such images, and how each corresponds to a low and high resolution.<br />
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Gosney, John W. Beyond Reality : A Guide to Alternate Reality Gaming. Boston, MA, USA: Course Technology, Incorporated, 2005. p 220. http://site.ebrary.com/lib/drexel/Doc?id=10087001&ppg=241<br />
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Copyright © 2005. Course Technology, Incorporated. All rights reserved. May not be reproduced in any form without permission from the publisher, except fair uses permitted under U.S. or applicable copyright law.<br />
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Essentials of Web Design (html> (head) <tit le)Work.ing with Images in HTHL</title) </ head) <body) (p ali gn·"center")(b)Working with Images in HTHL</b)(/p) (hr) <p align·"center") <img border-"O" src·"/j02857S0.wmf" width·"400" height·"600" lowsrc· "j0285750_low.wmf" width· "SO " height· "lOO ") </body) (/html> Not unlike the discussion of thumbnails, the preceding code listing works with two images-one high -resolution and the other low-resolution. The neat thing about the lowsrc attribute is that this image will load quickly first (because it is lower resolution and the actual file size is not as large). Then the higher-resolution image will load over it. The benefit of this is that instead of see ing the empty placeholder shown in Figure 9.7, the reader's attention is captured by the low-resolution image, givi ng an idea of the image that will soon load in high resolution. The idea is that if players see the image-even in rough format-their cu riosity will be piqued, and they will wait until you r higher-resolution images and the rest of your Web page content load into their browsers. Tip Remember, this effect is achieved through the use of two separate images, one captured (for example) in lower resolution, in black-and-white (versus color), and so on.<br />
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Image and Text Formatting It's one thing to have exciting images on you r Web page, but it's another thing altogether to have them neatly integrated into the rest of your content. Com pare Figures 9.13 and 9.14 and see whether you can tell a difference between how the image and surrounding text integra te (or don't integrate) with each other in terms of page layout.<br />
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Gosney, John W. Beyond Reality : A Guide to Alternate Reality Gaming. Boston, MA, USA: Course Technology, Incorporated, 2005. p 221. http://site.ebrary.com/lib/drexel/Doc?id=10087001&ppg=242<br />
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Copyright © 2005. Course Technology, Incorporated. All rights reserved. May not be reproduced in any form without permission from the publisher, except fair uses permitted under U.S. or applicable copyright law.<br />
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Figure 9.13 By wrapping the text around the graphic, you achieve a neat, integrated appearance between the image and the supporting text.<br />
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Figure 9.14 This doesn't look horrible, but it lacks the clean layout shown in Figure 9.13.<br />
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Gosney, John W. Beyond Reality : A Guide to Alternate Reality Gaming. Boston, MA, USA: Course Technology, Incorporated, 2005. p 222. http://site.ebrary.com/lib/drexel/Doc?id=10087001&ppg=243<br />
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Copyright © 2005. Course Technology, Incorporated. All rights reserved. May not be reproduced in any form without permission from the publisher, except fair uses permitted under U.S. or applicable copyright law.<br />
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You can easily wrap tex t around an image (as shown in Figure 9. 13) using the a I ign attribute within the <img> tag. The following code listing illustrates the HTML behind Fi gure 9. 13. <ht ll]> <head> <title>Working with Images in HTKl< /title> <I head> <body> <hr> <Img border·"O " src·"jOZS57S0.gif " width· "19Z" height·"IIS" ali gn·"r ight "> <b)<br />
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<font size·"6">W elcome to ASC Computers , Inc .<br> </fon t > <i><font size·"S">T he 01 re taile r of compu t ers and compute r ' related accessories</font ></i> </b></ p> <hr> </body> </html> As you can see in the <i lAg> tag, the aI j gn attribute is set to rl ght. (It can be I eft, ri ght, or center.) This allows the text to wrap around the image. By utilizing some simple form atting via the <I>, <b>, and <hr> tags, you can add some very neat formatting to your pages. Note When you set the aIi gn attribute in the <ill9> tag, don't forget that this indicates the align· ment of the image.<br />
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Ca u t io n The align attribute is deprecated in HTMl4.0 and later versions in favor of cascading style sheets. (However, the al ign tag is still recognized in major browsers.) For a more complete description of cascading style sheets (C55) and what they can bring to your Web design, see Chapter 10.<br />
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Gosney, John W. Beyond Reality : A Guide to Alternate Reality Gaming. Boston, MA, USA: Course Technology, Incorporated, 2005. p 223. http://site.ebrary.com/lib/drexel/Doc?id=10087001&ppg=244<br />
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By combining different al ign attributes, you can do some pretty nifty layout tricks with yo ur Web content. Figure 9. 15 shows an example of how you can use two figures with different al ign attributes to create some impressive layout effects on your pages.<br />
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Your computer ill rupposed to be your trusted workhorse, a useful tool can best ideat to fruition and allow you to enjoy aU the fruiu of your<br />
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Figure 9.15 By mixing and matching images with different al ign attributes, you can create some attractive layout effects on your Web pages. The following code listing illustrates the HTML behind Figure 9. 15. In reality, the only special formatti ng is fo r the two images; one has the al i gn attribute set to 1eft, and the other has it set to right. <html> <head> <title>Working with Images in HTM L</title) <I head><br />
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Gosney, John W. Beyond Reality : A Guide to Alternate Reality Gaming. Boston, MA, USA: Course Technology, Incorporated, 2005. p 224. http://site.ebrary.com/lib/drexel/Doc?id=10087001&ppg=245<br />
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Copyright © 2005. Course Technology, Incorporated. All rights reserved. May not be reproduced in any form without permission from the publisher, except fair uses permitted under U.S. or applicable copyright law.<br />
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Essentials of Web Design <body> <hr> <i~g border-"O" src·"j028S7S0.gif" width·"19Z" height·"IIS" align-"right "> <b><font size-"6"> Welcome to ASC Computers, Inc. <br><lfont> <iHfont size-"S">The 11 retailer of computers and computer-related accessories</font></i></b></p> <hr> <img border-"O" align·"left' src·"j019S384.gif" width-"lS9 " height-"193'H/p> <font size-"S">Your computer is supposed to be your trusted workhorse, a useful tool that can help bring your best ideas to fruition and allow you to enjoy all the fruits of your labor.</font></p> <img border-' O" align-'right" src-"jOZ94350[l]l .gif ' width-"19l" height-'17S ">(/p> <font size-"5'>8ut as with all things mechanical , your computer can break down or suffer problems that can put a serious crimp into your best efforts to get that report on your boss' desk before quittin9 time , It ' s times like these when time becomes a real premium, and when you need answers to computer questions quickly, and from experts that you can trust.</font></p> <hr> </body> <fhtlll> Take some time now to experiment with the al ign attribute and discover how you can use it effect ively in comb ination with your text.<br />
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Adding Space around an Image You can use the hspace and Yspace attributes of the <img> tag to add a nice buffer w ne between your im ages and the text that surrounds them. Compare Fi gure 9.16 to Figure 9.1 5 to see how fi gure spacing can alter the appearance of your images and text. Although it might be subtle, you should be able to see the difference between Figures 9. 15 and 9.16. ln Figu re 9.16 the hspace and vspace attributes are both set to 20 pixels, which provides that nice buffer zone around the image. The following line of HTML represents these two attributes as part of the (img> tag: <img border-"O ' hspace- "ZO " yspace- "ZO" align-"left' src·"jOI9S384 .gif" width-"la9" height- "1 93")<br />
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Gosney, John W. Beyond Reality : A Guide to Alternate Reality Gaming. Boston, MA, USA: Course Technology, Incorporated, 2005. p 225. http://site.ebrary.com/lib/drexel/Doc?id=10087001&ppg=246<br />
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Copyright © 2005. Course Technology, Incorporated. All rights reserved. May not be reproduced in any form without permission from the publisher, except fair uses permitted under U.S. or applicable copyright law.<br />
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Your computer it ruppoged to be your trutted w,<kh,, ,,., • ~,fuJ. can help bring your best ideat to fiuition and allow you to enjoy aU the fruit. of your Jabor. But lUI with aU thinp mechanical, your computer can break down or suffer problem. that can pUi a l erioUf crimp into your best etToru to get that report on your bon' desk before quitting time. It'. time lil::e these when time become. a real premium, and when you need anfWet'1 10 computer quertiOfUl quickly, and from experts thai you can trurt.<br />
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Working with Page Layout Yo u can th ink of your page layout as the design template fo r your Web pages and overall Web site. (Indeed. I will use the word template repeatedly in this chapter. as well as when I begin talking about more advanced page- layout control in Chapter 10.) As an example. determining the background color of a page or usi ng an image wate rmark are both impo rtan t design considerations. This becomes even more of an issue when you work with more advanced HTML. such as fram esets (which you'll learn about in Chapter 10), because you want to ensure that all of your fr ames load wi th a consistent look and fee l. However. in add ition to these larger layout issues, so me mo re basic HTML for matting issues also affect page layout, such as:<br />
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Gosney, John W. Beyond Reality : A Guide to Alternate Reality Gaming. Boston, MA, USA: Course Technology, Incorporated, 2005. p 226. http://site.ebrary.com/lib/drexel/Doc?id=10087001&ppg=247<br />
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• Using the text alignment tags to center and right- or left-justify info rmation. • Setting margins. Copyright © 2005. Course Technology, Incorporated. All rights reserved. May not be reproduced in any form without permission from the publisher, except fair uses permitted under U.S. or applicable copyright law.<br />
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• Creating line breaks or other dividers for your Web co ntent. • Working with block quotes or applying special layout formatting to passages of text. Caution If you haven't already guessed, getting your Web content to look just right takes some time. Given differences in browser types, screen resolution, and so on, a page can look one way on Bob's computer but appear completely different on Sally's. That said, you need to test and experiment with your page layout to determine the best presentation of your material, which can be a critical issue in ARG-based Web design given how information can be presented in so many different ways, and a slight change in that presentation can have a radical effect on how that information is utilized/interpreted by players.<br />
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Page Background Layout Issues Establishing page-background formatting is one of the easiest yet most effective ways to make your Web pages more attractive and visually appealing. By setting a background color or doing something more advanced, such as using an image as a background (o r as a watermarked image), you can really make your content come alive with a neatly designed background layout scheme.<br />
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<html> <head> <tit le>Working with Page Layout Welcome to the A8C Store
Your one-stop-shop for all your computer needs!
This code should result in something similar to Figure 9. 17.Working with Page Layout
(/htmj> As yo u can see in this listing, the background attribute is set to a specifi c image rather than a color. And as you can see in Figure 9.18, the image repeats itself throughout the background of the page. Note that the text is placed within a table. (I p laced the text within a table to show you a simple example of how you can use table formatting to place your text. ) tag aligns everything to th e center of t he page. The text in th e table in Figu re 9. 18 uses the (center> tag. • The (right> tag aligns content to the right. Figure 9.19 illust rates this tag in action. • The (left> tag aligns content to (surprise!) the left. and tags. For example: tag. You simply place the tag in front of the text you want to block quote, and then use the d osing (/blockQuote> tag when you are fin ished . The fo llowing code listing, which was used to produce Figure 9.22 illustrates the use of this tag. (html> (head> (tit le>Working with Page layout(/title> (/head> (body> (p>There are lots of reasons to shop from us , but rather than listen to us why don't you listen to what some other satisfied customers have to say:
tag (the p rimary HTML tag used to develop hyperlinks) and the layout possibilities for hyperlinks (for example, image maps) to effectively address these process and design issues. Tag To link o ne Web page to ano ther, you need to utilize the tag. Create a new Web folder and page so you can follow along with the example exercises presented in this chapter. Sample Hyperlink Page(/title> (/head> (body> (pHa href- "l1nkTest2.htm">Click here t o link to my other sample page .(/p> (p>Click (a href-"llnkTest2.htm ">here to link to my other sample page .(/p> (/body> (/htm\> The above-listed code will produce a figure like Figu re 9.23. tag is simple to use; however, take note of the following points to make sure you understand how the tag is employed in this particular listing. • Basically, to create a hyperlink as in the preceding code, you place the opening tag before the first character where you want your hyperlink to begin. Before the closing >of this tag, you insert (in quotes) the address of the page to which you want to link. In this example, the name of the page is LinkTest2. htm . • Place the closing
A.rticle I «a href- 'OSection 4">Sect ion 4
tag is the use of the sign before the name of the section of the text to which the bookmark is pointing. Copyright © 2005. Course Technology, Incorporated. All rights reserved. May not be reproduced in any form without permission from the publisher, except fair uses permitted under U.S. or applicable copyright law. Section 4 . The times , places and manner of holding elections for Senators and Representatives . shall be prescribed in each state by the legislature thereof ; but the Congress may at any time by law make or alter such regulations , except as to the places of choosing Senators. tag. Similar to how the tag is used, you simply assign the bookmark a name and place it in quotes inside the opening tag. Then just like for a hyperlink, you place the closing tag afte r the last character of the desired bookmark text. In this code listing, the actual bookmark is the text "Section 4." tag. However, it is a good idea to name it something indicative of the text to which it points, which will make it easier to remember. In fact, if the actual text isn't too lengthy, you can give the bookmark the same name as the text, which is what I did in the preceding code listing (for example, ~ Section 4- and -Section 8-).
Absolute URl Example Product A < /li ) Product B
Product C Product D Product E Technically, there is nothing wrong with this code. Each hyperlink is defined and uses an absolute URL. However, compare this listing to the following code listing, which utilizes relative URLs. Re1ative URl Example Welcome to our store, Click one of the following links for more information on that product :
Product A Product B Product C Product D Product E tag has been considerably shortened by simply using the relative URL path to each page link. This is useful-and a better idea in this example-because all the product files (productA .htm, product B.htm, and so on ) reside in th e same folder, so there is no need to use the entire URL. tag for both tasks, but instead of providing a link to the corresponding Web page, you provide a link to the e-mail address or file . • Linking to an e-mail address_ Si mply replace the Web page link in the tag with the appropriate e- mail address. When clicked, Send an e-mail to Joe would open up the user's e-mail program and automatically address the e-mail [email protected] . • Linking to a me. Within the tag, list the path to the file, making sure to add the file extens ion to the end of the link. For example, Cl i ck, here for the Spring 2003 cata 10g
HTHL PP Frames This page uses fr ames , but your browse r doesn't support them ,
and . These tags denote the sectio n o f your HTML that will utilize frames . • <nofra.e s> and . These tags, induded within the tags, will display alternate co ntent if the visitor's Web browser is not able to display frames. In the preced ing code, the text that will appear fo r these browsers is sim ply, "This page uses frames, but you r browser doesn't support them ." Figu re 10. 1 illust rates what th is fraroeset will look like when it's loaded into a browser capable o f wo rki ng with fra mes. To display the fra m eset on yo ur computer, you also need to create the two pages that make up the fra meset. I just used blank pages in Figure 10.1, but to make things more interest ing, exa mine t he following code. First, here is th e code for the FrameTesl_Left .htm page: FrameTest_Left Welcome to the frames test! F rameTest_Righ t (p align-"center ">This is the Main Frame!(/b> P -FrameT esCLeft Site Contents Prodllct Catalog View Orders Store HOllrs<Ja><Jli> Contact Us parameter. Like the , you would change to . HTHL PP Frames(/title> (framfset cols· "300,·"> (frame name··contents " target· "mai n· src· "FrameTest_Left. htlll" lIIargl nlfidth-SO marginheight-2S>This page uses frames, but your browse r doesn't support the~.
When loaded in a Web browser, this page will appear like Figure 10.10.HTHL PP Frames</title) </head> <frameset cols-"150 ,*"> <frame name-"contents" target-"main" src-"TestFrame_Left.htm" scrolling-no> <frame name- "main" src- "TestFrame_Right .htm" scrolling- no> <noframes> <body> <p>This page uses frames, but your browser doesn't support them.</p> </body> </noframes> </frameset) </html> Note<br />
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Scroll bars only appear if you have content that exceeds the size of the frame. There wasn't enough content to generate scroll bars in the first example in this chapter, so they wouldn't have appeared even if you had set the scrolling attribute to yes.<br />
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Gosney, John W. Beyond Reality : A Guide to Alternate Reality Gaming. Boston, MA, USA: Course Technology, Incorporated, 2005. p 261. http://site.ebrary.com/lib/drexel/Doc?id=10087001&ppg=282<br />
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Preventing Frame Resizing<br />
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Copyright © 2005. Course Technology, Incorporated. All rights reserved. May not be reproduced in any form without permission from the publisher, except fair uses permitted under U.S. or applicable copyright law.<br />
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T he final basic frame attribute is to determine whether you want to allow visitors to resize your frames. Why shou ld you care about this attribute? You can (and will) put a lot of effort into how your content is presented o n your Web pages. Ofte n the neatest presentation of this content will require you to carefully adjust the border and margin attributes o f your frames. If you allow players to res ize the frame s on their own, it can seriously detract from the most effective presentation of your content. You ca n preve nt visitors from resizing your fra mes by includ ing th e <no res ize> attribute within the (frame> tag proper. The followin g code listing shows an example of this: <html> <head> <title>HTHL PP Frames</tit1e> <I head> (frameset co1s-"150 ,*'> (frame name-"contents ' target- ' main ' src-' FrameTestLeft.htm' noresize scrolling-no> (frame name-'main ' src·'FrameTestRight.htm' scrolling-no> (noframes> (body> <p>Thls page uses frames, but your browser doesn't support them.</p) </body)<br />
<br />
</noframes) </frameset> </html> In this exa mple, you will notice that the contents frame doesn't allow for scroll ing or resizing; the main frame also does not allow scrolling, but it does prevent users from resizing the fram e. The important thing to note about this is that you can specify the specifi c attributes you want each respective frame to possess.<br />
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Gosney, John W. Beyond Reality : A Guide to Alternate Reality Gaming. Boston, MA, USA: Course Technology, Incorporated, 2005. p 262. http://site.ebrary.com/lib/drexel/Doc?id=10087001&ppg=283<br />
<br />
Manipulating Frameset Configurations<br />
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Copyright © 2005. Course Technology, Incorporated. All rights reserved. May not be reproduced in any form without permission from the publisher, except fair uses permitted under U.S. or applicable copyright law.<br />
<br />
Manipulating Frameset Configurations The fi gures in this chapter have thus far illustrated a basic fram eset that resembles a table of contents-that is, you have a left frame that more than likely contains hyperlinks that target the right frame. However, this is by no means the only type of frameset configuration at your disposal. In fact, as you saw in Figure 10.6, you can nest and divide framesets within other framesets for all kinds of interesting presentations. In this sect ion, I want to show you some examples of common framesets you might want to co nsider if your Web site design calls for frames.<br />
<br />
The Banner and Contents Configuration In this widely-used frameset configuration, you are given the same table of contents frame you've seen in the figures thus far. However, you are also given a banner frame on which you can place information. Figure 10.11 illustrates this configuration. 3 "......, ••• ( ....." f,.",..., , ......... """'"It I, .. , ,,.. I "<br />
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Welcome to the ABC Company Web Site!<br />
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: sian<br />
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Figure 10.11 The banner and contents configuration.<br />
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Gosney, John W. Beyond Reality : A Guide to Alternate Reality Gaming. Boston, MA, USA: Course Technology, Incorporated, 2005. p 263. http://site.ebrary.com/lib/drexel/Doc?id=10087001&ppg=284<br />
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Cha pter 10 • Web Design for Puppetmasters, Part II<br />
<br />
Copyright © 2005. Course Technology, Incorporated. All rights reserved. May not be reproduced in any form without permission from the publisher, except fair uses permitted under U.S. or applicable copyright law.<br />
<br />
The frameset code for this configuration fo llows: <html> <head> <title>Banner and Contents Frameset Example <noframes> This page uses frames, but your browser doesn 't support them.
As you will see, the basic structure is the same for all of these configuration examples, However, the names of the frames will differ depending on the specific configuration you want to use. In this example there are three frames-banner, contents , and mai n. Everything else-including the attributes-is configured exactly the same way.Header . Footer and Contents Frameset This page uses frames, but your browser doesn't support them .
Working with CSS <style> hIWorking with CSS We lcome to ABC Computers(/hl> We offer the latest in computer technology. at prices you can afford. For a current listing of all our products . click here.
Welco.e to ABC Computers We offer the latest in computer technology . at prices you can afford. For a current listing of all our products, click here.(fp> (fbody> Figure 10.19 illustrates how this page would appear when loaded in a browser. Notice the differences between Figures 10. 18 and 10. 19. The only stylistic change that has been applied outside of regular HTML formatting is to the paragraph text itself, which has a 12-po int Arial font and is italicized. The special hyperlink formattin g. as well as the additional fo rmatting that was applied to the heading in Figure 10.1 8, is not applied here. Again , local styles can be useful fo r on-the-spot changes, but you should use them judiciously. Too much individual local style application will defeat the global benefit s of internal and external style sheets.Oefining Style Classes Product Catalog When this page is loaded in a Web browser, it will appear like Figure 10.20. is considered an inline element, which is used to format or enhance text.. This tag is used with block-level elements, As you will see. tags can be used to great effect to make your document appear to have different sectio ns based on unique formatting . • <SPAN>. Th is tag is used with inline elements. As with tags. you ca n use <SPAN> tags to help provide individual formatting fo r letters. words. and so on. (Like th e inline elements they support, <SPAN> tags will not begin a new section of your document. )
Gosney, John W. Beyond Reality : A Guide to Alternate Reality Gaming. Boston, MA, USA: Course Technology, Incorporated, 2005. p 279. http://site.ebrary.com/lib/drexel/Doc?id=10087001&ppg=300
279
280
Chapter 10 • Web Design for Puppetmasters. Part II
Copyright © 2005. Course Technology, Incorporated. All rights reserved. May not be reproduced in any form without permission from the publisher, except fair uses permitted under U.S. or applicable copyright law.
Working with
and <SPAN> Tags When you start working with these tags, you can really see the great fun ctionality of style sheets in terms of the tremendous formatt ing options (and the ease of applying that formatting to your documents). The foll owing code illustrates these tags:
W orklng with DIV and SPAN Tags< /title> <style> DIV.Title Ibackground : green ; font'family : Times New Roman : font·slze: 24pt: font· weight : bold! DIY . Preamble {background : yellow: font-family: Ariel : font -si ze: 12pt : ! SPAN.caps Ifont-slze : 3001! e the people of the United States . in order to form a DIOre perfect union , establish justice, ins ure domestic tranquility , provide for the cOlllllon defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ou rselves and ou r poste rity , do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America. When this page is loaded in a Web browser, it will appears like Figure 10.21. The definition s of th e and <SPAN) tags are very similar to the class definitions you learned about earlier in this chapter; as a result, they are similar in syntax to everything you work wit h in regard to style sheets. Specifically, the follow ing rules apply:
Gosney, John W. Beyond Reality : A Guide to Alternate Reality Gaming. Boston, MA, USA: Course Technology, Incorporated, 2005. p 280. http://site.ebrary.com/lib/drexel/Doc?id=10087001&ppg=301
Copyright © 2005. Course Technology, Incorporated. All rights reserved. May not be reproduced in any form without permission from the publisher, except fair uses permitted under U.S. or applicable copyright law.
(SS Basics
• To name a specific
or <SPAN> tag, you first indicate the type of tag, then a period, and then the name of the tag. As you can see in the preceding code listing, example names for a
or <SPAN> tag include DIV. Preambl e and SPAN . caps. • After you name the tag in this manner, you apply the characteristics (between the ( and ) brackets), just as you learned to do with other aspects of style sheets . • After you have defined the tags and set their characteristics, you reference them within your document just as you would any style. Note in th e preceding code that for every opening or <SPAN> tag, there is a corresponding closing
or tag to indicate when the specific formatting no longer applies. and <SPAN> tags can bring a tremendous amount of formatting power to both sections of your text, as well as to individual words or characters.Working with Cascading Style Sheets <sty le> IMG (position :absolute : left :50 : top: 101 Absolute Positioning of Elements tag. Keep this in mind as you work with absolute positioning. If you assign a value that is a percentage of the parent element, it will affect the placement of the element relative to the parent element. Relative position ing. by contrast, places an element without affecting the positions of the other elements on your page. Look at the following code listing to see an example of relative positioning: Working with Ca scading Style S~eets <'head> <style> IHG {position:relative ; left:50; top: 10) Relative Positioning of Elements Figure 10.23 illustrates relative positioning. Note the difference between it and Figure 10.22. In this example, two images are placed on the screen. Without the use of the z-index, the second image would overlap the rust because the nvo images have a left position value that would place them on top of one another. However, the z- index values assign priority to how the images should be placed. The first image has a z- index value of I, so it is positioned lower on the page and will thus appear beh ind the first image. TipWorking with Style Sheets Welcome to ABC Computershe re . Quality Products Unbeatable Prices (li)Top-Notch Service Why would you go anywhere else?!? The following code is now fo r the actual external style sheet, referenced in the above code: hI (font-family : Times New Roman; font-size : 24pt; text-decoration:underline; font-weight: bold ; padding: 20; margin: 20 ) P (font-family: Arial; font-size : 12pt; font-style : italic ; color: green) a:link ( color : HFFOOOO: font-style: italic: font-weight: bold I iMG (position : absolute: left : 50: top: SO : border: thick groove red: float: left) BODY (background : yellow) UL (list-style : lower-roman) tag. 235-237 absolute and relative positioning, tag, 203 cenler, 223, 230 left, 223, 230 tag, 233--234 tag. 202 bolding text. 283 bookmarks, 238--241 borders around images, 211 -2 12 border attribute, 2 11 color adjustment, 257 frames, 256--258 invisible, 258 bulleted and numbered lists, 204-206 Burroughs, William, 27. 115, 135--138 tag, 230 Chan,Evan,60.66-68 Chaos: Making a New Science (James Gleick),184 Charlie's good tonight reference, Route 66,160-167 Choose Your Own Adventure game books,31- 32 class styles, cascading style sheets, 277- 278 Cloudmakers,5--7 collaborative play, 122- 123, 183 collective and collaborative team play, 3 colors background,291-292 borders, 257 fon ts, 208 foreground,291-292 frame borders, 257 hyperlinks, 245-246 text, 284 Concilience: the Unity of Knowledge (Edward o. Wilson). 184 tag. 280--281 Doors of Perception. The, 121 Dynamic HTMl (DHTML). 203
E Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test. The. 123 e-mail links. 245 end of game, Route 66.179- 180 external style sheets. 272. 274-275
Gosney, John W. Beyond Reality : A Guide to Alternate Reality Gaming. Boston, MA, USA: Course Technology, Incorporated, 2005. p 315. http://site.ebrary.com/lib/drexel/Doc?id=10087001&ppg=336
F fonts color adjustment, 208
tag, 208 text-style fo rmatting, 282-285 footers, frames. 264-266 foreground colors. 291- 292 frames ban ner and contents confi gu ration, 263,2640 basic example. 249 benefits of. 247-248 borders, 256-258 containers, 249 tag, 250--25 1 headers/footers, 264-266 with hyper lin ks, 252-254 hyperlinks, targeting to specific locations.266-267 margi ns, 259-260 <noframes> tag, 250 parameters, 255-256 resizing. 262 scroll bars, showing/hiding, 26 1 top-down configuration, 268-270 tag, 250--251 tag, 230 tag, 204-206 line height, text-style formatting, 283 link attribute. 246 links e- mail, 245 hyperlinks color adjustments, 245-246 discussed. 235 formatting. 245-246 tag, 230 Route 66 adding machine references, 13 1-1 38 background story, 106-111 The Blimp song, 125 Cadillac Ranch references, 148-153 Charlies good tonight reference, 160- 167 end of game, 179-1 80 festiva ls, 110 fi rst stop reference, 128 game beginning, 111 - 113 home page, 109 mugwump references, 138-141 musical references, 144-145 phone n umber references, 146-147 presen tation, 113- 114 synchronicity references, 154-157 Travelers message, 124 Trout Mask Replica, 126-127 username and password combinat ion, 127-128 virtual tour, 110, 203 , 233- 234 < BODY>, 202 , 230 , 280-281 , 208 .250-251 < HEAD>, 20 1 , 230 , 204-206 <META>. 203 <noframes>, 250 <01>,206 , 230 <SPAN>. 280-281 <TITLE>. 201
Copyright © 2005. Course Technology, Incorporated. All rights reserved. May not be reproduced in any form without permis...
Reality Check
Michael A. Burstein
"Reality Check" first appeared in the November 1999 issue of Analog. Life wasn’t exc...
https://www.irjet.net/archives/V6/i12/IRJET-V6I12352.pdf
THE ROAD TO REALITY
BY ROGER PENROSE
The Emperor’s New Mind: Concerning Computers, Minds, and the Laws of Physics Sh...
THE ROAD TO REALITY
BY ROGER PENROSE
The Emperor’s New Mind: Concerning Computers, Minds, and the Laws of Physics Sh...
