Arrgh!!! Essays.

Not too sure if I was the first person to find the Araya game. Got a bit over excited. Been tryin to forget the two 8,000 word essays I've got to hand in by Febuary. The game doesn't look like its really got started yet . Not sure if I have got enough time to play this time. I can't mess up my degree in the final year. I'll probably lurk around see whats going on inbetween writing those damn essays.

Just so you know

I looked back over what i've written in the last couple of days and realised that i hadn't left a description of what alternate reality games are. There's a good description here and here.

Anway, just thought I should explain for any people who might not have heard about it before.

Contact: Email

Just got the following email from the people at the FindAraya site :

Dear Eluxoso

We would like to thank you for your interest in the case of Araya Benedict. Too be honest, we didn’t expect anyone to be aware of our site until mid January at the earliest. It seems you really do have the makings of a great detective. We would like to thank you for your interest in the case so far and with someone like you on board we should be able to find Araya in no time.

As regard to your post on the forum. One of the greatest attributes of a detective is knowing when to follow your instinct. Keep up the good work Eluxoso, we will be in contact shortly. Keep on checking back for updates at www.findaraya.com, but we will email you when the investigation begins.

Than you,

Warmest Regards

The Araya Benedict Case Team.

I'm not sure whether or not I should write in to argn or unfiction though. Would the game makers want me to promote their game for them on the forums and message boards? Or do they just want me to stay quiet and wait for the game to start? Maybe they already have their own plan. I wouldn't want to ruin their launch of the game. Think I'll sleep on it a few days before I write to anyone.

Wow, think i just found alternate reality game

I was looking for some site information on alexa and randomly stumbled upon the site Find Araya by accident. It seems to involve the search for a missing woman. The picture on alexa is different from tht one thats on the site. I tried searching for it in the major search engines such as google and yahoo, but couldn't find any information on there. It looks like it might be a new alternate relaity game.
The forums are already up and running and theres been a couple of posts. I submitted their site to google and a few other sites as well as putting it on the wikipedia too. Just trying to help out. Left a message in the forum asking if this is a game, (it's got to be), but nobody has got back to me yet. Still its a few weeks away, so maybe eveything isn't up and running yet. Haven't been able to find anything else to do with the website or Araya Benedict yet, so maybe they are waiting until the 26th of January to start it. Don't know but was pretty excited, think i must be one of the first to find the website.

I first read about ARG's in an article on gamasutra.com. My mind raced at the possible scenarios that could be invented. I was genuinely excited by the prospect of playing one of these games. I have since watched a few games unfold, however, the excitement I expected a game to generate for me has never materialized. It seems that so many games are content to almost avoid the real world all together, and are still moulded on a fantasy/sci-fi/supernatural world. Its not that I don't like these genres, it's just that I would prefer a game that takes a risk for a change. Its easy to perpetuate the "this is not a game" mantra while setting a fictional universe in space, the past or with absurdly over the top storylines. Obviously, there are a great deal of many fans of fantasy/sci-fi/supernatural genres (be it films, books, games etc..), and many will want to play games based on those themes. However, ARG's are still developing as a format and this should be a time of great experimentation. I read about "Urban Hunt" and thought this was an interesting and more exciting concept than a lot of other games (although unfortunately, i never got the chance to play it.) I want to play a game that owes more to Raymond Carver or Paul Auster than another story set in the future or past. By that I would like to see a game with a little more subtly, little more craft, with less defined "goodies" and "badies".

I feel that most of the current crop of games seem to be pointed solely towards the crowd at unfiction.com. While this is not necessarily a bad thing, it limits the scope of ideas by relying on the same tired formula of rot puzzles and other cryptology elements. I'm not really that interested in solving these kinds of puzzles, it just seems a little dull after seeing its implementation again and again. The hex168.com ideas for puzzles is a little closer to what I hope somebody produces soon, a more interactive and fun way for people to interact with the game. I just don't regard rot puzzles as fun, and if game makers expect to keep an audience captivated, what better way than to make it fun. What if there was an idea for a game to do with a band, where the puzzle involved people having to record or remix bits of music in order for the game to progress? That would also bring in a new crop of players that might have some different ideas for where they could take ARG's in the future. One of the aspects i was most impressed by when i first found out about ARG's was the idea of "collective intelligence". By only targeting the same players the collective intelligence pool in ARG's is diminished. I would like to see games trying to get artists, musicians and writers involved in creating content so that the games story line progresses. There should be more attempt to attract the casual gamer. I liked the idea in Last Call Poker of having to participate in a poker game in order to unlock rewards and characters. I also liked some of the flash game elements that were in Jamie Kane. Just felt it was a little more fun to play than yet another game with a cryptic email to solve.

Also the potential for real-world events or interaction could hopefully be better used in forthcoming games. I want to go to a site, be given a map, and when getting to the location there is a clue written on a wall, or a password is in a description of a painting at a museum. Something that when I investigate, leads to learning or seeing something that I may not have thought to experience had I not played the game.

Anyway, think this rant has gone on for long enough now, so for the time-being I am going to keep my mouth shut and hope that a game comes out that genuinely generates some excitement for me when I play it.