what game is coming to the 3DS? im sort of interested in this genre now that i actually know what it is, and im definitely getting a 3DS.Originally Posted by joefro
what game is coming to the 3DS? im sort of interested in this genre now that i actually know what it is, and im definitely getting a 3DS.
I think the lack of understanding about what this thread is for is going to cause me to vomit.
Even after Googling it and reading the entire Wikipedia article more than once over, I still don't 100% understand what the hell it is. It sounds kind of like a more involved LARP to me. Sorry, I don't really get it.
I don't really play any, and usually not in the know when they're going on, but they're fascinating to read about afterwards.
This is my NEW signature. Complete with shameless self-promotion!
Larping is awesome! (assuming you mean Live Action Role-Playing with fake weapons, armor, and such)
I have done a few, though I never got to do any of the meetup parts, I tended to watch everyone else's progress and follow the story along. The first one I was a part of was a site called This is Not Porn, which had the frontpage of an oven sitting in a blank, deserted landscape. From there, it went into a downward spiral of freakier and freakier pages containing unusual audio loops, hidden images, coded messages and other nonsense. Even the forums had its own puzzle we wracked our brains over for a while.
It was a few years later before I took participation in the another one full-time, this time for the Nine Inch Nails album Year Zero. That one had phone numbers you could call at certain times to hear disturbing messages and conversations from various characters, or a clip from a song from the album. There was also a large series of websites set up that were pushing through from the "future" to warn us of what was to come. There was also hidden messages in Tour shirts, and a select group of people were sent ammo boxes with cell phones and some other articles and were invited to a hidden concert. At the end of that the concert was raided by "police" and Trent was shot in front of his fans, who were rushed out and herded back onto a bus. It was pretty exciting stuff, even if the album was kinda fluff.
The most recent one I can recall being a part of was the odd Portal 2 reveal ARG that Valve patched into Portal. That one had an old style BBS system that updated with details and encoded JPEGs showing off creatures and parts of a science lab before the big reveal.
I love ARGs and the various tactics each one uses to involve players and unroll the story. Even if some jaded folks believe they're just lame viral advertisements I think it's a great way to get fans involved.
These "Altered Reality Games", from what I know, sound pretty fun. Shame I don't do any, nor do I really have any opporotunities to.
ARG's aren't actual games in the sense of playing them on a console or what have you. They are more akin to a hype engine fueled by public speculation to a means of solving a greater hidden puzzle, involving unorthodox messages and decoding hints. Nowadays they are typically used to garner hype for a new product.
Consider the old oddity site, thisisnotporn. While not necessarily an ARG on its own, it carries much of the thought process and strategy involved in one, as far as the online side of it goes.
Some of the rampant speculations leading up to the Golden Wrench event in TF2 involved a sense of ARG strategies, though the limited extent of it didn't seem very intentional. The Portal 2 one that Spike mentioned above is a good example as well.
An example of something that could be considered an ARG for this crowd could've used something like the PSO 10th Anniversary to begin in sending out cryptic emails to random customers, hinting at the equivalent of an online scavenger hunt for clues to solve the greater puzzle leading to a PSO2 reveal.
ARGs are not necessarily limited to online, as some indirect clues could even reference, for example, specific books, geo locations, events, etc.
-Another point that might help as well.
Consider television giveaways that involve watching their shows for a hidden phrase to send in order to enter the contest. This is the most basic form of an ARG, without the extra layers that tend to revolve around the full blown, stack upon stack versions.
Last edited by Mixfortune; Oct 3, 2010 at 10:44 PM.
There are a few ARGs that don't have to do with marketing or promotions, like Perplex City.
I think I would be disappointed if I got into an ARG and ended up with something to the effect of using a special decoder that ended up translating a secret message to "Be sure to drink your Ovaltine".
Advertisements there are but good ones are interesting to follow. I like reading about the aftermath of such games but I'm not interested in participating.
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