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April 30, 2006
Christy Dena
I came to ARGs through my research: I'm doing a PhD in Cross-Media Entertainment and find ARGs the most developed type in this genre. I investigate best practice in design for CME and ARGs for my research, for my own creative projects and for my work as an industry mentor. I mentor linear producers (film and TV) to help develop their properties into CME (http://www.lamp.edu.au/) and design miniARGs for these workshops. I have a research blog at http://www.cross-mediaentertainment.com; I co-edit a blog on New Media Arts at http://www.writerresponsetheory.org and there is some info about my PhD here: http://www.polymorphicnarrative.org.Posted by AdamMartin at 11:29 AM | Comments (0)
Alex Fleetwood
I'm a freelance TV producer with a background in opera; up until about 3 years ago I produced new work for the stage, developing Arts Council funded projects with young composers and librettists. I got tired of making work that hardly anybody saw so I made the switch to TV, which has led me to the production of a film opera with the company Illuminations TV. We're in script development at the moment. I came to Perplex City by chance and have been playing it since then, partly out of curiosity, partly because I'm really enjoying myself.Posted by AdamMartin at 11:29 AM | Comments (0)
April 24, 2006
ARG Whitepaper - call for authors
Call for authors for the ARG SIG 2006 Whitepaper is now open. Please see below for full details of suggested topics and how to submit.
[please feel free to re-post this elsewhere if you think appropriate]
5 broad areas - history, design, market, commercial, and technology.
Within those areas, if there's a topic you'd like to write on that's not
covered, please go ahead and suggest it (details below).
In particular, there's nothing currently on the educational side, and
very little on the commercial and technology sides.
X = someone has already volunteered to write on this topic
ARG Genre
- genre description
X history / timeline
Design
X relationships with: interactive fiction, MMORPG's, static fiction
- staff skillsets / recruiting an ARG team
- design techniques and tools
X audience
Market
- sub-genre categorization
X launched games current and recent
X player numbers in ARGs
Commercial
- business models past and present
Technology
- security and hacking
I need an outline from each author for each topic. This should be approx
300 words describing the main sections, including a brief summary of the
overall aims of the topic. If you have an idea for a topic not listed
above, please email me a 300 word outline.
I'd like outlines from all authors by the end of this week; if you'd
like to write on a topic but cant get an outline by then, drop me an
email anway and we'll sort something out. Any other questions or
queries, email me.
Adam Martin
ARG SIG Chair
Posted by AdamMartin at 05:39 PM | Comments (0)
April 08, 2006
Jey Biddulph
I'm an ARG developer at Mind Candy. I fell into ARGs during Metacortechs (thanks Krystyn!), hung around some and then became a moderator of Perplex City. This led to me joining MInd Candy in July, where I work on the ARG and puzzlecards doing a variety of different things. I enjoy discussing how to make the ARG genre better, current flaws and all sorts of other lovely meta topics, although I have yet to follow the trend and put them down in a blog!Posted by AdamMartin at 06:26 PM | Comments (0)
Piers Beckley
I PM'd Spooks Interactive for the BBC back in 2002. More recently I've been writing comedy theatre and living in Los Angeles. Not necessarily in that order. I'm neither short nor sweet.Posted by AdamMartin at 06:26 PM | Comments (0)
Evan Jones
While the introductions are hot, my name is Evan Jones and I am working as Xenophile Media's Creative Director (www.xenophile.ca). We're a cross-media production company working in documentary, television and interactive narrative but most importantly ARGs, specifically ReGenesis (www.regenesistv.com) which will be releasing its second season in the Spring of 2006. I came to all this through a background in computer science, radio production, film studies and interactive multimedia. I have a terrible habit of storytelling which I am failing to kick, and find ARGs one of the best outlets for my vice. The classic mystery is my Achilles heel, and some may know me as my online alter-ego mysteryjones (www.mysteryjones.com).Posted by AdamMartin at 06:26 PM | Comments (0)
Dave Szulborski
I got started in ARGs back at the time of MAJESTIC (2001) as a beta tester for the game and actually began making my first independent game a few weeks into the MAJESTIC experience. I've created seven independent games since then, as well as working on some commercial projects too, most notably Audi's Art of the Heist campaign, for which I was the lead puzzle designer, and Chasing The Wish, a greatly successful independent game that received international media attention.Posted by AdamMartin at 06:26 PM | Comments (0)
Dan Carver
I happened to have been a warm body standing in the right place (or the wrong one depending on your point of view) to get sucked up into the Beast when that fired up and spent the following 6 months in a sleep deprived fever dream where I was hounded by a mob of voracious ARG players.oh wait, that part was real. Regardless it was one of the most interesting projects that I've ever worked on. Although, I haven't worked on another ARG since, I've kept up with the genre on ARGN, Unfiction, and various other ARG sites. On IRC I go by wraith, or wwwraith and I'm known to occasionally haunt the #unfiction and #evanchan channels. Oh, and many thanks for inviting me to participate!Posted by AdamMartin at 06:26 PM | Comments (0)
Rob Cooper
I developed the Jamie Kane game for the BBC. As well as having a foot in the game design world, I'm also involved in the BBC's commissioning process so I guess I could be useful in providing a broadcaster's perspective.Posted by AdamMartin at 06:26 PM | Comments (0)
Brian Clark
I'm the Founder/CEO of an experimental media firm called GMD Studios (http://www.gmdstudios.comPosted by AdamMartin at 06:26 PM | Comments (0)
David Andrews
I haven't done much ARG work that can be credited to me, though I can say I was 'BTS' on a small indie project that ultimately flopped (not the best start, but it's just the truth). I'm currently on Active Duty with the U.S. Air Force, and just returned from 5 months spent in Southwest Asia, in support of Operations Enduring and Iraqi Freedom. I am a '3C251' in the USAF, which basically translates to Network and Long Haul Communications Infrastructure Technician. I have an Associate's Degree in Information Technology and a CCNA (anyone in need of a networking guy? ;D) On the creative side I've written two full length novels and tons of poetry, some of which has been published over the course of the last three years. I ran an online text-based RPG based in Ancient Rome (called 'The Roman Republic') which successfully ran for two and a half years before I found out about ARGs. In the past year or so I've designed two ARGs, though neither of those have launched as of yet.Posted by AdamMartin at 06:26 PM | Comments (0)
Dee Cook
I was a beta tester for Majestic in '01 and briefly found The Beast, but that was around the time I had my second daughter and I got a little distracted. I finally re-found the scene in '03 and have worked behind the scenes on several grassroots games. I am also a moderator on Unfiction and a staff writer for ARGN. http://portfolio.addlepated.netPosted by AdamMartin at 06:26 PM | Comments (0)
Michelle Senderhauf
I was intrigued by the concept behind Majestic and pushed the game like crazy at the store. It was the most "innovative" thing I had ever played, even with its problems. Shortly before the game ended I had met a lovely farm boy from Wisconsin. He distracted me from the gaming world for a while by somehow convincing me to marry him and have a child. I have a website that's mostly dedicated to ARGs and games at www.varin.org, but I'm a bit behind on updates due to the above mentioned projects. One of these days I'll actually get around to putting a portfolio up there too.Posted by AdamMartin at 06:26 PM | Comments (0)
Kira Snyder
I got to mess with reality on a much bigger scale when I wrote and designed for Majestic, joining the team early in development (mucho NDAs for my job interview) and staying through launch until the bitter end. Lots of valuable learning from that project, some of it painful, but all of it rewarding. As designer and producer for the virtual world There, I made tools and content for members to build their own in-world adventure games and ARGs (ooh, how meta). I also have created real-world puzzle race games including team-building exercises and games for conference attendees, some that took placed within a few square blocks and others that ranged all over the SF Bay Area.Posted by AdamMartin at 06:26 PM | Comments (0)
John Evans
I've been interested in computer games for, well, probably all my life. I've finally decided to try and pursue a career in such, so I'm building up a portfolio of little game projects with which to either get a job or start a business. (Probably the former, but who knows...) My website has some online games written in PHP; the kind of thing where you get a certain amount of stamina every 24 hours with which to perform in-game tasks, so you can make it part of your daily routine. (That's the quick and dirty summary, anyway.) I like ARGs because of the potential for interesting kinds of storytelling, that always gets me interested. (I've been involved in various online writing projects for many years.) The other reason I'm interested is because, given that I want to pursue game design, I want to try to experience as many games as possible.Posted by AdamMartin at 06:26 PM | Comments (0)
Steffen Walz
in my academic life, i am currently pursuing my ph.d. at the swiss federal institute of technology in zurich; i am putting together a theory / taxonomy of serious pervasive game design, whilst realizing prototypes from time to time. basically, i am looking at ways to take advantage of, or develop game design principles, and combine them with emerging mobile, sensor, interface, positioning, gesture recognition technologies for non-entertainment purposes (education, marketing, policy making). currently, and together with colleagues at the RWTH aachen university, i am designing a location based spell-casting game for cell phones as a permanent service in the city of regensburg in germany, see http://www.rex-regensburg.de/im-stadtraum/rexplorer/ (sorry, only german at the moment). we call this type of mechanic "cellcasting";-).Posted by AdamMartin at 06:26 PM | Comments (0)
Tony Walsh
Tony Walsh is a creative developer and consultant with a background as a professional artist, writer, and designer. He has worked extensively in the field of interactive entertainment, primarily for the youth market. Past work has included game design and writing for the "ReGenesis" and "Ocular Effect" ARGs. Further details available at http://www.SecretLair.com/about http://www.secretlair.com/aboutPosted by AdamMartin at 06:25 PM | Comments (0)
Krystyn Wells
Originally a Cloudmaker, I then became a Puppetmaster for two of the most successful grassroots ARGs to date: the aforementioned Lockjaw, and Project Mu (more commonly known as Metacortechs), the latter of which kept Matrix geeks and ARGers alike hopping and scrambling during the last quarter of 2003. I am also fairly active at the Unfiction forums, having acted as a moderator for 2 high-profile games (ilovebees, Last Call Poker), and participating in several others. It *appears* that I have a propensity for being stalked by clowns and mimes in ARGs at live events.Posted by AdamMartin at 06:25 PM | Comments (0)
Wendy Despain
I came to ARGs by way of building official websites for television shows. Starting in 1997 and for almost eight years I managed all things Internet for some Gene Roddenberry and Marvel television projects. We won advertising awards for our ARG-related methods of bringing in viewers and getting them to stick to the shows. Most of the suits were on board and excited about our experiments blurring the lines of reality. We spilled it over into licensed novels and comics, too. These days I do contract/freelance work and develop some of my own projects. I'm also active on IGDA's Game Writing SIG, but I'm happy to have a more focused group for discussion about ARGs.Posted by AdamMartin at 06:24 PM | Comments (0)
Brooke Thompson
Currently, I write for ARGN & moderate the meta section of UnFiction. I am also working on a project that will invite people to explore the same narrative in various ways throughout a major metro area. My academic hunger is being fed by looking into the small community built ARGs run by often unprepared teams/individuals which I find reminiscent of tabletop Game Masters and/or murder mystery hosts. Specifically, I am looking at ways in which those analogies can be utilized to strengthen the teams behind such games and reduce the negative impact those games can have on the community and the genre, perhaps even making them a positive. If you have any thoughts on this, please share!Posted by AdamMartin at 06:24 PM | Comments (0)
Naomi Alderman
I've been lead writer at Mind Candy, working on Perplex City, for the past 18 months and have come to the mysterious world of ARGs from the equally mysterious world of literary fiction. My first novel, Disobedience, will be published by Penguin in March 2006. This is me, but I don't usually look so stern: http://www.davidhigham.co.uk/html/Clients/Alderman I'm an academic in the field of Buffy studies (and proud). I am easily confused when people start talking in computer-related acronyms. I push bagels.Posted by AdamMartin at 06:24 PM | Comments (0)
Dan Hon
Along with Andrea, I was one of the Cloudmakers moderators. I did a stint of contract work designing community specs for Elan, Jordan and Sean over at Microsoft before they became Myriad Mobile, before they became 4orty2wo. I'm now COO at Mind Candy working on Perplex City and used to write a lot about ARGs on my (now sadly neglected) blog: http://danhon.com/ec/mtarchives/2002/10/18/under_your_spell/ index.shtml#000190 and http://danhon.com/articles/archive/000407.shtmlPosted by AdamMartin at 06:23 PM | Comments (0)
Michael Monello
I come from more of a film background than game or tech. In 1998 I formed Haxan Films with some fellow film school grads and we made The Blair Witch Project. Following that, we created a hybrid web/tv show called Freakylinks for Fox. While the TV show was bastardized from the original concept (losing much of the links to the web world, alas), the website kept its integrity for the entire year it was live. We have an archive of the Freakylinks site here: http:// www.haxan.com/portfolio.htmlPosted by AdamMartin at 06:23 PM | Comments (0)
Adam Martin
I used to specialize in MMOG's (patented some server architectures), and I'm half way through writing a book on designing and developing game-servers. I used to evalute and help flesh out MMOG game-concepts from potential tech licensees, and as an MMOG person I find the collaborative-play aspects of ARGs the most fascinating.Posted by AdamMartin at 06:22 PM | Comments (0)
Andrea Phillips
I was one of the Cloudmakers moderators, now I'm a game producer at Mind Candy working in Perplex City, and I've got a bit of a blog talking about ARG and gaming meta-issues as they strike me (see link below). I'm sure many of us know each other by reputation, but it'll be fab to get to know all of you a little better than that. :)Posted by AdamMartin at 06:20 PM | Comments (0)