Giant Mice

No, what’s been shown is that a bunch of strangers with both nothing to lose and nothing to gain worked toward a nebulous common goal. I guess its the sheer benevolence on display that amazed me most. — Jon Elek

Jon wrote that after reflecting on the A Million Penguins project. As mentioned in an earlier post (A million Penguins typing), the project fascinated me. The thing that drew me in to ARGs was the idea that a community of strangers from around the world could (and would) come together and collaborate on some strange project with no true understanding of what they were looking at and where they were going with it. They do so in a supportive environment with few arguments. Each giving what they can to the project and the process. In the end, they are rewarded with a story that they have, together, created.

I say story, but it’s really two. There’s the story and the story behind the story - the one of them as they played the game, the reactions they had, the processes that they went through. Both stories are meticulously documented, though only one of them is done so purposefully, and in the end they are so intertwined that it’s often difficult to tell where one ends and the other begins.

That’s what fascinated me with the Million Penguin project. They were given the directive to create a story. The pieces weren’t created by people lurking in the shadows and hiding them for the community to discover. The pieces (characters, places, plots, chapters) were to be built by the community while they were putting them together. It took out all of the other elements - the things that I found myself getting caught up in. The play. The game. The puzzles. The goals. The rewards. They are all important for an ARG, but they will never be as important as the fact that a bunch of strangers with nothing to lose and nothing to gain will come together to work towards some nebulous common goal. It’s a thing of beauty, really, that story behind the story. I’m glad that John and all of those involved with the A Million Penguin project got to experience it and that they were able to remind me of why I love Chaotic Fiction.

Twitter.

Of course I signed up back when and promptly got annoyed by it. It was pointless and stupid and something that only a bunch of kids would enjoy. Or so I thought. After seeing it in action at SXSW, I’ve become a fan. Oh, it’s still pointless and stupid and something that a bunch of kids would enjoy, but only 99% of the time. The other 1% is gold.

If you have somehow missed all the twitter talk (more power to ya!), it is essentially massively multiplayer text messaging and there are times when that is really handy - such as during conferences. With twitter, you can post up to 140 characters via the internet or email or sms and anyone (or just your friends) can recieve your post via the internet or email or sms. One post and everyone can see it in a form that’s convenient to them.

At SXSW this included updates on conference sessions and parties - where people were, what was interesting, what rocked, what sucked. It helped people find each other or, for some, avoid one another. It was fantastic. But, not fantastic enough for me to actually have logged in or used it - besides, others that I was with were getting the twitter updates, I didn’t need to bother.

What really excites me is the potential for ARG events. Imagine the ability for those at live events to post a stream of updates as to what’s going on from their phone that hits the web (or email or phones) instantly. Or, perhaps, a distributed scavenger hunt taking place the world over where people have to keep everyone else informed of what they’ve just found - each discovery building upon the other. Those are both possible with other technologies but twitter makes it fast and efficient and the possibilities excite me to no end.

Charlene Li has a great post on What Twitter is good for and how the program needs to be improved. I completely agree with her on the need for a more robust permission system. Until then, there’s just far too much noise - even if it is just my friends. But oh the possibilities.

San Francisco! I love this city! I love that the only times I’ve been here have been to play and/or attend game conferences. I got in yesterday so that I could get settled in in time for ARGfest which leads right in to GDC, which I’ll be covering for ARGNet and indieWIRE. Then it’s on to Austin, a city I’ve never been to for a conference that I’ve never been to - SXSW. I’ll be covering that, as well, for ARGNet and sitting on the ARG! Attack of the Alternate Reality Games panel. Excitement!

Of the three, I am the most lookiing forward to ARGfest. It’s going to be an amazing time and not just because it’s a huge party filled with people that I see once a year (if that) despite chatting with them near daily. First off, I’ll be announcing two projects that I’m really quite excited about and hope that others will be as well. And then there’s the conference. The organizers, notably Rose, have done an absolutely AMAZING job in pulling this together and getting some fantastic people to come in and talk to us. A little taste:

1) The first public appearance by the folks behind lonelygirl15. I’m quite anxious to hear what all they have to say. They’ll be speaking the following week at SXSW, but I have a feeling that the talk at ARGfest will be a bit more intimate. It will definitely be interesting to compare the two, especially the audience reaction.

2) A panel with a number of folks from 42 Entertainment. I’m not sure who all will be a part of it, but from what I’ve heard, it will cover a wide range of roles & responsibilities. It should offer some fantastic insight on how the company approaches a project which is always interesting to me. Plus, they’re just a really fun group of people. I’m sure we’ll be getting our information served with a large side of fun banter & stories.

3) The guys (or at least one of them) from SFZero - a “Collaborative Production Game” which is created by the players almost as much as it is by the developers. By getting people to challenge each other to explore themselves and the world around them, the game makes a very real impact on the players and, by extension, their world. I’ve been a longtime fan from afar and have only heard amazing things by those more familiar with them and their work.

4) Jane McGonigal. She’s hosting Cruel 2 B Kind (a game she created with Ian Bogost) on Friday night and then sitting on a panel about the future of ARGs on Saturday. Her insights on people and play and community are amazing, if only I could sit in her brain for an entire day! It’s going to be nice to get a chance to hear from her before GDC where she’s giving the SGS Keynote on ARGs as serious games - but not serious as in boring, serious as in games for good.

There’s loads that I’m missing, but there’s just no way that I can hit everything that I’m excited about. It was all I could do to limit it to three. Seriously, check out the conference schedule to see for yourself. There will be a bit of coverage of the even on ARGNet, so be sure to head over there for post-ARGfest thoughts, impressions, and whatnots. If I can find a moment or two before getting wrapped up in GDC, I’ll try to add some of my thoughts here as well.