Glossary of ARG-related terms

ASCII: character encoding based on the English alphabet. ASCII codes represent text in computers, communications equipment, and other devices that work with text. Most modern character encodings have a historical basis in ASCII. See ASCII

Alternate Reality Gaming: A cross-media genre of interactive fiction using multiple delivery and communications media, including television, radio, newpapers, Internet, email, SMS, telephone, voicemail, and postal service. Gaming is typically comprised of a secret group of PuppetMasters who author, manipulate, and otherwise control the storyline, related scenarios, and puzzles and a public group of players, the collective detective that attempts to solve the puzzles and thereby win the furtherance of the story. See Alternate Reality Game

AutoPlay: When the player community relies on automated scripts to discover page updates.

Beast: Arguably the granddaddy of the genre. Although it was preceded by the "Publius Enigma," a promotion for the Division Bell album by Pink Floyd, the Beast was more successful in attracting a mainstream and diverse audience. This alternate reality game was set in the A.I. movie universe and centered around the mysterious death of Evan Chan. See The Beast (game)

Book Cipher: A book cipher is a cipher in which the key is the identity of a book. Traditionally book ciphers work by replacing words in the plaintext of a message with the location of words from a book. In this mode, book ciphers are more properly called codes.

Bozos: Name given to the players of LockJaw by the LockJaw puppetmasters, after the first player to find a LockJaw site, Y2KBozo.

Brute Force: Using a program to bombard a site with scripted input or page requests in order to 'solve' a form-based puzzle or discover hidden directories or pages.

Caesar Cipher: In cryptography, a Caesar cipher, also known as a Caesar's cipher or the shift cipher, is one of the simplest and most widely-known encryption techniques. It is a type of substitution cipher in which each letter in the plaintext is replaced by a letter some fixed number of positions further down the alphabet. For example, with a shift of 3, A would be replaced by D, B would become E, and so on. The method is named after Julius Caesar, who used it to communicate with his generals. See Caesar Cipher

Cipher: A cipher is an algorithm for performing encryption (and the reverse, decryption) — a series of well-defined steps that can be followed as a procedure. See Encryption

Cloudmakers: The original collective detective. The group of players that formed to solve the Beast. Official site located at cloudmakers.org.

Code: a rule for converting a piece of information (for example, a letter, word, or phrase) into another form or representation, not necessarily of the same sort. See Code

Collective Detective: A team of players that works together to attempt to solve puzzles and find the hidden bits, thereby winning the furtherance of the story. Term coined by Cloudmaker Alex in post number eight to the Cloudmakers List.

Curtain: The line separating players from puppetmasters. As in, "pay no attention to the man behind the curtain."

Evan Chan: Arguably the very name that touched off the entire alternate reality gaming genre.

Guide: A linear walkthrough narrative of the discovery process during an alternate reality game. Term coined by AdrianHon.

Lurker: One who follows games or board discussions without directly participating. Past game stats show that the ratio of lurkers to active players is typically anywhere from 5:1 to 20:1 depending on the scale and nature of the game.

Meltdown: The phenomenon of an Alternate Reality Game being unexpectedly canceled before it can conclude, leaving players, who have invested countless hours and effort, twisting in the wind.

Metapuzzle: A puzzle whose solution mechanism requires the solving of several other puzzles first.

Puppetmaster: An individual working "behind the curtain" to control an alternate reality game.

Rabbit Hole: The initial site, page, or clue that brings someone into the game.

Red Herring: An intentional or unintentional distraction that diverts the players from the path to a solution and sends them off on a wild tangent, sometimes involving hippopotami and peanut butter.

ROT-13: ROT13 ("ROTate by 13 places", sometimes hyphenated ROT-13, or lowercase rot13) is a simple Caesar cipher used for obscuring text by replacing each letter with the letter thirteen places down the alphabet. A becomes N, B becomes O and so on. See ROT13

Rubbernecker: A step above a lurker, a rubbernecker may attend game chats, post on the board, and contribute to solves. However, he or she avoids having any direct contact with in-game characters and may choose not to register via in-game websites.

Shill: n. 1. An employee or representative of a company who poses as a consumer, player or satisfied customer in an attempt to create interest in his product. 2. One who poses as a satisfied customer or an enthusiastic gambler to dupe bystanders into participating in a swindle.

Spec: (Short for speculation.) Used as a noun or a verb, as in "I specced yesterday that Vad was in love with Barbie, then I read someone else's spec saying the opposite and decided he was in love with me instead." [Variant: Spac. Speculation that is so intentionally wild and off the mark that it ventures into the territory of completely different games or subject matter. "Dude! Get away from me with your crazy spac!"]

Steganography: Hiding a secret message by concealing it within another medium, such that the secret message is undetectable unless you know to look for it. For example, a message might be hidden within an image by changing the least significant bits to be the message bits. See Steganography

T.I.N.A.G.: "This Is Not A Game." A defining mantra of the Alternate Reality Gaming genre, first put forth embedded in trailers for the movie A.I., which spawned the original ARG, the Beast.

Trail: A reference index of sites, puzzles, characters, and information found during an alternate reality game. Term coined by Cabel Sasser, founder of the Cloudmakers.

Trout: Trout is a term coined by Cloudmaker Dan Fabulich during the Beast. In his own words, it means "Listen, I respect you. It's great that you're here and posting and that we're working together for a common goal. Nonetheless, I have some polite criticisms." Trout is a term of respect that replaces the need to say "you're redundant!" with a courteous term that acknowledges the hard work involved even in redundant efforts.

Vigenère Cipher: The Vigenère cipher is a method of encryption that uses a series of different Caesar ciphers based on the letters of a keyword. It is a simple form of polyalphabetic substitution. See Vigenère Cipher