List of alternate reality games
An alternate reality game (ARG) is an interactive narrative that uses the real world as a platform, often involving multiple media and game elements, to tell a story that may be affected by participants' ideas or actions.
Name | Year | Developer | Story summary | Gameplay summary | Scale | Link |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Ong's Hat | 1999 | Independent | Legend Tripping, on-line experience. | Puzzle solving by online communities. | Very influential. [1] | http://josephmatheny.net |
The Beast | 2001 | Microsoft | Murder mystery set in the future featuring human like robots. | Puzzle solving by online communities. Rewards in the form of new websites and videos. | Very influential. | http://www.cloudmakers.org/ |
I Love Bees | 2004 | 42 Entertainment | An AI from the Halo 2 universe is stranded in our world and needs help. | Puzzle solving by online communities. Information released by phone calls to public telephones. Rewards in the form of new websites and videos. | 600,000+ players.[2] | http://www.ilovebees.com/ |
Last Call Poker | 2005 | 42 Entertainment | A cursed gun, passed down through generations, threatens the granddaughter of its last owner. | Puzzle solving by online communities. Real world missions in cemeteries. Online poker with dead characters. Rewards in the form of new stories and videos. | Over 500,000 active participants. | http://www.lastcallpoker.com/ |
The Lost Ring | 2008 | AKQA | 6 olympians from another world came to help us save this one. | Puzzle solving by online communities. Real world missions. A new Olympic sport "The Lost Sport" was introduced. | 3.000.000 players from over 150 countries. | http://www.thelostring.com/ |
CommanderVideo | 2008 | Puzzle solving, currently, done by online communities. Email correspondence, Twitter, and various Internet interactions are the areas of play. | New; Ten recruits are the major players thus far. | http://commandervideo.com/ | ||
Year Zero | 2007 | 42 Entertainment | Set in a dystopian future where the government surveys everyone. | Players solve puzzles, listen to recordings, and watch movie clips, to gain more info and find sites. | ||
Xi | 2009 | The world's first console and virtual world-based ARG created by nDreams. It was set in secret areas in the world of PlayStation Home where users helped to find Jess and the meaning of Xi. | Users solved puzzles, watched video clips, and did objectives in and out of Home to gain more information to help find Jess and the meaning of Xi. Users searched in Home as well as in the real world depending on the puzzle or objective. | Over 5 million visits | http://blog.us.playstation.com/2009/03/23/xi-has-begun/ | |
Gbanga Famiglia | 2010 | Explore real-world locations to take-over your city and become the Supreme Mafioso. | Join or start your own Mafia Famiglia and take-over virtual establishments you discover whilst walking around the city. Establishments are linked to real-world establishments, so players must physically move between locations. A successful take-over depends on the Famiglia's power, determined by the number of Famiglia members and the cash total for special items collected. | Worldwide | http://gbanga.com | |
Lewis Hamilton: Secret Life | 2010 | Centered around Lewis Hamilton, a secret agent in the game, showcasing a new Reebok technology such as RunTone or ZigTech. | Players worked together to solve puzzles and complete tests online, on mobiles and in the real world. | 637,000 players from over 154 countries | http://www.ndreams.co.uk/secretlewis | |
Conspiracy For Good | 2010 | The Company P | Tim Kring's narrative focused on charity and against the fictional corporation Blackwell Briggs exploiting Africa | Players cooperated online, on mobiles and in the real world. Four big events took place in London during summer 2010. | Gamers on Unfiction, on the game web and in the streets of London during the summer events | http://www.conspiracyforgood.com |
A Map of the Floating City | 2011 | Thomas Dolby | Set in a dystopian dieselpunk past, a global cataclysm has left the world's inhabitants suffering from amnesia and struggling to move north to the "Floating City" to escape the rising temperatures. | Players worked cooperatively and competitively as tribes to collect items, make inventions, solve a mystery, and move north. The game was unique in that the inventory was all based on lyrics from Dolby's back-catalog and (at the time) upcoming album of the same name. The winning coalition of tribes received a private concert as a prize. | Worldwide | http://www.floatingcity.com/ |
Potato Fool's Day | 2011 | Valve | GLaDOS of Portal is attempting to reboot herself. By playing a selection of 13 independent games, you can assist her. | Solving puzzles using clues found in aforementioned games | Anyone who purchased the Potato Sack on Steam | http://valvearg.com |
The War Update | 2012 | Valve | Compare the amount of "How much soldier that demoman killed" and "How much demoman that soldier killed" during four days, and four time. If Soldier class killed more Demoman, then Valve will update soldier's item. If not, then Valve will update demoman's item. | Demoman and Soldier, kill each other. | Anyone who has team fortress 2. | |
Unnamed Binding of Isaac Rebirth ARG | 2015 | Possibly Edmund Mcmillen | A puzzle involving the number 109 and a lost child baffles the community. |
Media with ARG themes
Films
Books
- Pattern Recognition by William Gibson
- Penny Dreadful by Will Christopher Baer
- Halting State by Charles Stross
- Little Brother by Cory Doctorow
- Cathy's Book and Cathy's Key by Sean Stewart, Jordan Weisman, and Cathy Brigg (illustrator)
- John Dies at the End (novel) by David Wong
- Mr. Mercedes (novel) by Stephen King
- Ready Player One by Ernest Cline
- This Is Not a Game by Walter Jon Williams
- This list is incomplete; you can help by expanding it.
References
- ↑ McMahon, Chris (May 2013) "The Rise Of The ARG: games™ investigates alternate reality games and what the future has in store for the curious experiment."
- ↑ McGonigal, J. (2008) "Why I Love Bees: A Case Study in Collective Intelligence Gaming."
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