Portland Film Festival 2014: eXistenZ Alternate Reality Game

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What’s an ARG?Wikipedia:

An Alternate Reality Game (ARG) is an interactive networked narrative that uses the real world as a platform and uses transmedia storytelling to deliver a story that may be altered by players' ideas or actions.

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ARG Elements• Storytelling as archaeology

• Platformless narrative

• A whisper is sometimes louder than a shout

• "This is not a game” aesthetic

• Real life as a medium

• Collaborative storytelling

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AI: the Beast• elaborate murder mystery played out across

hundreds of websites, email messages, faxes, fake ads, and voicemail messages

• hired Sean Stewart, an award-winning science fiction/fantasy author, to write the story and Pete Fenlon, an experienced adventure game "world builder," to serve as developer and content lead

• involved over 3 million active participants

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• Surprise ARG for 30 friends in Feb 2014 !

• Made with friend Alex Grünenfelder

eXistenZ ARG

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eXistenZ ARG

• fake websites, social media accounts

• working phone numbers (SMS / call)

• 3D printed game objects

• real game characters

• live events

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antennaresearch.ca

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antennaresearch.ca

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Twilio & OpenVBX: for SMS, robo calls

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Call / SMS flows

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It started with an SMS invite to beta test a new game…

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Realist Manifesto

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text “in vivo veritas” to 647.496.6422

(Latin for “In a living thing there is truth”)

Realist Recruitment Process

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First Realist Agent (Tom Wynn)

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thank you!

invent@eesmyal.com

Twitter: @eesmyal

www.eesmyal.com

Want to play an ARG? !Text “play [your city]” to 844.325.4700 (toll-free)