Dave Szulborski (–2009)

Szulborski is a “puppetmaster” (a kind of cross between a referee and D&D dungeon master) for a number of ARGs (Alternative Reality Games) and has written this guide as both an introduction to the genre and a guide on running ARGs. When the Spielberg film AI came out some trailers and posters included a credit for a Jeanine Salla as “as Sentient Machine Therapist”. One of the trailers included an encrypted telephone number which if you called it and followed the instructions you would receive an e-mail saying “Jeanine is the key” and other trailers had the message “Evan Chan is dead” and so started the ARG that came to be known as “the Beast” & also defined this “new” genre of game that deliberately blurred the line between game and real world. Players attempted to crack the puzzles to find out how Evan died using the more than 30 websites created for the game, players had also had live phone conversations with a game character and participated in Anti-Robot Militia rallies in New York, Chicago, and Los Angeles.

Szuborski covers the history of ARGs using real examples including the Beast, what ARGs are and their possible future. He then gives you a guide to creating ARG puzzles and a sample ARG. One thing though he seems to think that no-one has ever worked with a genre where the audience/player helps create the story through their interaction with the game before so has obviously never heard of tabletop or live role playing before!

Although well written I never got a very good idea of what it’s like to play an ARG – a genre of game I’ve pondered trying. From the outside it still seems that you need some real world IT skills to even give it a go and the puzzles seem very difficult (most are solved by the community of ARG players working together – for some games the community is in the thousands). Most ARGs start with a “rabbit hole” (reference to Alice in Wonderland) which draws you into the alternative reality of the game which are sometimes highlighted on websites like www.argn.com. It’s a draw and a barrier to me that you have to be in the right place at the right time to have a go at these games. They seem to involve a lot of Instant Messaging and crunching HTML trying to find hidden messages.

Overall – interesting historical view on Alternative Reality Gaming.… (plus d'informations)