ARGs and "Chaotic Fiction"

captaink

I stumbled across a fairly good one a few days ago. It's called Marble Hornets and it's about this guy who begins reviewing tapes from a friend's abandoned student movie. Creepy stuff ensues.

http://twitter.com/marblehornets This is the twitter where J, the guy with the tapes, posts.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wmhfn3mgWUI This is an intro video.

I know Ted the Caver and Dionea House are some other favorites. Has anyone found any other good ones recently?

Snowbeat

this isn't really an ARG even though it's actually pretty creepy

Umaro

What's an ARG.

e: o hello wikipedia.

Snowbeat

alternate reality game

dudes create elaborate internet mysteries with hidden clues and codes and shit and then the internet tries to solve them

the best ones are usually marketing campaigns run by companies

captaink

Well that's why I said "Chaotic fiction" which is apparently more appropriate for the non-interactive ones.

scarlet st.

I kind of hate ARGs. Like I don't understand their draw. can someone explain to me why I should go out of my way to find some new movie's various marketing paraphernalia buried in some desert or other?

Bucketman

I really love these. My favorite was I love bees. Though I hear there where good ones for dark knight and AI

Monkeyfeet

ARGs are cool. Interactive fiction is cool.

Antimatter

scarlet st. wrote: »

I kind of hate ARGs. Like I don't understand their draw. can someone explain to me why I should go out of my way to find some new movie's various marketing paraphernalia buried in some desert or other?

poops and giggles?

Snowbeat

scarlet st. wrote: »

I kind of hate ARGs. Like I don't understand their draw. can someone explain to me why I should go out of my way to find some new movie's various marketing paraphernalia buried in some desert or other?

no reason at all, which is why it's pretty pointless to actually try to solve them

they're fun to follow though

Umaro

scarlet st. wrote: »

I kind of hate ARGs. Like I don't understand their draw. can someone explain to me why I should go out of my way to find some new movie's various marketing paraphernalia buried in some desert or other?

To further distract us from our cripplingly meaningless lives duh.

captaink

I don't care for actual ARGs myself. I don't have any codebreaking skills or arcane computer knowledge. Nor do I have a desire to drive to random phone booths or whatever.

This Marble Hornets one is pretty much just watching increasingly creepy youtube videos. Though there are some responses and people have reversed the audio and heard stuff.

Grey Ghost

The ones which are movie or game tie-ins are ususally "best" in the sense that they are more complex and far-reaching, because they have a shit-ton of marketing money to back them up and develop them

The ones which are made by regular dudes on the internet often have more interesting storylines or executions, but are subject to the guys running it either not having the time or resources to maintain it or just getting bored and letting it die out

Monkeyfeet

Remember kids. Hate what you don't understand

Green

Jesus fuck, Slenderman

captaink

Green wrote: »

Jesus fuck, Slenderman

He's lurking around outside your house right now.

Muggins

I keep hearing about how amazing the one for A.I. was.

Like...it was super amazingly incredible.

Grey Ghost

Veretas wrote: »

I keep hearing about how amazing the one for A.I. was.

Like...it was super amazingly incredible.

That one was called The Beast or something, right?

Monkeyfeet

Like Lonelygirl15. That was interesting. Or less arg more internet fiction

www.meettheluckyones.com

Muggins

Grey Ghost wrote: »

Veretas wrote: »

I keep hearing about how amazing the one for A.I. was.

Like...it was super amazingly incredible.

That one was called The Beast or something, right?

I think it had like multiple ones. The site fans made to keep tabs on it is now like a central hub for all ARGs. I think the name had clouds or something in it.

Kuribo's Shoe

I don't know man, doing all this legwork and calling numbers and responding to mysterious letters for the sake of an ad campaign seems

I dunno

pointless

Speed Racer

Kuribo's Shoe

yeah, what that comic said.

Monkeyfeet

Pointless like posting on an internet chat forum?

Kuribo's Shoe

no, pointless like taking a 10 mile walk to buy a pack of gum.

Kuribo's Shoe

not that I can't get down with good writing of course

but a well written 3 month long interactive ad is still just an ad.

Muggins

I like following the ARGs and sometimes trying to solve a random puzzle if I got the time.

I think they are neat

Monkeyfeet

What if you like to walk 10 miles?

denihilist

captaink wrote: »

I stumbled across a fairly good one a few days ago.

This is how I know you're a liar.

Kuribo's Shoe

Monkeyfeet wrote: »

What if you like to walk 10 miles?

well then good for you walky walkerson

Bucketman

scarlet st. wrote: »

I kind of hate ARGs. Like I don't understand their draw. can someone explain to me why I should go out of my way to find some new movie's various marketing paraphernalia buried in some desert or other?

Some of the args have rewards

Like for Dark Knight threre was part where certain bakeries had these joker cakes, you had to decode a thing to find the bakery. In the cakes where plastic baggies with iphones and a joker card with a phone number and instructions to keep the phone. Free phone and free cake there. The guys at the end got tickets to the hollywood premier

Kuribo's Shoe

they gave away imax tickets for that too

but I didn't actually do it I just went to the website and got the tickets

but I didn't get to go, so the joke's on me

Orikaeshigitae

Grey Ghost wrote: »

Veretas wrote: »

I keep hearing about how amazing the one for A.I. was.

Like...it was super amazingly incredible.

That one was called The Beast or something, right?

yeah, that was the original one, it spawned unfiction.org, and it's where i got my username from

Orikaeshigitae

http://cloudmakers.org/trail/#3.94

redfenix

i still have a picture in my pbucket from an ARG that happened around here



i was supposed to get a free game outta it or something, but i never heard anything

Snowbeat

yeah, I kinda hate it when corporate ARGs end in "to learn the whole story, buy our product"

but ones run by regular people tend to break down when unfiction starts to really lean on them

Orikaeshigitae

it'd be nice to be able to write one

that would be a hell of a lot of fun

but i don't have the money to buy like 20 million websites

Muggins

Orikaeshigitae wrote: »

http://cloudmakers.org/trail/#3.94

That's the website!

Also I got two free tickets to an advance screening of The Dark Knight from playing the ARG so it's pretty cool when you get a reward out of it.

Snowbeat

okay scratch marble hornets not being a real ARG

unfiction has a whole subforum dedicated to it

Bucketman

Thanks orik! Been looking for that one for awhile. Now if only I could find ted the caver. All thw google results are just message boards talking about it

Macera

Bucketman wrote: »

Thanks orik! Been looking for that one for awhile. Now if only I could find ted the caver. All thw google results are just message boards talking about it

http://www.angelfire.com/trek/caver/

edit: and what may be two earlier stories which "Ted the Caver" is based on:

http://liquigel.net/text/terror.html

http://web.archive.org/web/20050117173007/www.dougaustin.com/tlcaves/pdf/Thefearofdarkness.pdf