Mssv

All hail the Alternate Reality Games (ARG) Special Interest Group (SIG) of the Independent Game Developers Association (IGDA)! Yes, that’s the ARG SIG of IGDA. I’m happy to be a founding member, and I’m even happier to not be involved in the running of the SIG, given my vanishingly small amounts of free time. However, [...]

The proper title of this talk was ‘Through the Rabbithole: The history and potential of Alternate Reality Games’. It was presented at the 2005 Montreal International Games Summit and is an introduction to the alternate reality gaming genre.
Below is an essay based on notes that I prepared for the talk. It is not a transcript [...]

NB: I’ll be putting up my presentation notes in the next few days.
As a game developer at the conference told me, “When people hear that I’m from Montreal, they think of two things. One, that we speak French, and two, that we almost separated.” They certainly don’t think that Montreal is a place where computer [...]

The popular games weblog Joystiq regularly posts about promotional ARG campaigns, generally to do with new games or consoles like the XBox. Until today, that is. Today, they proclaimed that they were sick of viral marketing and sick of ARGs. Their list of complaints include the fact that ARGs are predictable, not entertaining (this is [...]

Regular readers may have noticed some subtle change in the appearance of my weblog - yes, I have in fact posted a new article in the ‘massive’ section. It’s not very long, but people into alternate reality games might be interested. Basically, it’s an edited version of the extended abstract I sent into the GDC [...]

This is the extended abstract of a talk I wanted to give at the next GDC but didn’t end up happening. Them’s the breaks, I suppose - and I’m going to the Montreal Game Summit next month, so all’s well.
Despite the success of The Beast and I Love Bees (winner of the 2005 GDC Innovation [...]

On Wednesday I’m heading off to The Future Laboratory’s Autumn 2005 ‘Trend Briefing’; unsurprisingly, alternate reality gaming is in, and while Mind Candy isn’t giving a presentation, we are going to be featured in one, so we have a few free tickets.
Observant readers will note that their flyer doesn’t actually mention ARGs - rather, it [...]

Busy. Very busy. But not too busy to have my 23rd birthday yesterday, watch Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and eat some chocolate cake. In case I don’t mention it later, I’m going to be in Toronto in early September and I’m planning to organise some kind of Perplex City/alternate reality gaming meetup, so keep [...]

How the BBC, Orson Welles, ancient Egyptian scribes and alternate reality game designers all follow the same 3900 year old tradition.

A reworking of ‘The Night Before Christmas’, Syzygy-style.