Crafting an Alternate Reality Game Journey: The Easter ARG Adventure
Embark on an intriguing journey into the world of Alternate Reality Games (ARGs) with a focus on the making of the Easter ARG - uncover the essence of ARG creation, research, timeline, script development, and purposeful direction leading to the final clue discovery.
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Presentation Transcript
The Making of the Easter ARG Cass Sister: Munchkin
The beginning What is an ARG? Why are you making one? Are you aware of how much work and research this will take? Are you prepared to dedicate a lot of time to this? Alternate Reality Game. Because I think that they re pretty cool and I m the Easter Bunny. No. Yes.
Where to start Research. Night Mind, Inside a Mind and Nexpo inspired me to do an ARG through their videos on deconstructing ARGs. Step one was to watch hours of ARG videos, and try and find active ones to practise and get a feel for. MrBeast ARG, The Lost and the Game Theory were the ARGs I took part in, and I watched videos on all sorts of ARGs, most especially Tender, Dad, Tinman, I am Sophie, Erratas, The Human Pet, Lonelygirl15, Jack Torrance, Alantutorials, @TheSunVanished, This House Has People In It, and Lasagna Cat, which were watched on repeat and notes were taken.
Estimated Timeline January Film and post all videos November Start Research into ARGs December Design clues and puzzles February Final touches
Script videos to film, and decide all the different videos Start collecting various puzzle and code designs Actual Timeline Do more research on successful ARGs and puzzles Finish uploading and editing videos Create real-life puzzles and begin buying supplies January Continue designing puzzles and clues March Place real-life puzzles where possible November Begin researching ARGs December Begin designing puzzles and codes February Begin recording and editing videos April Last-minute changes Final clue alterations Consider personalised puzzles and clues Make this PowerPoint Continue designing and changing clues and puzzles to make them fit Choose platforms and presentation of information Incorporate rewards throughout the process
The Purpose Step two is the purpose/direction. The purpose was to get the Easter eggs, and the direction the ARG was pointing in all lead to the discovery of the final clue. The eggs are in the top right drawer is the final clue, hidden in anagram. The location of the eggs changed multiple times top right drawer, bottom right drawer, top left drawer, bottom left drawer, inside her desk, inside the second fridge, in Dad s room, in the veggie crisper. Each time the location changed, the anagram changed. The final location was decided in March.
The Puzzles Step three is the puzzles. The process of making these puzzles took around five months, with the last of the kinks being worked out in the week before Easter. These are extremely common puzzles but also aren t easy to decode straight off the bat. Each puzzle is lead to by a code, and each code needs a different decoder and way of understanding. There is a total of 26 codes/puzzles to be solved before the end of the ARG.
The Making Step four is the actual connecting and putting things together. Codes needed to lead to clues, which lead to more clues and codes and puzzles to be solved. If they all didn t link, the whole ARG would fall apart. Connecting these together took around two months, with constant tweaking and changing of the puzzles and codes and various other elements.
Hold up How did you track this all? One Word document, and one large piece of cardboard. The Word document held every single piece of information, and the cardboard was used to visualise the links between each clue and puzzle and keep track of what had and hadn t been connected and created.
Now what? During the whole six month process, almost everything changed from my original idea. I can thing of only one thing that stayed the same, and that was the fact that I wanted the final clue to be an anagram. Now came the process of smacking it all together.
The Build Step five is the building. I have all my puzzles, codes and clues marked out and designed, now to make them. The real-life stuff was the easiest, a few of the clues were decided and kept within the first month and have been there since December e.g. Something wicked this way comes and ROT13 cypher behind poster. Some placed on the day e.g. cup of pens, Nara deer statue etc.
The Run-through I had some friends of mine run through the clues I gave them, and they managed to solve them all with a quick Google. Hence, I felt confident that you guys would solve it. This test was last Friday in the Drama common time at 8am, the same time I organised for you to start.
The Actual Run Time Started: 9:22am Time Finished: 10:36am How many times did they get mad at me: A lot Puzzles/codes they couldn t solve: A few Times they needed help from me: A bit Overall Score: 11/20. They solved it but I need to work on my puzzle skills
