Before we begin – if you don’t know a thing about ARGs – read this article.
So the series returns today – as expected work/life continues to get in the way. A home full of cold & flu sufferers makes gameplay a low priority. I had a great incentive to get back on the project though with a really encouraging discussion on last week’s ARG Netcast. Each Monday evening, a panel gets together and live streams an audio/video chat about the latest developments in the ARG world and usually brings a theme to each discussion. The theme last week was putting me on the hot seat, so the pressure’s on to deliver.
Bizarrely, I had another opportunity to fall down the SAME rabbithole this week when I spotted a second viral video for The Watchmen posted on Jesse Alexander’s weblog, The Global Couch. A second opinion always helps, and now I’m ready to dive in…
So picking up where I left off, I remembered that I was sent to “The New Frontiersman” website from these YouTube videos. Typing in thenewfrontiersman.com from memory (I before E?) – I hit a dead URL. Ouch – okay good thing I’m persistent. Looks like it’s thenewfrontiersman.NET. Unfortunate domain squatting incident perhaps? Possibly a good reason to seek an alternate domain for the central brand – there’s a good chance that ARG users will latch on to “The New Frontiersman” as the game’s name which means many new users will see it mentioned, visit the .com directly and drop off thinking it’s an expired game. Controlling this entry point for users is really one of the most important steps – this is your first impression and often the only place you can easily conduct OOG (out of game) basics like asking users to agree to terms & conditions (a necessary evil with some projects). As a player, I’m not immersed in the fiction yet – just browsing as a curious shopper. Think of me as the guy in the bookstore who’s looking at the book jacket to see if I want to buy. I’m not reading yet, so this experience of ‘selling the ARG’ to me can be completely different from the pages inside.
Back to first impressions. The site is an opened file folder lying on top of a newspaper edition of The New Frontiersman. Christy Dena at Universe Creation 101 has done some specific research into this moment – the point at which I enter a URL from a referring source and my expectations of immediate reward. Reward that I’ve done the right thing taking this one step further – I saw the video, and now I’m here. Was I supposed to do that? I came from a vintage Dr. Manhattan video to the site, and apart from the small link at the bottom to The Watchmen, there’s not a lot of indication that I’m in the right place. Granted, that confusion can be intriguing (and a curious player wouldn’t really notice) but in essence it’s the first puzzle of the game and it should be the easiest. There’s a lot of dropouts at this early stage so a little handholding doesn’t hurt. Like a newspaper clipping of the same story I saw on Dr. Manhattan, so I see the immediate link and feel comfortable that I’ve done the ‘right thing’.
When you hit the site, it’s hard not to notice the Betty Page-like card taped to the folder with “King Taylor Productions” written plainly. It looks like a credit for the site creators, but it’s BIG – deliberately too big if you ask me and I know that design elements that defy expectations are often clues… So I search for this company for two reasons – 1) I want to hear about a new ARG design company in town, and 2) I think King Taylor Productions may be a clue to something more. Results come back negative – there can’t be a real King Taylor Productions with that little search footprint. That’s a good sign that I’m already getting into the fiction as opposed to the meta. In the search though, I learn about two other people playing the game – 5:01 Blog has a post with these keywords, and the gang at SuperHeroHype.com are already discussing the site and picking it apart. This is great! I learn first that I don’t know anything about The Watchmen as someone comments how ‘authentic’ it is that the Silk Specter (the aforementioned pinup) is labeled with the King Taylor reference (oops – guess who’s the newb). The second cool thing is that without knowing a thing about ARGs, I almost immediately tapped in to a community of fans that were active playing on a third-party site. Make no mistake – this is the #1 thing that makes ARGs unique. As a project develops, it creates this layer of user discussion that surrounds it, promotes it, decodes it and can even destroy it. The SuperHeroHype forum is already filled with information that may contain ‘spoilers’ but it’s also a support network I can rely on if I ever get stuck.
I just realized that it’s going to be impossible to write this linear blog about my non-linear experience. This King Taylor digression has taken me right out of the ‘first impressions’ – I haven’t even touched the rest of the main page! My apologies if that makes it hard to read, but I’ve gotta write it down as I’m thinking it if I’m going to be truly representative.
Here’s the inventory of the page – it’s a static image with many hotspot areas. I can click on a happy face, a list of declassified documents listed on the file page, a Zippo lighter and the usual suspects of social network tools. Usability experts will tell you that this is poor form – making a Zippo lighter clickable but not explaining where it will link. This opinion is the opposite of fun, but is worth mentioning. First up – happy face which takes me to The Watchmen promotional page (in this exercise, jumping OOG signifies a ‘dead end’ although even this is up for debate). Second – Zippo lighter which takes me to… The Watchmen Widget. Uh oh – that’s not a good sign.
WARNING: SPOILERS AHEAD
So the only remaining material is the declassified documents. Some juicy stuff here – a high-ranking US gov’t letter and NY Police Union notice – it looks like The Watchmen aren’t very popular with the establishment. Newspaper clippings and scratchy radio spots too – completely in the fictional world and treated to appear really authentic. What – Nixon is still President, Bob Woodward has been killed and Vietnam surrendered?! Okay I’m starting to get to know the world a little here…Oh and here’s the viral videos that I saw earlier and brought me here! Again all really well done artifacts of this story-world.
And then the trail goes cold.
Although these artifacts are interesting individually, I can’t seem to see any way to bring them together outside of backstory development. There’s no call to action from any character and unless I’ve missed something, no narrative arrow that points me to another story element. An awful feeling hits me – this may not be an ARG at all. This entire experience could dead-end right here, with a viral campaign to attract users to a website of collected viral elements. I had a sense during the ARG Netcast that something like this might be afoot, but everyone was too polite to tell me at the time.
I’m not giving up yet, but I am going to spend the next post talking about that very issue – projects that look and feel like ARGs, but end up falling short of that promise (and why). I feel like I’m just getting traction with The Watchmen so I hope I’m wrong on this point.
No way I’m going to be able to cover this next phase and keep this post under 2000 words, so stay tuned for the next exciting installment of ‘Playing an ARG’ (coming soon)!
Evan Jones, Stitch Media
And before I close out, the important links this week are to say that our thoughts are with Dave Szulborski, a puppetmaster legend, as he goes through a difficult time. Supporters should drop in to the UnFiction discussion for updated information and ways you can help directly.
We’d also like to congratulate the folks behind We Tell Stories and The Dark Knight for their nominations in the SXSW Awards this year. We’ll be in the audience, rooting for you!
