mouse's house

R U a Sammeee (the original)

2009-02-24T11:48:00.001-08:00

Somewhere In The Land of Spoocheee

Before we were Sammeeeees, there was the first draft of the world of Spoocheeeee.....follow along if you dare.

Addiction

2009-02-19T07:40:00.003-08:00

Ghosts of a Chance aka Luce's Lover's Eye

2008-08-01T10:44:00.000-07:00

If you were at ARGFest Boston (or just saw the flickr photoset) you'll remember the "bananahammock" (as the unforum people have dubbed him) man. Henna tattoes and oiled muscles, sunglasses, and posing before lunch.

Led to gh os ts of a ch a nc ewhere we've been sending photos of eyes and calling/recording on the incantation line.

We knew this had something to do with the Smithsonian (can't hide much from the collective intelligence of unforum - check out the trailhead). Today this article showed up on ABC News. Not only is this some backstory (without giving out much plot) but this is a great press article about ARGs in it's own right.

Edit to add: A link was found: Mysterious Message on ABCNews video site.

The Smithsonian's Got Game

The Smithsonian Takes the Plunge Into an Alternate Reality
By MOLLY HUNTER
Aug. 1, 2008—

An alternate-reality gamer, typically very tuned in and tech savvy, enters a game through a rabbit hole a la Lewis Carroll.

Well, almost. Lewis Carroll didn't have a computer -- but just as Alice followed the white rabbit into his hole to discover Wonderland, gamers dive into their alternate realities via text messages, e-mails, podcasts, blogs or mysterious phone calls, to name a few ways. All it takes is one entry point.

Now, the Smithsonian American Art Museum in Washington, D.C., has gone where no museum has gone before, providing a rabbit hole for the new alternate reality game, or ARG, called "Ghosts of a Chance."

In partnership with the ARG design company City Mystery, the Smithsonian has become the first museum to sponsor an ARG, a move it hopes will inspire other museums to follow suit.

"I hope other museums do follow, and I think they will," said Smithsonian's Georgina Bath, the interpretive programs manager for the Luce Foundation Center of American Art. "The idea of game-playing is much more common in science museums, and we are not as familiar with the practice in art museums."

Seeking to engage their visitors at a deeper level, the museum hopes to show artwork in a new, more intense light, allowing for unprecedented interaction with their collections.

What interaction, specifically, will be unveiled by gamers and remains to be seen, but the Smithsonian American Art Museum will wield its powerful presence throughout the game. Confused yet?

ARGs are not your standard board game. There are no rules, no goals, no apparent finish line, and in fact, no board at all.

ARGs are massive, multiplayer games that allow players to interact with an alternate reality using real-world events and clues to do so.

The games are designed by "puppet masters" who effectively begin the games, but can lose control of the game's direction once the curiosity of the players leads the game down other paths. Remember Alice's surreal journey from mad tea parties to the croquet grounds with the queen of hearts?

"Ghosts of A Chance" began July 19 in Boston at "ARG-Fest-O-Con 2008" an event where some of the most die-hard players on the planet gather to whet their appetite for the newest arrivals on the ARG scene.

About 100 people turned out to see the launch of "Ghosts of a Chance." What they saw was a speedo-clad and oiled up Mr. New England, sporting multiple tattoos. Not even Alice had a view like this.

But ARG-ers aren't easily distracted, and after some brief ogling they got down to business at hand -- or on the body, as it were.

Discovering the words "ghosts of a chance" hiding in multiple (henna) tattoos, they were off and running. Within half an hour, pictures were online and at the fingertips of eager gamers who missed the launch.

Soon enough, gamers had stumbled upon the Web site ghostsofachance.com, and the game had begun. The curiosity of the ARG-ers perpetuates the game.

For gamers, the lines quickly blur between the real and the imagined, as characters develop and gamers themselves become invested in the game.

Bath said she hopes people discover things through each other that they have never seen before, and view the artwork in completely new ways through the game.

"We definitely saw 'Ghosts of a Chance' as a really good fit for us," said Bath, noting that once she understood the concept of an ARG, she realized how in sync the game's goals were with those of the museum.

"The Luce Foundation is all about discovering, exploring and having fun, and I think ARGs definitely play to that," said Bath.

Most ARGs are free of charge and open to all. However, a computer and cell phone are vital for a true ARG experience.

Lightning Speed Interaction
ARGs are the latest new medium to generate online communities, and they do so by merging story-telling with the digital world of the millennial generation.

These communities band together (virtually, at first) to solve clues and puzzles that eventually lead them to the end goal. However, unlike standard games, an ARGer rarely knows the end goal when they join. Players say they participate for the love of the game.

"Players don't have any goals," said Jonathan Waite, an avid ARG gamer and owner of the Alternate Reality Gaming Network, an online forum and news site for all things ARG related.

"The curiosity factor is first and foremost, and you start questioning everything," added Waite. "It becomes nearly impossible to tear yourself away from it. We just love to play."

John Maccabee, puppet master and CEO of City Mystery, the San Francisco based ARG design company that created "Ghosts of A Chance," agreed that it goes beyond the traditional game mentality where there are winners and losers.

"It's really not about winning, it's about playing," said Maccabee.

The greatest ARG hit to date was Microsoft's 2004 game, "I Love Bees," which was a viral and successful marketing tool for the video game, "Halo 2."

Three months after starting with a modest base of 25 players, "I Love Bees" amassed three million players internationally.

All it takes is a small group of dedicated ARG-ers to spark interest in the World Wide Web's ARG community -- a community of 18- to 45-year-olds that is growing by the day.

Within minutes of Mr. New England's unveiling of the first clue, bloggers were already furiously reporting, virtually gathering to put their heads together to figure out the next clue.

"Once you get information, you post it, or blog it or text it, and the information flies around rapidly," said Maccabbe.

He explained that the individual players must document their journey through the game to advance others.

"It keeps spreading and building and building," said Maccabee. "There's really no limit."

The Collective Curiosity of a Community
Collective intelligence has permeated the Internet-powered world, allowing people to instantly collaborate across the globe. And ARGs are a testament to its success

From a puppet master's point of view, Elan Lee, director of Microsoft's "I Love Bees," once said, the goal is "to create puzzles and challenges that no single person could solve on their own."

Thomas Malone, director of the MIT Center for Collective Intelligence, noted that the phenomenon of collective intelligence is not new, but that ARG is just the 21st century application of it.

The center, which opened in 2006, aims to make collective intelligence a serious academic subject and focuses on ways that people and computers can connect so both human and machine can act more intelligently together than either have ever done alone.

"Collective intelligence has existed in our society for years," said Malone, who described collective intelligence as "groups of individuals doing things collectively that seem intelligent."

Since the advent of the Internet, however, new forms of collective intelligence have emerged. Malone pointed to Wikipedia as an example of the "new Internet-enabled, decentralized collective intelligence."

According to Malone, this decentralization is both geographic, in that the players are not always physically together, and organizational, in that control is dispersed among multiple players.

Collective intelligence has traditionally been more hierarchical, but Wikipedia and now ARGs allow peers to interact on the same digital plane with little centralized control.

In ARGs, individuals discover and unfold pieces of the puzzle, but only when the community contributes to a group analysis does the game develop. And as the game continues, the players begin to set the course based on both individual and collective knowledge and curiosity.

ARGs give control to both puppet masters and players as both parties sign on for the wild, virtual ride together. And now for the first time, a museum will be caught in the fray.

"This is a new way for gamers to interact with the museum's collections," said Maccabbee.

"To a certain extent, I think museums worry that they are losing these younger generations, and so are particularly attuned to penetrating this generation," he added.

ARGs however, are not in danger of losing their audience, and Maccabee sees ARGs as a great tool for museums and libraries to hook in the cyber-centric generation.

"This is where entertainment is going," said Maccabee, "and we are part of the movement."

Copyright © 2008 ABC News Internet Ventures

Random Knowledge Crossword Puzzle

2008-06-16T22:11:00.000-07:00

What Happened to Dr. Gough?

2008-05-14T22:12:00.001-07:00

Holomove is where my new friend Nate works.

Find the Lost Ring - My Strength

2008-03-21T15:19:00.000-07:00

What is "Find the Lost Ring"?

WHAT

The Lost Ring is a global immersive adventure.

It’s an alternate reality game — an interactive story you help tell, by piecing together clues online and in the real world.

The game started in March 2008, and you can join any time.

It’s free to play, and easy to catch up on what’s happened in the story so far.

WHY

The Lost Ring is an adventure you experience with people from all over the world.

As a global team, you’ll work together to uncover a secret that’s nearly 2,000 years in the making.

Where does it all lead? To the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing, where players will join forces online and across the globe to help save the worlds.

HOW

If you’re just getting started, welcome to the game.

Here's how to start playing:

Mad Cthulhu Dream

2007-12-23T13:06:00.001-08:00

Eldritch Dreams - you've been warned

FIGURE THIS ONE OUT . . .

2007-11-22T06:46:00.000-08:00

"The intuitive mind is a sacred gift and the rational mind is a faithful servant. We have created a society that honours the servant and has forgotten the gift."
A. Einstein

This has to be one of the best illusions ever created.

If you look at the above images from your seat in front of the computer, Mr. Angry is on the left, and Ms.Calm is on the right.

Get up from your seat, and move back 12 feet, and PRESTO!! they switch places!!

It is said this illusion was created by Phillippe G.Schyns and Aude Oliva of the University of Glasgow.

Does this prove that we sometimes may not be seeing what's actually there?

Why So Serious, Halloween 2007

2007-11-01T07:33:00.000-07:00

Following the trail from whysoserious we found ourselves with specific instructions from Rory's Death Kiss.

Chaotic Fiction

2007-09-09T09:47:00.000-07:00

When a single author (or a collaboration between a couple/few friends) creates a work of fiction - that is Fiction as we read growing up. In the libraries. Or on the TV/movie screen. Static. One direction. Start to finish (unless you opened the book at the end or fast forward through the show), but it was always the same, every time you started it.

Now we have the world of the internet, the premise of a billion different collaborators on any work of art. There might be a single leader (which has been called the "Puppet Master", or PM) conducting the orchestra, but when you let your piece out into the wild of the web, you are giving the story up to a little bit of chance. From this rises the chaos. It is up to the PM to keep things in order - or follow the new path if it fits within the scope of the design desired by the PM.

No longer are stories and movies and TV limited to a single direction. Ideas can be expanded, tangets explored, no two experiences have to be the same, and sometimes you can go back and follow a different path. Different people add to the fiction along the way. It's chaotic.

If you take the chaos one step further, create interaction between the characters in the fictional world (the alternate reality) and throw in a bit of mystery or purpose for the interaction, maybe even a few bumps in the road that need to be hurdled to get to the next chapter in the story, now you have a game or an experience. If the interaction is static, one sided, pre-determined and the players have very little affect on the story - it's not so much chaotic fiction, it's planned fiction in the alternate reality world and we are experiencing it. Alternate Reality Experience (ARE). If the interaction is fluid, chaotic, and affects the story, we are playing a game, an Alternate Reality Game (ARG).

IMHO.

Sammeeeees2: Wrath of Johnson

2007-07-29T13:12:00.000-07:00

Mister Alan Johnson isn't quite dead enough for the Sammeeeees. He's prayed to Mithras under false pretense and made a deal. He brings 30 souls into the temple to worship Mithras (willingly or not) and he gets reincarnated.

It's up to the Sammeeeees and White Roses to thwart his evil plan that could culminate in an explosion to end both worlds.

Catchup on the Story So Far at unFiction.

Enter the Raven

2007-06-28T21:58:00.001-07:00

I come with truth and light

2007-06-19T21:25:00.000-07:00

Where is Higgs?????

2007-06-09T17:10:00.000-07:00

Somewhere, out there, is a strong, opinionated, intelligent (many have labeled him a genius), man who uses the nickname "Higgs" online. He loves puzzles, X-files, and Corona beer. He has been known to hang out at a bar on Montana Ave called "The Office". He's probably not working these days so maybe he's wandering around Santa Monica?

I'm worried about him. See, there's a strong chance that something sinister, and supernatural, is coming to get him (and other Sammeeeees). And I'm not sure he got the power we sent him to protect him from the Eidolon.

Here's more about Higgs:
http://iamhiggsboson.blogspot.com/
http://www.myspace.com/higgsisasammeeeee

If you've seen him, please let me know.
Thanks.

Comic Genius

2007-06-08T22:42:00.000-07:00

http://xkcd.com/c274.html

Protection

2007-06-04T11:02:00.001-07:00

Where is Betty Going?

2007-05-07T06:58:00.000-07:00

She said she is going to England, and posted this picture:

Anyone know where this is?

I am a Sammeeeee

2007-05-07T06:28:00.000-07:00

Last fall I helped to save the world.

At least, I thought we did.

This past month the MySpace for Mr Alan Johnson began to change. But he's suppose to be dead.

PATRICIA GOES TO SAVE KEVIN AND PEEPS

If he is dead, then who changed his blog? misteralanjohnson.blogspot.com

And updated his MySpace ?

Is this your den?

2007-04-18T19:03:00.001-07:00

INCREASE YOUR WORD POWER FOR 2007

2007-03-06T19:20:00.000-08:00

Essential vocabulary additions for the workplace and elsewhere!!!

1. BLAMESTORMING Sitting around in a group, discussing why a deadline was missed or a project failed, and who was responsible.

2. SEAGULL MANAGER A manager, who flies in, makes a lot of noise, poops on everything, and then leaves.

3. ASSMOSIS The process by which some people seem to absorb success and advancement by kissing up to the boss rather than working hard

4. SALMON DAY The experience of spending an entire day swimming upstream, only to get screwed and die in the end.

5. CUBE FARM An office filled with cubicles.

6. PRAIRIE DOGGING When someone yells or drops something loudly in a cube farm, and people's heads pop up over the walls to see what's going on.

7. MOUSE POTATO The on-line, wired generation's answer to the couch potato.

8. SITCOMs Single Income, Two Children, Oppressive Mortgage. What Yuppies get into when they have children and one of them stops working to stay home with the kids.

9. STRESS PUPPY A person who seems to thrive on being stressed out and whiny.

10. SWIPEOUT An ATM or credit card that has been rendered inoperative due to excessive wear on magnetic strip.

11. XEROX SUBSIDY Swiping free photocopies from one's workplace.

12. IRRITAINMENT Entertainment and media spectacles that are annoying but you find yourself unable to stop watching them.

13. PERCUSSIVE MAINTENANCE The fine art of whacking an electronic device to get it to work again. Often feel like doing this to my computer......

14. ADMINISPHERE The rarefied organizational layers beginning just above the rank and file. Decisions that fall from the adminisphere are often profoundly inappropriate or irrelevant to the problems they were designed to solve.

15. 404 Someone who's clueless. From the World Wide Web error Message "404 Not Found," meaning that the requested site could not be located.

16. GENERICA Features of the American landscape that are exactly the same no matter where one is, such as fast food joints, strip malls, and subdivisions.

17. OHNOSECOND That minuscule fraction of time in which you realize that you've just made a BIG mistake. (Like after hitting send on an email by mistake).

18. WOOFS Well-Off Older Folks.

19. CROP DUSTING Surreptitiously passing gas while passing through a Cube Farm.

- Author Unknown

Someone stole toys from Derek

2007-01-28T07:00:00.000-08:00

And one of the items was shipped to me.

Inside the box was a piece of paper with a puzzle.

2007-01-05T20:01:00.000-08:00

I'm thinking about moving. I heard about a great new place for relaxing and enjoying life. It's called Township Heights.

2007-01-02T18:22:00.001-08:00

vanishingpointgame.com

See comments for puzzle solve.

I am a Sammeeeee

2007-01-02T08:33:00.000-08:00

I helped to save the five and save the world!

Here's to 2007

2006-12-31T20:53:00.000-08:00

Last year I saved the world from the evil Spoocheeeee empire