Crossing Over: How Alternate Reality Gaming Fulfilled a Childhood Dream
Just over a year has passed since I discovered Alternate Reality Gaming, a genre of gaming and storytelling that allows me to not just read great tales but to live them. January 4th was my first anniversary as a member of unFiction, and I wanted to make a post to commemorate it, since unFiction and the ARG community have had such a strong influence on the changing direction of my life.
Waiting for The Moment
As a little girl, I always had an emergency bag beside my bed, packed with a change of clothes, a pair of old shoes, matches, a flashlight, a granola bar or something of the sort, string, and other things I thought might need if a portal to another world opened up for me while I was in my pajamas. I don’t remember when I started keeping this bag near my bed; it might have started in my Saturday morning fantasy cartoons phase. I loved shows like “Wildfire” and “Dungeons and Dragons”; and Nickolodean’s “The Third Eye”; and “The Tomorrow People”. I firmly believed in the existence of other worlds, and just as firmly I believed that one day, if I just watched closely enough, a door would open, or a space ship would swoop out of the sky, and off I’d go to explore some Other Place and maybe even become the heroine of a great adventure.
I don’t remember when I stopped keeping that bag by my bed, but I know that it was long after Santa Claus was shuffled into the Myth category, and I believe I was well into my teen years before I gave up hope on finding that door.
Searching for Other Worlds
Those magic years of wonder and watching and waiting deeply influenced my adult psyche. Space exploration fascinates me, as does theoretical physics such as string theory and M-theory and related topics. My favorite fantasy novels – A Wrinkle in Time, The Chronicles of Narnia, anything by Charles de Lint, The King of Elfland’s Daughter, Guardians of the Flame, The Neverending Story and many others – all center around the theme of “crossing over”, stepping out of the mundane world into a magical or fantastic realm.
I discovered video games very early – Atari games didn’t provide much of a story, but it wasn’t very many years after I got my first Atari that Nintendo came out with The Legend of Zelda. Much later, in my college years, the first computer I ever bought with my own money was purchased just so I could play Myst.
Role-Playing Games, too, I discovered in my very early teens (my mom actually gave me a copy of the Star Trek Role-Playing Game, and I still have those lovingly-worn books tucked away somewhere safe), and these games put me in touch with other people like myself who loved to imagine themselves in another world as another person.
The Door to Another Reality
My first encounter with Alternate Reality Gaming came in a chance mention of LonelyGirl15 in a commentary on how young women in the media eye were ruining normal teenage girls by being bad influences, how this lonelygirl15 had been revealed as a lying phoney, blah blah blah. It was a lousy commentary column. But I seized on “lonelygirl15″ and took my curiosity to the Oracle that is Wikipedia.
Wikipedia is sort of like that palace of doors in The Neverending Story – the one Bastian has to go through to get out of the Desert of Colors. You pick one door. That leads to a room with two more doors. You pick another. And you get two more. Except Wikipedia leads you through rooms with hundreds of doors… and you always end up in some other place after a trip through it.
So, looking up LonelyGirl15 in Wikipedia led me inevitably (and maybe because I was looking for it without even knowing it, just like Bastian) to the entry on Alternate Reality Games. I read it.
That door I was waiting for, all through my childhood and even in my teen years? I could see it, right there, on my computer screen.
ARG-Spotting
My husband is starting to pick up on the idea that alternate reality games can and will invade a person’s “real” life. He has a tendency to rampage through the mail and throw away things he doesn’t recognize, so I’ve instructed him NOT to throw away anything with my name on it (or the names “October”, “OctoberDreaming”, “Darkstar October”, and variations thereof.) Since the only address I’ve given out in the ARG world is my P.O. address, I only expect ARGish stuff to come through that particular portal. However, I forgot to mention this to David, so he’s been saving (and examining) all the junk mail to our street address with a little too much enthusiasm.
Our conversation today went something like this:
David: This might be for an ARG.
Me: *stares at an envelope bearing the unlikely crest of “Ducks Unlimited” and emblazoned with “You Are Pre-Qualified!” in big red letters* It’s a credit card offer.
David: It’s from Ducks Unlimited.
Me: It’s… a credit card offer. Shred it.
David: *holds out the envelope with a hopeful look* At least open it.
Me: Why?
David: *desperately* Because who would send a credit card offer from bloody Ducks Unlimited??? It’s gotta be a… rabbit… thingy.
Heh. No one can say he’s not super-supportive.
The Metaurchins and the Game They Played
The Project MU Archives book
Ever since I discovered ARGs, I’ve spent more than a few moments lamenting that I wasn’t on board from the beginning. There’s a super-strong, rich history to this genre, and it makes me sad that I missed such a huge, ground-breaking chunk of it. I could almost kill myself for not paying attention and completely missing i love bees – I saw that trailer!!! I can’t remember what movie we subjected ourselves to in order to see it – it was obviously forgettably crappy – but I saw the trailer for Halo 2, and I missed the most vital part of it. I missed the game entirely. Sometimes I wake up at night and squirm over it.
I know that there will be lots of cool experiences and games to play, and that I’m fortunate to have the opportunity to contribute to the community (I’m volunteering for a BUNCH of stuff, like the newsletter, and the database project, etc.), but I still wish I’d been perceptive enough to catch on to ILB when it was happening. ARGs are now very close to being well-known mainstream entertainment, and that’s great, but I would have liked to have known and played the historic games.
Anyway. Trying to “immerse” myself in the culture and language of ARGs, I’ve been putting a lot of time into reading through the history of past games, and I’m almost finished reading Dave Szulborski’s This Is Not A Game. And I ordered a copy of The Project MU Archives, because it’s a hugely important piece of history relating to independent (non-corporate/advertising) games.
Project MU, also known as Metacortechs, was an independent game based on The Matrix and put into play just before the release of Matrix: Revolutions in 2003. It was not sponsored by a corporation as a viral marketing campaign; rather, it was designed by a team of non-professional Puppetmasters who also happened to be fans of the Matrix universe. The original website is still in existence, and you can follow the trail of discovery in the unForums archives, if you’re interested.
Last year, the Metaurchins, as the Metacortechs players named themselves, put together a printed copy of the Metacortechs experience, complete with commentary from both PMs and players, photos, the rabbit hole and puzzle trail, character bios, and much more. They designed the print and page layouts themselves, put it all together, and they used Lulu as the POD vehicle to turn a virtual experience into a real-life artifact. The became available in November of last year, and of course I learned about it last month while hanging around the unFiction forums.
As a piece of ARG history, I had to have it. One of the elements of ARGs that draws me and fascinates me is the strong community that has formed around these ephemeral experiences. Although I’m still barely on the fringes, I can feel it – these are passionate people. And their passion is not about winning or dominating or being first or having the highest score in the game. No, their passion is collaboration, teamwork, problem solving, and reaching out to help even the most fictional characters. To the people of this community, nothing is unreal. And therefore, nothing is impossible.
Together, they create a compelling and awe-inspiring reality of their own.
As drawn to the community as I am, naturally I wanted to see this book for myself, this labor of love, a tangible representation of the Metaurchins’ accomplishments. The book arrived today.
It is gorgeous. Every line of it, every page, reflects on glossy paper the dedication this community has to its art. The Metaurchins’ attention to detail is as careful as that of the Puppetmasters themselves when they created a game. It’s almost a physical metaphor for ARGs. There’s an unspoken accord that whatever you give to the game will come back to you manyfold. The give and take between the PMs and the players, the community spirit and the teamwork, all of that and more, is captured in this book.
And, now that I’m finished gushing over it, I think I’ll go read it.