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ARG GamePlay Resources

1. Source Type & Media Type Examples

The various creators of gameplay resources are: PMs; ARG community; game-specific community; individual players; and an existing property community.

1.1 Puppet-Master

An ARG designer is known as a 'puppet-master' or PM. PM-created resources are in the minority, due to a number of factors, including ARG verisimulate discussed in the essay. It should be noted too that most of the game-play resources created by PMs have been for large-scale ARGs that target ARG and non-ARG players. This shows an effort to provide a necessary resource to players who are unaware of existing player-created gameplay resources and also the need for casual and non-player tiers.

PM-created resources include forums, blogs, general web pages and podcasts. This is probably due to the highly personal nature of email lists and the amount of work required in wikis. Forums are common place on entertainment websites for films and digital games. PMs are the only ones who create podcasts, and two only: for the ReGenesis 2 ERG and Perplex City. This is in part due to the production resources required, the fact that they take a long time to produce and so are not available as frequently as other forms of media, and because they are immutable. Podcasts are a permanent form of media, and so it makes sense that only PM content, content there is no conjecture about, is the content creator. There is a podcast, ARG Netcast, run by the ARG community, ARGNet (2006), but this is was not originally used for gameplay, just pre- and post-ARG discussion. Since writing the print essay, however, this has changed.

1.2 ARG Community

ARG community gameplay resources refers to resources created for a particular ARG within an existing ARG community. These include threads in unfiction forums (2001), Immersion Unlimited (2001) and Deaddrop (n.d.). Community sites utilise, due to the collaborative nature of the software, forums, wikis, and IRC (internet-mediated chat). Although not indicated here in the short listing I've provided in table 5, they ARG community resources are in the majority (particularly for forums).

1.3 Game-Specific-Community

1.4 Individual Players

Individual players also create resources, usually general webpages and sometimes blogs and wikis. These forms of textual production, Guides, Primers, Timelines, are considered interpretations and personal expressions that are single-voiced. This is why they are attributed to a single author, and are usually housed on the author’s own server.

1.5 Non-ARG Existing Property Community

These are resources that are created in existing community sites dedicated to a non-ARG but extant entertainment property. For example, the Metacortechs ARG extends the The Matrix property. Gameplay resources were created by players in existing Matrix fansites such as Matrixfans.net.

2. Resource Type

There are many levels to the types of gameplay resources in ARGs. This section will attempt an overview of most. Resource types are categorised as tools, orientation, interaction, asset aggregation, recaps, storyworld management and experiential narrative.

2.1 Tools

The tools needed to solve puzzles are a form of gameplay resource. Unfiction’s (n.d.) ‘Online Tools’ is a sidebar accessory for your browser with links to sites that will assist with whois lookups, cryptography, morse code, payphone locations and so on.

2.2 Orientation

Orientation resources assist newcomers to the genre learn how to ‘play’ them.

2.3 Interaction

Interaction resources are those that facilitate communities conversing with each other to discuss puzzles, plot conjecture and general discussion about the mechanics of the game. Online chat facilities such as IRC are usually employed by ‘the most active and devoted players’ (Thompson, 2006, pp. 44). Listservs also facilitate discussion with many players about game puzzles and solves. Forums are the most utilised technology for community interaction. This is why they have been created by players and PMs alike. An ARG cannot exist without a forum.

2.4 Aggregation - Trails

Aggregation resources are those which collect the plethora of information produced in an ARG. Typically, they are represented in what has been termed ‘The Trail’. Cloudmakers Dan Fabulich and Andrea Phillips (2001) described The Trail as ‘an encyclopedia, detailing every last bit of information we have learned in a comprehensive format. Fundamentally, it is a listing of all the puzzles and sites in the game. They can be authored by a single person or collaboratively developed. Among other functions, the Trail works as a pivot-point of all the components found in an ARG.

2.5 Recaps

Recaps are a device employed by in episodic forms such as television to inform audiences, both new to the series and fans, of events that have occurred in the storyworld. In ARGs, they are called ‘Story So Far’ and can be created by PMs and players.

2.6 Storyworld Management

There are gameplay resources that assist players in gaining a birds-eye-view of an emerging universe. Storyworld management resources are created by players in the form of timelines, plot summaries, character profiles, histories and relationship diagrams. They are created for a few reasons. One being the narrative is unfolding in real time, with components distributed through tiering practices to different players and across time and space. These forms require more time, knowledge and effort to experience and understand. Players instigate what I term an ‘anachrony audit’. Narratologist Gerard Genette ([1972] 1980) introduced the term anachrony into narratology to identify when there is a difference in temporal ordering of the story (fabula) order and the discourse (sjuzhet) order. With the explosion of transmedia entertainment (both fan and producer-created) and the interplay between different worlds or ‘verses (crossovers), anachronies propagate. To bring some order to the complexity and facilitate immersive navigation, fans create online guides that reorder the anachronic discourse into a chronological order. An example is ‘The Matrix Narrative Chronology’ created by Julian Darius (2003). Although not exhaustive, Darius lists the The Matrix texts in categories of movies, animation, comics and videogames in the order they occurred in the storyworld. So too, ARG players create storyworld management resources to gain an overview of the fictional world and its artistic representation.

2.7 Guides

3. Fictional Status

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