ALTERNATIVE REALITY GAMES AND WHAT IT TEACHES US ABOUT THE NEW ERA OF FICTION

It all starts with a friend request on facebook, or a website about a research center that doesn't exist, or a twitter account talking about surviving in a world that is not real. However it starts, it spreads onto several social media sites and makes you, the player, the main caracter. And with that, the impact of fiction is taken on a whole new level.

What is an Alternative Reality Game?

Alternative Reality Games, or ARG for short, is an interactive game where you are sucked into another reality that exist without being warned beforehand. It simply looks like a normal youtuber, or a social media existence until you notice something odd about them. And you now find yourself in a totally different reality that collides with your own. It works around a network system, spreading through tens of websites, twitter accounts, facebook videos and sometimes even real life actions.

One of the most famous ones include the ARG made as a promo for the movie "Dark Knight", where the players entered a website and saw instructions to follow to be able to join the jokers army. It included calling a phone number written with an airplane to the clouds, or dancing in the middle of the street in order to get clues and finish the game. Same high production goes for some other ARG's like Elsewhere Society; which was also the inspiration for a TV series made recently, "Dispaches from Elsewhere", which actually used another ARG to promote the new series (NNN Network). People signed up for "science experiments" being conducted about how people dream and thousands of users all around the world recorded videos of them saying things or doing things for the coorporation.

But the best ones in my opinion happens when a media outlet actually uses this technique. Like the radio podcast of Orson Welles that aired in 1938, named "War of the Worlds" that tricked thousands of people into believing that the world is actually being invaded by aliens.Or a story that is still trying to be concealed by BBC, their Halloween special TV Programme "Ghostwatch". Another great example is another Halloween special from the series Inside No.9, on the topic of an actual live TV show going horribly wrong.

But not every ARG is in the hands of a big production. There are even individually made ARG's that are equally, and sometimes even more entertaining. These ones really blur the line between what is written and what is real, since the person we interact with is not professionally fabricated. It's raw. My personal favorite was "The Killer at Seventybroad", which unfortunately, wasn't finished. But that one really used real life problems to the benefit of the caracter, even real police investigations written into the story. People had to look really closely to understand that it wasn't actually a man confessing to killing someone, it was a perfectly written act. 

The New Era of Interactive Fiction

This is a revelation that was going to happen at some point. With more and more rapid consumption of entertainment, people started looking for more. To be even more suprised, even more shocked to the twists of the story, and eventually, to be even more involved. Small points of involvement, a way to incorporate every reader to a story, now is a new way of leaving a mark.

This is generally not possible with a book, or a story and thats perfectly fine. Those types of writing is never needed to be interactive. But for media and visual or auditory delivery of a story, this is a gold mine.

When you manage to blur the line between reality and fiction, the impact begins.

I really suggest you to actually check out some of the ARG's mentioned in the post. Some of the other recent ARG's that you can check out now,(since they are/were just online) I know of are: The Sun Vanished / Catastrophe Crow 64 / IAmSophie / Junko Junsui . Do you have any ARG's that you think I should check out? Write them in the comments!

If you have any more suggestions for my next post or things you want to learn about the topics I cover, let me know! Write me from here or dm me from my insta: @lattecaramelblog . I would love to write about them! :)

xoxo