An alternate reality game (ARG) is an interactive narrative that uses the real world as a platform, often involving multiple media and game elements, to tell a story that may be affected by participants' ideas or actions.
| Name | Year | Developer | Promoting | Story summary | Gameplay summary | Scale | Status |
|---|
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| Ong's Hat | 1999 | Independent | N/A | A predecessor to the traditional ARG, Ong's Hat encompasses a conspiracy theory and urban legend about Princeton professors in the ghost town of Ong's Hat, New Jersey discovering a means of interdimensional travel. | Puzzle solving by online communities. | Very influential.[1] | Complete |
| Majestic | 2001 | Anim-X | N/A | Science fiction thriller based on a Majestic 12 shadow government conspiracy theory. | Receiving clues and solving puzzles to unravel the story. Sent messages via AIM (AOL Instant Messenger), and via voice phone calls. | Very influential. recognized as the "Best Original Game" at E3 in 2001 and one of the five "Game Innovation Spotlights" at the Game Developers Choice Awards in 2002. | Complete |
| The Beast | 2001 | Microsoft | A.I. Artificial Intelligence | A murder mystery set in the future featuring artificial intelligences. | Puzzle solving by online communities. Rewards in the form of new websites and videos. | Very influential. | Complete |
| I Love Bees | 2004 | 42 Entertainment | Halo 2 | An AI from the Halo 2 universe is stranded in our world and needs help. | Puzzle solving by online communities. Information released by phone calls to public telephones. Rewards in the form of new websites and videos. | 600,000+ players.[2] | Complete |
| Last Call Poker | 2005 | 42 Entertainment | Gun | A cursed gun, passed down through generations, threatens the granddaughter of its last owner. | Puzzle solving by online communities. Real world missions in cemeteries. Online poker with dead characters. Rewards in the form of new stories and videos. | Over 500,000 active participants. | Complete |
| The Charlotte Mystery | 2006 | AFI | Five people leave messages to each other about five types of flowers, which led to invitations to private shows by the band AFI. | Clues containing URLs, phone calls, MySpace and Aim profiles, in-person visits to a comic store and a park, a riddle in French, Craiglist listings. | Complete |
| The Lost Ring | 2008 | AKQA | McDonald's | Six Olympians from another world came to help us save this one. | Puzzle solving by online communities. Real world missions. A new Olympic sport "The Lost Sport" was introduced. | 3,000,000 players from over 150 countries. | Complete |
| Commander Video | 2008 | Bit.Trip Beat | A mysterious persona known as Commander Video issued missions to a group of ten "recruits." | Puzzle solving done by online communities. Email correspondence, Twitter, and various Internet interactions are the areas of play. | Complete |
| Year Zero | 2007 | 42 Entertainment | Year Zero (album) | Set in a dystopian future where the government surveys everyone. | Players solve puzzles, listen to recordings, and watch movie clips to gain more info and find sites. | Complete |
| Xi | 2009 | nDreams | PlayStation Home | Set in secret areas in the world of PlayStation Home where users helped to find Jess and the meaning of Xi. | Users solved puzzles, watched video clips, and did objectives in and out of Home to gain more information. Users searched in Home as well as in the real world depending on the puzzle or objective. | Over 5 million visits | Complete |
| The Davenport Papers | 2009 | Brigham Young University students | The Book of Jer3miah | A tie-in to the Webby award-nominated webseries The Book of Jer3miah. | Clues were hidden in the webseries itself, related websites, and around the Brigham Young University campus. | Complete. |
| Secret Life | 2010 | Reebok | Centered around Lewis Hamilton, a secret agent in the game, showcasing a new Reebok technology such as RunTone or ZigTech. | Players worked together to solve puzzles and complete tests online, on mobiles and in the real world. | 637,000 players from over 154 countries | Complete |
| Conspiracy For Good | 2010 | The company P | Various charities | Tim Kring's narrative focused on charity and against the fictional corporation Blackwell Briggs exploiting Africa | Players cooperated online, on mobiles and in the real world. Four big events took place in London during summer 2010. | Gamers on Unfiction, on the game web and in the streets of London during the summer events | Complete |
| A Map of the Floating City | 2011 | Thomas Dolby | A Map of the Floating City (album) | Set in a dystopian dieselpunk past, a global cataclysm has left the world's inhabitants suffering from amnesia and struggling to move north to the "Floating City" to escape the rising temperatures. | Players worked cooperatively and competitively as tribes to collect items, make inventions, solve a mystery, and move north. The game was unique in that the inventory was all based on lyrics from Dolby's back-catalog and (at the time) upcoming album of the same name. The winning coalition of tribes received a private concert as a prize. | Worldwide | Complete |
| Potato Sack | 2011 | Valve | Portal 2 and 13 indie games | GLaDOS of Portal is attempting to reboot herself. Clues were hidden in a selection of 13 independent games. | Solving puzzles using clues found in aforementioned games | Complete |
| Oxenfree | 2016 | Night School Studio | Oxenfree | Based on the game, the Oxenfree ARG delves into the true ending of the game and the secrets that the teenage characters face. | The community of the game work together to translate Morse Code, keep up with Twitter feeds, travel to locations, and call phone numbers to solve the mystery. | ~900 members of the subreddit, though no community headcount has been taken. | Complete |
| Frog Fractions 2 | 2014 | Twinbeard | Frog Fractions 2 | A sequel to the Flash game Frog Fractions funded through Kickstarter, would only be revealed at the conclusion of this ARG, with clues hidden in a number of other games. | Podcasts by the developers, an Obama Shaving Simulator, real life events such as Indiecade and ARG-specific events around Berkley and LA.[3] | Complete |
| The Black Watchmen | 2015 | Alice & Smith | N/A | Billed as the first permanent Alternate Reality Game, players join the ranks of The Black Watchmen, a paramilitary group dedicated to protecting the public from dangerous phenomena beyond human understanding: including ritualistic murder, occult secret societies, and the paranormal. | Puzzle solving mainly by individuals, but acts in a similar fashion to community puzzle solving ARGs. | Complete |
| Afterbirth | 2015 | Edmund McMillen | Rebirth | An ARG that began with the release of the Afterbirth DLC for Rebirth. Upon conclusion, a new playable character called "The Keeper" was implemented.[4] | Puzzle solving by online communities. | Complete |
| Sombra | 2016 | Blizzard | Overwatch | Clues and ciphers referencing Sombra, a new playable character, were found in various developer updates and short animations released by Blizzard.[5] | Puzzle solving by online communities. | Complete |
| Hello Neighbor | 2017 | tinyBuild, DynamicPixels | Unknown | Clues in the Alpha releases of Hello Neighbor are leading to the announcement of a new release. Incomplete. | Puzzle solving, horror, adventure and general entertainment. | Ongoing |
| Waking Titan | 2017 | Hello Games | No Man's Sky | Puzzle solving. | Complete |
| DEMA | 2018 | Twenty One Pilots | Trench | The story of a man named Clancy, escaping from an oppressive organization called DEMA. | It included a cryptic series of websites (all hosted by dmaorg.info) with images, letters from the main character, and codes to decipher. It was discussed and solved in both a Reddit megathread[6] and a Discord server. The ARG ended when Twenty One Pilots announced the end of their hiatus and released two songs from the album Trench, "Jumpsuit" and "Nico and the Niners" (both of which contain themes and characters from the ARG). | 2,000+ Twenty One Pilots fans | Complete |
1. ^McMahon, Chris (May 2013) [https://archive.org/details/games-arg1 "The Rise Of The ARG: games™ investigates alternate reality games and what the future has in store for the curious experiment."]
2. ^McGonigal, J. (2008) "Why I Love Bees: A Case Study in Collective Intelligence Gaming."
3. ^{{Cite web|url=http://wiki.gamedetectives.net/index.php?title=Frog_Fractions_2|title=Frog Fractions 2 - Game Detectives Wiki|website=wiki.gamedetectives.net|access-date=2016-10-25}}
4. ^{{Cite web|url=http://wiki.gamedetectives.net/index.php?title=Afterbirth_ARG|title=Afterbirth ARG - Game Detectives Wiki|website=wiki.gamedetectives.net|access-date=2016-10-25}}
5. ^{{Cite web|url=http://wiki.gamedetectives.net/index.php?title=Sombra_ARG|title=Sombra ARG - Game Detectives Wiki|website=wiki.gamedetectives.net|access-date=2016-10-25}}
6. ^{{cite web|url=https://old.reddit.com/r/twentyonepilots/comments/8dyoqk/twenty_one_pilots_2018_return_megathread/|title=Twenty One Pilots 2018 Return [MEGATHREAD]|access-date=2019-01-05}}
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