History Main / AlternateRealityGame

One might say the earliest [=ARG=]s were the secret decoder rings delivered to fans of certain radio shows. And as immortalized in ''Film/AChristmasStory'', there are puzzles to be solved that lead inevitably to ProductPlacement. As such, it can often be a form of ViralMarketing, although not all Viral Marketing includes a game aspect.

The widely accepted "first" ARG was ''The Beast'', designed as a promotion for the movie ''Film/AIArtificialIntelligence''. While ostensibly a web-game, it also included fax and telephone numbers the players could call, print advertisements, and even several real-world rallies. ''The Beast'' was solved by a group of puzzle-solvers collectively known as "The Cloudmakers". ''The Beast'' was [[FanNickname named such by the players]], as it was [[NintendoHard difficult]]. Or because it had 666 files in it (the "NumberOfTheBeast"), depending on who you ask.

* The aforementioned ''The Beast'', made to market ''Film/AIArtificialIntelligence''.

* Guy Collins Animation's ''[[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lIES3ii-IOg Kaizo Trap]]'' (named after [[KaizoTrap its depicted genre]]) has FIVE secret endings leading into each other, which get progressively more difficult to find as you go along. [[GuideDangIt Failed attempts will often get you]] JustForFun/{{Rickroll}}ed.

* In 2011, the "social media film" ''[[http://theinsideexperience.com/#/ Inside]]'' (also known as ''The Inside Experience'') premiered as a series of short clips released onto Website/YouTube telling the story of a girl named Christina, who was trapped against her will in a room with a [[ProductPlacement laptop]] that she used to contact the outside world. Viewers were encouraged to find clues within the videos and these clues led to several hidden [=URL=]s with even more clues, including area codes, [[http://www.332811.com/13898350428 maps]], and even a [[http://www.janriskibrothersplumbing.com/ phone number]] that could be called to hear another hidden code. Viewers could post their findings on the [[http://www.facebook.com/TheInsideExperience movie's facebook page]] and communicate with the characters. Viewers that found codes and clues were even allowed cameos in the film, often as sympathetic facebook users working to track down the kidnapper and free Christina. A quick summary of the film, the codes found within it, how they were cracked, and a list of the hidden [=URL=]s and links can be found on [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inside_(2011_film) The Other Wiki.]]

* ''WebVideo/DeagleNation'' was performed primarily via Website/YouTube videos and live streams, but also encompassed Twitter, Tumblr, various message boards, its own websites... The actors were so convincing that most everyone thought they were real until they slipped up -- they stayed in character even during ''private phone calls!''

* The ''Blog/{{Sandsverse}}'' originally seemed to be just a loosely-affiliated collection of Tumblr blogs dedicated to surreal shitposting involving a bunch of [[TalkingAnimal Talking Animals]] that each [[SeverelySpecializedStore sell some comically specific thing]]. Then [[WhamEpisode the shit hit the fan]] with [[spoiler: the Breach arc, which saw an otherworldy EldritchAbomination intrude the Sandsverse blogs]]. Ever since, the vendors have been engaging in intense {{Mythopoeia}} mostly communicated through Website/YouTube videos and cryptic posts peppered across the Sandsverse blogs... in between their usual surreal shitposting, of course.

** [[http://algersoft.net/walkthrough/index.html Season 6]] had an ARG that started off with a hexadecimal code briefly shown in an episode that, when translated, leads to a link to a bizarre Website/YouTube video. From there, decoding various clues leads to more [=URLs=] that go through Reddit comments, a craigslist post from Kreiger, and eventually leads to his website that has various clues. Eventually, this concludes with a .zip file containing [[spoiler:[[WesternAnimation/FriskyDingo a picture of a blueberry muffin.]]]] The scavenger hunt managed to get the series its first Emmy for "Outstanding Creative Achievement in Interactive Media - Multiplatform Storytelling"

* ''VideoGame/{{Ultrakill}}'' launched an ARG teasing the update for [[spoiler: the second [[{{Superboss}} Prime Sanctum.]]]] In the official Youtube upload of the first part of the level's soundtrack was a decimal code containing a cryptic poem. The Bandcamp download contained a strange image which turned out to be a .zip file containing a modified version of the song "Take Care", spliced with a SSTV signal which when deciphered revealed [[spoiler: an image of the first boss, the Flesh Panopticon.]] The binary on the image itself contained a link to a bonus song by the composer, Master Boot Record, and an incomplete Library of Babel address, which wouldn't be fully discovered until the ''second'' part of the ARG, started after the update was released. An error code on a terminal turned out to be part of a Youtube link. It led to an unlisted video containing music and a very long cipher, before a message that said there were "four words." These four words were the keys to decrypt the cipher. The task of finding said words involved spectrograms, image data, locations on Google Street View, and even code implemented into ''the chords of the song in the video.''[[note]][[https://docs.google.com/document/d/1X1jIWOtK_zbtlm_e40gqlMWd_W-a9lnJAAe4aUyt0j8 The full documentation of the solutions can be found here.]][[/note]] The code once decrypted was the hexagon needed to complete the Library Of Babel link [[spoiler: which when [[https://libraryofbabel.info/book.cgi?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-w4-s5-v05:410 accessed]] is a ''major'' bombshell involving the lore of the game: Hell is alive, sentient, and manipulating and rearranging the aspects and entities within itself for its own amusement.]]

* ''Film/{{Cloverfield}}'' started with the short teaser trailer preceding ''Film/Transformers2007'', scaring audiences with a huge roar and the head of the Statue of Liberty. Even news channels ran stories about the mysterious advert, with only information being the release date as 1-18-08, and that J.J. Abrams was producing it. Later, the 1-18-08 site was updated with photos, some of which had messages written on the back. Then www.cloverfield.com appeared with a text message number on it. And the whole Slusho! site, featuring cartoon characters with thought bubbles to completely random things (a fish dreaming of a hammer, etc.). Tagruato sites were put up, its backstory being a drilling company that provided the secret ingredient to Slusho!. Parallel to it was [=TidoWave=].com, an ecoterrorist group opposed to Tagruato. The movie's main characters all had individual MySpace profiles that continued posting all the way up to the movie's release; a character briefly seen in the movie had a website where she uploaded videos meant for her boyfriend's eyes, and that boyfriend's sister had a blog documenting her efforts to search for him after he went missing (he was a TIDOwave member who had infiltrated Tagruato and gotten his hands on the secret ingredient they had been harvesting... he sent a sample of it to his aforementioned girlfriend shortly before disappearing, warning her that "they" were coming after him and telling her NOT to eat it, no matter what. She did eat it, shortly before the events of the film - her blink-and-you'll miss it cameo in the movie has her passed out and sick on a couch). The ARG contributed to the experience as much as actually watching the film would.

* ''Film/{{Cloverfield}}'' started with the short teaser trailer preceding ''Film/Transformers2007'', scaring audiences with a huge roar and the head of the Statue of Liberty. Even news channels ran stories about the mysterious advert, with only information being the release date as 1-18-08, and that J.J. Abrams was producing it. Later, the 1-18-08 site was updated with photos, some of which had messages written on the back. Then www.cloverfield.com appeared with a text message number on it. And the whole Slusho! site, featuring cartoon characters with thought bubbles to completely random things (a fish dreaming of a hammer, etc.). Tagruato sites were put up, its backstory being a drilling company that provided the secret ingredient to Slusho!. Parallel to it was [=TidoWave=].com, an ecoterrorist group opposed to Tagruato. The ARG contributed to the experience as much as actually watching the film would.

A genre of online game where a fictional storyline is written and presented as if it were really happening within our own world, as opposed to existing only in the reality of the story.

Such games vary widely in scope. Some have few game-like elements, and most are limited to the Web. However, a few have incorporated puzzles and challenges, and even non-web elements. Some are in the form of a WebVideoSeries with overt game elements from the start; others aren't obviously an ARG until the clues emerge.

The key feature of an Alternate Reality Game is that it does not present itself as a game per se: it gives the outward appearance of being a [[EntryPoint real-life adventurous situation]], just something the player has stumbled upon. However, an ARG is distinctly a game. The games consist -- for the most part -- in tracking down clues scattered across the real and virtual world and assembling them to solve a mystery.

Most of them are in the horror genre, as the mystery format of an ARG- which may include things like mysterious videos and websites- makes for a great way to play on the fear of the unknown, and even ones that are not necessarily horror may include horror elements. It also tends to overlap with AnalogHorror for similar reasons.

The exact definition of what counts as an "ARG" is a bit controversial and up for debate. Especially in recent years, the term has come to apply to a wide-range of web series that fulfil the 'alternate reality' part of the name by presenting themselves as genuine happenings that require the audience to search for and interpret evidence themselves to follow the story, but otherwise have little to no interactive gameplay or puzzle solving of the kind that determines the pace of the story's progression. Whether these types of series should be considered an ARG or not isn't a settled question, particularly since, in extreme cases, people attempting to treat a story as an ARG despite the creator insisting that it isn't one can lead to WhyFandomCantHaveNiceThings situations.

One might say the earliest [=ARG=]s were the secret decoder rings delivered to fans of certain radio shows. And as immortalized in ''Film/AChristmasStory'', there are puzzles to be solved that lead inevitably to ProductPlacement. As such, it can often be a form of ViralMarketing, although not all Viral Marketing includes a game aspect.

* ''WebOriginal/{{Backrooms}}''

* ''Film/TheDarkKnight'' had a rather epic one, ''Why So Serious?'', that went on for months (both on and offline) and told the story of Harvey Dent's campaign for Gotham District Attorney and the Joker's rise to power in the city's criminal underworld.

* ''Notes to Mary'' is a bit of a subversion: a man began by writing fictionalized versions of letters to a friend, which told a creepy story, and someone commenting on it insisted it was "definitely some sort of game or viral thing", which inspired him to pull an entire ARG out of his ass, culminating in a ''rick-roll'' of epic proportions.

* The rather strange "Gleemax" thing that Creator/WizardsOfTheCoast ran - just what was that about, anyway?
** A new forum from Wizards called Gleemax.com, though it ended up being shutdown.
** Also, it has been a long-time in-joke on magicthegathering.com that Wizards' R&D department was run by Gleemax, an alien brain in a jar. [[http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=73947 Card version seen here.]]

* In 2004, beer company Stella Artois started up a website called Helpmefindjon.com, which was advertised almost exclusively through graffiti of a pair of glasses (Jon's apparent trademark frames), a reward of at least £20k, and the website address. It led to a plea from a woman to find her brother, by searching on a website recreation of his room and finding clues as to his recent activity. Enough searching found that Jon had made a deal with an acquisitions company, in return for a lifetime's supply of Stella Artois. It turned out that he had infact sold his soul to the devil and disappeared to a remote island off the coast of Scotland.

* K-pop girl group {{Music/Dreamcatcher}} started an ARG to promote their "[=VillainS=]" comeback through a Twitter account called 'ymenehcra'. Fans could interact with the account and found clues from hidden links and items at pop-up stores and cafes focusing on the account's descent into madness and obsession over "the crown" and that the members themselves are luring people in to being sacrificed for whatever entity the "crown" actually is.

* K-pop girl group Music/Dreamcatcher started an ARG to promote their "VillainS" comeback through a Twitter account called 'ymenehcra'. Fans could interact with the account and found clues from hidden links and items at pop-up stores and cafes focusing on the account's descent into madness and obsession over "the crown" and that the members themselves are luring people in to being sacrificed for whatever entity the "crown" actually is.

* The murder victim in the season 2 finale of ''Series/{{Castle}}'' gets killed while in the middle of a "spycation" that plays out a lot like an ARG. Castle and Beckett spend the first third of the episode thinking he's a real spy, with hilarious consequences when they try interrogating one of the other players who thinks they're part of the game.

* [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Q_hHCTVFZY&list=PLPCT6_j9_XHZ9dTW2lc2Mwx7Cp4tzRPnE&pp=iAQB Imigrantes Road]] is an ongoing Youtube horror series revolving around reoccurring deaths and a murder case that caused by hallucinations from a supernatural cause manifesting as an EldritchAbomination taking a form of a black cat. Has spawned a [[https://blog.spacehey.com/user?id=1507260 blog]], [[https://twitter.com/bowewryelectrik twitter account]], and [[https://www.youtube.com/@itaquerachronicals5706 youtube]] [[https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCvxZzPHjOPkEFUHuHjjLZlw channels]] owned by main characters Kami and Soccoro telling chronological events of the main story.

* [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Q_hHCTVFZY&list=PLPCT6_j9_XHZ9dTW2lc2Mwx7Cp4tzRPnE&pp=iAQB Imigrantes Road]] is an ongoing Youtube horror series revolving around mysterious death of the titular road workers. Has spawned a [[https://blog.spacehey.com/user?id=1507260 blog]], [[https://twitter.com/bowewryelectrik twitter account]], and [[https://www.youtube.com/@itaquerachronicals5706 youtube]] [[https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCvxZzPHjOPkEFUHuHjjLZlw channels]] owned by main characters Kami and Soccoro telling chronological events of the main story.

Common tropes of the genre include SpyFiction, ConspiracyThriller, DimensionalTraveler, TimeTravel, WeirdScience, AlienTropes, {{Creepypasta}}, {{Kayfabe}}, many MoonLogicPuzzle[=s=] and a handful of [[ThatOnePuzzle Those Few Puzzles]], a HackingMinigame and/or LoggingOntoTheFourthWall, and [[BreadEggsBreadedEggs all of the above combined]]. See AlternateRealityGameTropes.

* ''ARG/SkyBox'' is a series of {{Mockumentaries}} with ARG elements that focus on several of Creator/ValveSoftware's Source Engine games.

* In the ''Series/SarahJaneAdventures'' episode "The Last Sontaran", SecretKeeper Alan covers for Maria's alien-hunting by telling Chrissie she's playing an ARG. Chrissie compares it to when she and Alan were "[[Literature/Masquerade1979 looking for a golden rabbit]]".

* ''WebOriginal/GenerationLoss''

* ''TabletopGame/PerplexCity'': Now-defunct ARG run by Mind Candy Games which encourages players to buy [[CollectibleCardGame packs of puzzle cards]] with clues to the location of an item, with £100,000 (or a rough equivalent in the finder's local currency) to the person who found it. There was going to be a second season, but it was repeatedly delayed and eventually cancelled after one-third of the new run of cards was sold.

* ''WebVideo/TheJuneArchiveAndRestorationProject''