Signal and Noise is an Alternate Reality Game that stemmed from an advertisement found on the MS Paint Adventures website on February 12th, 2016. It is currently being solved by a dedicated group of tumblr users on the blog humansoulsarg
.
Two minds were uploaded into a computer just before their deaths: a man (Eric) and a woman. Eric seems to have been in the computer for a while, though the woman, having recently passed, is only just discovering what it means to be uploaded. And Eric may not be lying to her, but he's also not telling her the whole truth.
The limitations of the system mean that both of them are incomplete and missing data - shadows of their former selves. She is still mourning the loss of her husband Bill, who was killed in an accident. Eric, meanwhile, has apparently lost his wife (Charlotte) and his daughter.
This alternate reality game has examples of:
- Ascended Meme: Much of the plot and characters are based on memes from the various ARG-solving group chats.
- Early on in the solving of the ARG, people would check the automatically generated captions on the YouTube videos. One of the captions mentioned Sergio Aguero, a professional Argentinian football player. One puzzle solver downloaded the audio to a video as an MP3, which came out to 5.55MB. From here, 5 was thought to be an arc number. A staggering amount of coincidences were found between Sergio and Signal and Noise, getting to the point where #sergioconfirmed became a meme within the group.
- This turned out to be completely unintentional by the game-runners. Nevertheless, Sergio made its way into the canon of the game. The owner of the tumblr gushes over Sergio from time to time, says things like "what would Sergio do," and at one point even says Sergio Aguero, confirmed.
- This turned out to be completely unintentional by the game-runners. Nevertheless, Sergio made its way into the canon of the game. The owner of the tumblr gushes
- The memes have even spawned characters. Leslie and her cat, Mayor Sassenheim, came from the same automatic captions on YouTube.
- Early on in the solving of the ARG, people would check the automatically generated captions on the YouTube videos. One of the captions mentioned Sergio Aguero, a professional Argentinian football player. One puzzle solver downloaded the audio to a video as an MP3, which came out to 5.55MB. From here, 5 was thought to be an arc number. A staggering amount of coincidences were found between Sergio and Signal and Noise, getting to the point where #sergioconfirmed became a meme within the group.
- Brain Uploading: Basically the premise of the plot. Eric and the woman are uploaded to The Cube after they die and their consciousness is stored on there.
- Entry Point: The first prompt appears in an MS Paint Adventures advertisement.
- Megacorp: Pangent Technologies, especially considering all of Lottie's talk about corporate culture on the tumblr.
- The Ghost:
- Sharon. Most of the posts on the Pangent Technologies tumblr are directed towards Sharon, but there isn't a bit of information about her outside of that.
- May also be an Audience Surrogate, in regards to this post.
- Pointy-Haired Boss: X definitely falls into this category. Might even be Bad Boss, but that could just be the sinister tone of the game overall.
- Screw the Rules, I Have Connections! : X in a nutshell.
- Unequal Pairing : Kristi and Alex. Their relationship would definitely be considered a conflict of interest, were it not for the screwed up nature of Pangent as a company. Not that Alex would care anyway.
