Alternate Reality Games (ARG) are fictional storylines presented as existing in Real Life. An Entry Point is the way to start interacting with it.
Often, it's fashioned in such a way that the potential player is unaware they are entering said alternate reality. It might be presented as just puzzles lying around that you have stumbled upon. Or fake commercials. Anything goes as long as it's enticing.
It's also common for entry points to be found within other works, such as clues during the credits or written in a prop. Hidden ads, if you may.
For all these reasons, they are referred to as rabbit holes, after the rabbit hole that led to the Alice in Wonderland adventures.
Examples:
Advertising
- A.I.: Artificial Intelligence: The entry point for the In-Universe ARG The Beast is Jeanine Salla, a name which appeared in red in the credits of A.I. commercials. Googling the name would yield the first site in the game.
- I Love Bees: An entry point can be found at the end of a Halo 2 cinema ad, which was screened during I, Robot's theatrical run.
- The Lost Experience: The entry point is a TV commercial that aired during Lost, advertising the Hanso Foundation and giving the phone number to call that led to the first few clues.
- Omega Mart: There are Real Life commercials advertising it as a legit, if exceptional, grocery store. Everyone who doesn't know it beforehand takes their time to realize that they have entered a Surrealist supermarket with its own lore and actors posing as employees.
- Signal and Noise: The first prompt appears in an MS Paint Adventures advertisement.
- Spectacular Organic: The titular (fictional) company publishes ads for their GM Juice and TV-Sports on Youtube, Twitter, and its website. Seemingly, a real company. However, the aforementioned ads have so many details off that they invite digging and, therefore, the discovery of hidden clues.
Alternate Reality Games
- I Love Bees: Veteran ARG players who participated in The Beast were sent plastic bears full of honey, with nine letters that spelled I Love Bees when unscrambled. This led to the website ilovebees.com.
Live-Action TV
- Doctor Who: Two of the Alternate Reality sites for the first Russell T Davies era are simply shown on-screen: Clive's webpage in "Rose", and the UNIT webpage in "World War Three".
Music
- Erratas: The eponymous DJ Rozwell album details the ARG's lore and serves to attract people into playing it.
- Nine Inch Nails's ARG Year Zero: The entry point is a number of USB drives left at concerts with intriguing data. Some contain web addresses to pages from the dystopian future, some contain distorted audio that causes spectrographs to produce simple pictures.
Print Media
Tabletop Games
- Gleemax: Wizards of the Coast mail plastic brains labelled "moctodsdraziwtaxameelg" ("gleemax@wizards.com" backwards) to people who've played more than one of their games (e.g., Magic: The Gathering and Dungeons & Dragons).
Video Games
- Aristasia: was initially played à la RPG and, therefore, no entry points other than starting a game with a group of people. Nowadays, it has set up an embassy and a college in Second Life. From which you can access the ARG's content.
- SKY//BOX (2022): The way to start interacting with the game is by finding a distorted "umbrella man" graffiti in an alleyway in the Half-Life 2 level "We Don't Go to Ravenholm". The corrupted part of the image reveals that an "INTERLOPER" console command is to be activated in multiple games that run on the Source Engine; resulting in new gameplay demos that hold clues.
Websites
- Caught Not Sleeping: Initially, players are hooked by trying to help Caught, the titular protagonist, solve his insomnia problem. This is presented by means of Youtube videos.
- Crystore Inc: Players are assessed by the Varelse Bridge Society through a survey on their website
to determine whether they are apt to join it.
- "Cipher Hunt" (Gravity Falls): The ARG began with a tweet made by series creator Alex Hirsch, featuring a drawing of some architecture and some encoded messages.
- Dark Dream Chronicle: When it was being launched, the starting clue could be found on Eris Hunter's official social media — mainly Youtube and Twitter, but also some chatlogs. However, it's now averted because the content was compiled into a scrapbook.
- Editor Wilbur: Wilbur reaches out for the potential player's help by means of edited Minecraft videos on Youtube.
- Ending the Cycle: While fans could always interact through the Tumblr ask function, they slowly started to notice there were definite puzzles to solve. With the introduction of the files and the creation of a Discord server, fans flocked together to solve the puzzles.
- Escape from Eden Park: Riley, The Protagonist, unlocks the first case when she encounters an angry ghost who seems devoted to blaming her for her brother's death.
- The Hunt for the Gangadiddle: The entry point is the Big Good revealing in a Youtube video that you are trapped in what is called an isolated world.
- HUNT the TRUTH: Since it's part of a Viral Marketing campaign, the entry points are ads on Halo official social media that lead to the Tumblr blog that hosts the ARG.
- Pronunciation Book: Most players are viewers of the eponymous Youtube channel, seeking to learn how to pronounce certain English words. Then, one of the videos suddenly asks them for help to escape from an unknown place.
- Trick: Players surfing through Fantendo are bound to stumble upon a talking carved pumpkin called Renninger who can be asked questions about their ill-fated Halloween party.
- The Wall Will Fall: Mysterious Employer Mister Administrator posted a very ominous announcement about the Echo Chamber Fourth Wall cracking on Youtube and TV Tropes. He assigns you the mission to fix the wall and find every fictional character who has managed to trespass.
- What has been...: Several Touhou Project-related Youtube videos have some strange comments posted on their boxes by the user 9a13 d514. They are made of dots and lines and look like utter gibberish. That is, until you realize they are Morse code.
- World of Theseus: The first clue is a Reddit post on beansinjeans2019's account.
Web Video
- When Neuro-sama first streamed with her updated 2.0 model, her starting screen featured a QR code in the background, which upon scanning, led to the YouTube channel Underscore Neurosama.
Miscellaneous
- Camdrome: The first contact with the game is a bloody computer —the eponymous Camdrome— inside a PAX booth that streams a supposedly live video of a doll-masked man murdering people.
- Crystore Inc: A way to access the game is encountering a flyer from the eponymous company asking whether you've seen one of their products. Contact information —a telephone number and a QR— is provided at the bottom.
- MIT Mystery Hunt: MIT students form teams and access the game by means of puzzles scattered around the city or during special events hosted on the campus.
- Perplex City: The primary connection between the titular city and Earth is puzzle cards sold in randomized packs. The cards have clues hidden on them, as well as a code to enter online to earn points for solving the actual puzzle.
- Project 863: Matthias and his team encounter a couple of keys on the roof of their studio. The keys have the number 863 engraved on them, which comprises the first clue of the game.
- SMPEarth: The first clue to the Octangula ARG is at the Southwest Octangula, where a giant sundial-like structure is located, which the players explored to find clues.
