Those of you who have followed Remix Fiction for the past year know that we’ve been working on our own Alternate Reality Game for quite a while. Behind the scenes,the game has evolved and we’re constantly learning about transmedia storytelling and the art of game design,but we’re not seeing the concrete progress toward completion that we’d like. Part of the problem is that we’ve fallen in love with learning about the process and don’t have a client pushing us to a deadline. So,we’ve become the high school student that spends countless days doing research for a big paper but never gets around to actually writing it.
All that changes today. Today,we declare July 4th 2011 as our Cinderella moment. This is an (admittedly self imposed) ultimatum that establishes a deadline for the launch of our alternate reality game. If we don’t launch our game by midnight on the 4th of July next year we will shut all the websites down and call it quits. That’s right,everything will just vanish from the internet and you’ll never hear from us again.
We hope that you’ll follow our progress over the next year and help us develop and refine our game. We’re excited to renew our commitment to completing this project and will pursue it with a refreshed sense of urgency.
I’m feeling the same pains as I try to write an interactive live theatre project for a festival this fall. The studying is the fun part,and I find myself writing lists of media to use,but the plot points and characters fail to develop as I try and “magpie”the shiny objects into a fully formed story. I hope that imposing a deadline will help to get the process really moving!
Hey Brian,
It’s nice to see that someone is actually following the Remix Fiction blog! Every comment is like motivation fuel for our creative fire. After making vague promises to deliver our game to the public spring/summer this year and realizing that wasn’t going to happen we decided that declaring a real deadline was necessary. I’m sure Remix Fiction fans have had their doubts lately about whether or not this game was ever going to go public,and we felt we had to do something drastic to reassure folks that we are committed to seeing this through to completion.
I don’t think there’s anything wrong with learning your way around ARG production before you try to run a game. People spend years studying just one aspect- film,creative writing,web design,etc. I imagine that’s how you get to be good at it.
I’ve been contemplating an ARG blog lately and having the same problem. I spend so much time reading and researching that I never get to writing. I think it means that there are things I need to know before I’m ready to begin.
Good luck! I’ll be following.
Thanks for the encouraging comment Necole. You have a great point. Taking time to learn about different aspects of creating an ARG is important,but at some point you’ve got to “Just Do It”.
If you’re interested in writing about ARGs or game design you’re more than welcome to submit articles here for publication. I’ve been wanting to expand the scope of this site to include more commentary on independent games and design. If I don’t think I can use an article here at Remix Fiction I’d recommend submitting over at ARGN. Michael is always looking for contributors.
PS:I noticed you haven’t signed up to get Remix Fiction updates –we’re going to be using that list a lot more in the future for special announcements and exclusive whatnots.