ABSTRACT
An alternate reality game (ARG) is a type of videogame that shares much with the ctional literary god games described in such works as Robert Shea and Robert Anton Wilson’s Illuminatus trilogy and omas Pynchon’s The Crying of Lot 49 (1966). ere is a notable resemblance between many examples of the form and the (perhaps carefully orchestrated) intrusion of the miraculous into the mundane experienced by the protagonist of the latter novel. In the classic literary god game, a magus gure constructs an illusory existence around the protagonist to teach or transform them; in an ARG, the world the players live in is altered to make it seem more signi cant and meaningful, though the new reality is deliberately made to be less than wholly convincing. Actual gameplay in an ARG o en resembles that of a live-action role-playing game, but one with many more participants and without explicit rules or roles to play. Typically, games begin with the distribution of clues or entry points into the work’s ction, such as coded messages concealed in posters, clothing, or music. Players then spread this information on the Internet and use their collective intelligence to solve predesigned puzzles, allowing them to reassemble the fragments of an embedded narrative that explains the nature of the game. Notably, such works deny their status as games, instead presenting the ction as real. eir true nature is generally made clear by the context, however, for example, by the use of websites that claim to be in the future. ARGs are also usually unannounced and unadvertised. Instead, they depend on their players to discover the initial clues and then make contact with others interested in searching for more. Once the game has begun, the story continues through regular updates, shaped by the designers in response to the players’ discoveries and
beliefs as revealed by monitoring their online discussions. e designerso en referred to as puppetmasters-thus act as secret gamemasters, generating an evolving drama based on prepared scenarios in the manner of a tabletop role-playing game. Players are typically able to communicate with characters in the story, by speaking to actors on the telephone or communicating on the Internet, and may be asked to personally attend rallies or perform simple tasks as well as uncovering information and decoding clues. Fundamentally, the design of such works depends on large groups of players assembling spontaneously and using their communal knowledge to make progress; they are, along with massively multiplayer online games, perhaps the rst game forms native to the Internet.
