I was... I think privileged is the word, to be present at a conversation between Rand Miller (creator of Myst and Uru, etc.) and Elan Lee (of 42 Entertainment and Fourth Wall, among other things creator of the Beast and i love bees ARGs), at AGDC, where they discussed what they've done, and wanted to do, in the ARG.
As part of that conversation, Rand told the story of how he'd come up with the concept (it looks to me like both Rand and Elan came up with the idea at about the same time, independently) in 1998 or thereabouts. I would hold off on telling this story if I had any belief that I could get Rand himself to do it (I'll try, but he's notoriously busy). But it's a great story... so before my memory fades any more...
Rand mentioned that his first thoughts about creating an ARG were after watching the Mission Impossible movie (which I'm remembering as 1998). In brief, he was watching the movie in the theatre, and saw the prominent display of the apple logo, followed by the prominent display of one of the house numbers... and realized that they were connected, that there was some kind of clue or something hidden on the apple website associated with that number. Throughout the rest of the movie, as he became more and more focused on this tantalizing trail of clues, he saw more and more correspondances and hints of further connections. He rushed home, practically feverish to start unravelling this mystery, and sure that others were already there working on it, and that he needed to catch up.
Of course... there was no web page on the apple site associated with the house number. There was no ARG there, Rand had projected the whole thing (which is another post...). But not only had he seen the pattern initially, he also realized now that this would be a great way to create a compelling narrative/puzzle/interactive experience. Which later became the Uru preafter (in 2001).
It was an amazing conversation, and the thoughts that Rand and Elan expressed were just mind-boggling. Great, very exciting stuff. I can't wait to see the next creations of these two very brilliant minds.
Preafter was fantastic. I really enjoyed participating, although I came in mid-game. My favorite aspect was actually the DRC engineers comments on the message boards alluding to various discoveries in D'ni. I think part of the reason Uru Live had such a dedicated fanbase (although small) was that we could blur reality with our imagination and actually think we were traveling to D'ni. Preafter made that happen.
Posted by: Deg | October 04, 2008 at 07:34 PM