An alternate reality game (ARG) is an interactive networked narrative that uses the real world as a platform and employs transmedia storytelling to deliver a story that may be influenced by players' ideas or actions.
The word cryptex is a neologism coined by the author Dan Brown for his 2003 novel The Da Vinci Code, denoting a portable vault used to hide secret messages. It is a word formed from Greek κρυπτόςkryptós, "hidden, secret" and Latin codex; "an apt title for this device" since it uses "the science of cryptology to protect information written on the contained scroll or codex". The first physical cryptex was created by Justin Kirk Nevins in 2004.
Perplex City was an alternate reality game created by the London-based developer Mind Candy under the direction of the lead producer and designer, Adrian Hon, that ran from April 2005 to February 2007. The first "season" of the game had players looking for "The Receda Cube", a priceless scientific and spiritual artifact to the people of a fictional metropolis known as "Perplex City", which had been stolen and buried somewhere on Earth.
Password Plus and Super Password are American TV game shows that aired separately between 1979 and 1989. Both shows were revivals of Password, which originally ran from 1961 to 1975 in various incarnations. With only subtle differences between them, both Password Plus and Super Password retained the format of play as their predecessor, with two teams of two people each—a celebrity and a contestant—attempting to guess a mystery word using only one-word clues. A new feature included a series of five passwords as clues to an overarching puzzle for the teams to solve.
God of War: Chains of Olympus is an action-adventure hack and slash video game developed by Ready at Dawn and Santa Monica Studio, and published by Sony Computer Entertainment (SCE). It was first released for the PlayStation Portable (PSP) handheld console on March 4, 2008. The game is the fourth installment in the God of War series, the second chronologically, and a prequel to the original God of War. It is loosely based on Greek mythology and set in ancient Greece, with vengeance as its central motif. The player controls Kratos, a Spartan warrior who serves the Olympian gods. Kratos is guided by the goddess Athena, who instructs him to find the Sun God Helios, as the Dream God Morpheus has caused many of the gods to slumber in Helios' absence. With the power of the Sun and the aid of the Titan Atlas, Morpheus and the Queen of the Underworld Persephone intend to destroy the Pillar of the World and in turn Olympus.
The Potato Sack is the name of an alternate reality game (ARG) created by Valve and the developers of thirteen independent video games to promote the release of Valve's game Portal 2, in April 2011. Valve president Gabe Newell envisioned the game as a "Cross Game Design Event" in December 2010, and allowed the developers a free rein to design the game using Valve's Portal intellectual property. The game, requiring players to find and solve a number of puzzles hidden within updates of the thirteen games, led to the opportunity for players to release Portal 2 about 10 hours earlier than its planned release by playing games under the pretense of powering up GLaDOS, the sentient computer antagonist from the Portal series. The ARG's theme of potatoes is based on plot elements within Portal 2, specifically that for part of the game, GLaDOS's personality module is run off a potato battery.
Twitch is an American video live streaming service that focuses on video game live streaming, including broadcasts of esports competitions, in addition to offering music broadcasts, creative content, and "in real life" streams. Twitch is operated by Twitch Interactive, a subsidiary of Amazon.com, Inc. It was introduced in June 2011 as a spin-off of the general-interest streaming platform Justin.tv. Content on the site can be viewed either live or via video on demand. The games shown on Twitch's current homepage are listed according to audience preference and include genres such as real-time strategy games (RTS), fighting games, racing games, and first-person shooters.
No Man's Sky is an action-adventure survival game developed and published by Hello Games. It was released worldwide for the PlayStation 4 and Windows in August 2016, for Xbox One in July 2018, for the PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X and Series S consoles in November 2020, and for Nintendo Switch in October 2022. While Hello Games and Apple have claimed that ports for macOS and iPadOS were in development and planned for release in 2022, the port was never actually released, and neither Hello Games nor Apple have provided a status update. The game is built around five pillars: exploration, survival, combat, trading and base building. Players are free to perform within the entirety of a procedurally generated deterministic open world universe, which includes over 18 quintillion planets. Through the game's procedural generation system, planets have their own ecosystems with unique forms of flora and fauna, and various alien species may engage the player in combat or trade within planetary systems. Players advance in the game by mining for resources to power and improve their equipment, buying and selling resources using credits earned by documenting flora and fauna or trading with the aforementioned lifeforms, building planetary bases and expanding space fleets, or otherwise following the game's overarching plot by seeking out the mystery around the entity known as The Atlas.
Jeffrey Shih, also known by his username Trump or TrumpSC, is an American professional video game player who streams Hearthstone, Age of Empires 4, and previously Starcraft II.
Tengami is an adventure video game. It was released on iOS on February 20, 2014, on the Wii U on November 13, 2014, on Microsoft Windows and macOS on January 15, 2015, and on Android on November 5, 2015.
Football Manager 2015 is a football management simulation video game developed by Sports Interactive and published by Sega. It was released on Microsoft Windows, OS X, and Linux platforms on 7 November 2014, and on iOS and Android platforms on 20 November 2014.
The Talos Principle is a 2014 puzzle video game developed by Croteam and published by Devolver Digital. It was simultaneously released on Linux, OS X and Windows in December 2014. It was released for Android in May 2015, for PlayStation 4 in October 2015, for iOS in October 2017, for Xbox One in August 2018, and Nintendo Switch in December 2019. Virtual reality-enabled versions for the Oculus Rift and HTC Vive were released on 18 October 2017. A DLC entitled Road to Gehenna was released on 23 July 2015.
Infinifactory is a puzzle video game developed and published by Zachtronics, initially released on Microsoft Windows, OS X, and Linux on June 30, 2015. The game was later released on PlayStation 4 in December 2015. In the game, the player takes the role of a human abducted by aliens and forced to construct assembly lines to create certain objects for apparently-nefarious purposes. The game combines elements of Zachtronics' previous SpaceChem and Infiniminer, with the assembly lines being built from blocks in a three-dimensional space.
Outer Wilds is a 2019 action-adventure game developed by Mobius Digital and published by Annapurna Interactive. It first released for Windows, Xbox One, and PlayStation 4 before releasing for PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X/S in 2022. A Nintendo Switch version is also under development. The game features the player character exploring a solar system stuck in a 22-minute time loop that ends with the star going supernova.
Frog Fractions 2 is a sequel to the free browser-based game Frog Fractions, which was developed by independent game studio Twinbeard, founded by Jim Stormdancer. Stormdancer used an extended alternate reality game (ARG) as part of the game's announcement and subsequent development, tying the release of the game to the success of the players' completing the ARG's puzzles. Frog Fractions 2 was revealed to have been released on December 26, 2016, after players completed the ARG, though its content was hidden within the game Glittermitten Grove, a secondary game developed by Craig Timpany, a friend of Stormdancer, and released without much attention a few weeks prior to the ARG's completion.
Sombra is a fictional character in the Overwatch universe, a 2016 video game developed by Blizzard Entertainment. In the game's narrative, she is an exceptional black bag operation hacker from Mexico that had joined Talon, a criminal organization aligned against Overwatch. In game, Sombra has stealth-based abilities to move around the battlefield, and is able to hack any opposing character to briefly prevent them from using their special abilities.
Dispatches from Elsewhere is an American drama television series created by and starring Jason Segel that premiered on March 1, 2020, on AMC. It is based on the documentary film The Institute about the alternate reality game The Jejune Institute.
The Last Campfire is a 2020 puzzle video game developed and published by Hello Games. It was released for iOS, Windows, PlayStation 4, Nintendo Switch and Xbox One on August 27, 2020.
Alice & Smith is a Canadian transmedia storytelling and video game developer that specializes in alternate reality games.
Twitch Sings was a free-to-play karaoke video game developed by Harmonix and published by live streaming service Twitch. It was released on April 13, 2019 for Microsoft Windows and macOS.
