I”ve never gone in for LARPing or anything like that, but I must admit, when a game can intersect in some sort of capacity with real life, that idea just really appeals to me for some reason. Well, there is actually an entire genre of games which do just that called Alternate Reality Games or ARGs for short. ARGs are games in which the players have to solve puzzles, go to websites, show up at real life locations at specific times, receive phone calls, emails, text messages, etc. They can take place over a few hours, days, weeks, or even longer and can involve hundreds or thousands of players all working together to solve them. Sometimes ARGs are used by marketing companies for viral advertising (I played in one a few years ago which was an ad for the Dark Knight Batman movie) while some are done just for fun.
I mention all of this because what seems to be a new ARG started just two days ago when a user on Reddit posted an odd message asking for help. The user, delverofsecrets, has since deleted his Reddit account due to getting threats of violence against himself and his family by fucking asshole trolls, but the story goes basically like this:
He was on the subway when a “homeless looking man” handed him a $50 bill (front) (back) and a handwritten note (back) which turned out to be a cipher which, when decoded read:
There”s plenty more money to make figure this out and prepare to meet July 19 fifty sixth and sixth hot dog stand outside rue57 cafe ask for Mister Input
Interesting to say the least. The missing letters on the front of the bill spell out “bifid.” the number on the back is a Unix date: Thu, 19 Jul 2012 16:00:00 +0000.
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You have managed to find the message with the help of friends. You changed the rules now so will I. July twelve four PM. find the blue jay at six and a half and fifty sixth and tell him you are the last.
Watching this all play out online was, of course, very exciting. Lots of users in and around the city began making plans to be there. Theories of who was behind the mystery flew! The new Batman Movie! No, the new Spy exhibit that”s opening up there! No, delverofsecrets is just trolling everyone! No, it is a marketing company! NO NO, ITS TIME TRAVELERS! A couple of Redditers even agreed to go and livecast the whole thing on UStream.
By 4 PM, the UStream was up and I was glued to my computer screen. Delverofsecrets was running late, but just about 4 PM, a raggedy-looking man wearing blue showed up and got MOBBED by people. There were literally a hundred or so Redditers there, all yelling “Blue Jay!” “I”m the last!” “Are you Mr. Input?!” As I said above, this meeting is now believed to be a hoax, and the poor guy in blue is PROBABLY unrelated to the whole thing! Eventually, delver showed up and showed the original note to the crowd. He swears he has nothing to do with this whole thing.
What will happen on the 19th? Will people go back? Will delverofsecrets show up? Is this just more Batman viral marketing? No matter the outcome, this particular ARG managed to make my Thursday much more entertaining than it would otherwise have been.