unfiction.com

Via the venerable danhon comes news of an upcoming game, Project Syzygy. Take a look at the project page for info on how to be notified when the game launches and to apply to work behind the curtain!

Project Syzygy is expected to launch in late 2004 but the pre-game fun has already begun. Check out the forum thread and throw your brain into the ring!

Sometimes, when fighting the good fight overseas, risking life and limb for your country simply isn't good enough. Sometimes, you need to spice it up, ARG style. Unforums member NashCarey has been busy doing just that, preparing an ARG for the masses to engulf (sorry, couldn't resist) in the near future. AWARE has already begun some of the pregame activities.

From the Unforums:
My wife and I are putting an ARG together right now. She is amazing at webdesign and we are trying to make and [sic] easier puzzle, more interactive version of an ARG that should last 4-5 months and start in July. Pregame should start in mid-April. Being here in Iraq has given me a lot of time to think up a great story, and I hope everyone will be so kind as to play. The equipment and the person I hired (network guy) has already cost me $4800 to get most of the stuff set up. I am not looking for any return on the investment, I am just doing this for fun and as a big thanks to all the people back home that supported me out here. So be on the look out for AWARE.

People have found some of the trail already, and it looks as though there are already some interactive bits involved in a few diferent websites. AS we become AWARE of more details, we will be sure to pass them on.

Unforums members Magesteff, Varin, and many others are hot on the heels of a DIY project, ARG style. The Training Grounds and The Orbital Forum are two threads that you can visit to get the most recent information about a new learning experience for people who are interested in pulling the strings of future ARGs. The ball is definitely rolling at a good pace now, so hurry up and get onboard!

After months of waiting, the devoted followers of "The Widow's Son" will be in for a treat — the revelation of the person behind the curtain! Lucky_starr has been posting within the thread, and according to our sources, the final clue is in place to unmask the puppeteer. Stay tuned for further developments.

Andy V. writes:
Just a heads up, some people over in matrix online forums found this website. It's got some pretty good stuff on it. The header is latin for know thy self, which is above the oracle's door in the movies. The left side of the data, was converted to hex….and this address was found. /83.101.114.97.111.115.104.97 and leads to a site that says very disappointing, wrong answer keep trying. Then converting to ASCII you get a name. And this other site.. seraosha was found.

I posted the main URL in the Unfiction chat room, and danman_d took off on a sleuthing rampage, tracking down the original thread referred to by Andy, the name of the site's webmaster (Kurtis Buckmaster, who turns out to be the Director of Community Development for ubi.com, which is producing the Matrix Online game [MxO], and former webmaster for Sony PlayStation), as well as the chat channel for MxO (#MxO on irc.stratics.com).

Some of the people hanging out in that channel explained that Seraosha was a member of the Matrix forum who had won a signature contest with his graphics skills, and that these pages were just a fun way to let him know he'd won. Still an interesting little diversion and something that might be worth keeping an eye on.

Update: Well, it turns out there was a bit more to it after all. Mr. Buckmaster, registered on the forums as Geiger, posted a bit later that the chapter wasn't finished yet. After taking another look, and stupidly trying a bunch of non-working URLs in vain, I managed to figure out the last clue and message the appropriate response to Geiger on the stratics IRC server. Apparently, this has won me an ATI Radeon 9600 graphics card (which will be a step up from my ancient GeForce 4 Ti 4400!)! Geiger did mention that this was merely a chapter closing and I'll definitely be keeping an eye on this to see where else it may go!