SAAM's ARG - Detailed Info


 

The Luce Foundation Center (part of the Smithsonian American Art Museum) hosted an Alternate Reality Game (ARG) named Ghosts of a Chance Sept-Oct 2008. The game was developed by the company City Mystery. The Luce Foundation Center for American Art is a visible storage facility within the Smithsonian American Art Museum (SAAM) that displays more than 3,300 artworks in floor-to-ceiling glass cases.  Information on every single artwork and artist as well as hundreds of media assets can be found on interactive touch-screen kiosks dotted around the Center.  The Luce Center is a dynamic facility, with a dedicated staff that answers visitor questions, coordinates an active schedule of public programs, and updates digital and physical interpretation.

 

An illustrated summary of the project and its results can be downloaded here.

 

Read a post-game analysis on Museum 2.0.

 

Georgina Bath Goodlander's paper for Museums & the Web 2009 on Ghosts of a Chance.

 

What's an ARG?

You might describe an ARG as a multimedia scavenger hunt, in which players receive and solve clues using their cell phones and the internet.  ARGs are a very new medium. They use narrative in a very traditional sense. Unlike the online games that have no end - like Second Life or EverQuest - an ARG will have a distinct beginning, middle, and end, making them ideal for storytelling. They take place in real time and in real places, blurring the line between what is reality and what is the game.  Wikipedia says an ARG is “an interactive narrative that uses the real world as a platform, often involving multiple media and game elements, to tell a story that may be affected by participants' ideas or actions.” (The Wikipedia entry has links to relevant ARG sites and articles.)

 

The Story So Far…

On July 19th, 2008, there was a convention for hardcore ARG players in Boston called ARG-Fest-o-Con. City Mystery saw this as the perfect place to plant a “teaser” for our game. A body builder gate-crashed the convention covered in henna tattoos. The tattoos contained the first clue to the game and led players to a page on the Luce Center web site. Within minutes of this event, ARGers had posted photos of the bodybuilder to Flickr, and had started discussing the event on the ARG discussion forums. Since then, we’ve planted a few clues, but the game will start for real on September 8th.

 

Links

ABC.com article (does a great job of explaining ARGs in general and our ARG in particular):

The Smithsonian’s Got Game

 

Is there a clue in this month's Smithsonian Magazine Article?

http://www.smithsonianmag.com/arts-culture/atm-game-200810.html 

 

The Game Web site (will make more sense after September 8) www.ghostsofachance.com

The ARG Forum: http://forums.unfiction.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=26261

 

 

 

What’s new and noteworthy about Ghosts Of A Chance?

SAAM’s involvement:

 

 

Game design and game play:

 

 

Education component:

 

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