An alternate reality game (ARG) is a networked interactive narrative that employs transmedia storytelling to present a story that can be altered by the players’ thoughts or deeds and uses the real world as a platform.
Regardless of whether your alternate reality game is intended for training and performance enhancement or entertainment and marketing, developing the plot is a creative endeavor. It can be messy, just like most creative activities. And everyone will approach it in a unique way.
Thus, how do you create an ARG? Here are a few pointers for you. Please keep reading.
What Does An ARG Mean In Real Life?
An alternate reality game (ARG) is a form of interactive storytelling that makes use of the real world as a setting while frequently incorporating various media and gaming elements to tell a story that may be affected by the participants’ decisions or actions.
How Can You Tell An ARG?
One of the most common methods for finding ARGs is to carefully go over promotional materials like posters or TV commercials for repeating words or hidden meanings. Delegating this task, however, and simply browsing websites where fans of the show, band, or movie hang out is much simpler.
Tips On Making An ARG Story
Start With A Plot, Setting, And Subject
In the beginning, the plot may be quite simple. Introduce your goal at the outset, then move on to the middle and end, where you realize your altered or improved state. Later, you can develop straightforward and intricate interactions (game mechanics), as well as novel twists, around the fundamental story components.
Also, keep in mind that an alternate reality game is a real-time (digital or physical) event and that it can change depending on how the player interacts with the game and the story. So, allow for adaptation in the story and make plans for any changes the puppet master might need to make as the game progresses.
Your story’s plot, setting, and subject can be made up or true to life, and they can be related to or unrelated to your objective for performance improvement.
It’s possible that you don’t want to develop a plot that is focused on increasing meeting effectiveness in a financial services organization if you’re developing an ARG to achieve that goal.
You may want to consider a fictional, disconnected story focused on creating more efficient meetings for the League of Justice (go figure, In meetings, Superman is never on time.
You might also think about writing a realistic, disjointed tale that focuses on improving the effectiveness of meetings for the neighborhood PTO.
Consider The Timeline
The ARG story must have a start, middle, and end that follow a timeline. The ARG, however, will have a real-time schedule. Take into account how many days, weeks, months, or even years it will take players to complete the ARG.
The complexity of the ARG story and the depth of the character development may need to increase as the ARG timeline grows. A shorter ARG can work with a simpler story.
In actuality, a one, two, or three-day ARG needs to have an uncomplicated storyline. An extensive tale might get in the way of players completing tasks in the game when they only have a short time to complete the ARG activity.
Instead of finishing games and achieving learning and performance objectives, they will spend more time attempting to determine and understand the story’s purpose and objectives.
Consider The Physical Space
ARGs take place in the real world, and the best ones make use of the setting. Players might need to go to particular physical locations for gameplay, communication, or collaboration in addition to digital activities like tweeting, web games, and digital codes. The physical environment can also have an impact on the plot.
In the Find the Future story, ARG, is concerned with the area of the New York Public Library. In the Robots are Eating the Building ARG, the story of the potential “destruction” of the space where the conference participants were attending sessions, eating lunch, and networking introduced tension, motivation, and humor to the story.
Take into account how the setting in which participants are playing can be utilized to support and improve the gameplay and narrative.
Create The Rabbit Hole
The Rabbit Hole serves as the players’ gateway into the ARG, as we’ve mentioned in previous articles. It may be overt, making it simple to find and access, or covert, making it harder to find.
An email sent to all new employees requesting that they watch a video from the company’s president outlining the plot, gameplay, and player expectations is an illustration of an explicit rabbit hole.
Or, the rabbit hole could be hidden and implicitly present in the potential player’s everyday surroundings. The anonymous post-it note left on each new hire’s desk informing them of a meeting in the conference room at 1 PM is an illustration of an implicit Rabbit Hole.
Business ARGs frequently demand complete participation. Therefore, for onboarding, training, and performance improvement ARGs, an explicit Rabbit Hole is preferred. The Rabbit Hole not only introduces the gameplay but also the story’s plot, theme, and characters.
Make A Backstory
There are many uses for the ARG background. The background can act as a precursor to the Rabbit Hole, giving players background information on how the current situation came to be before they begin the game, depending on how you present the Rabbit Hole. Players who are primarily Explorers can also use history to their advantage.
Always keep in mind that Explorers depend heavily on people’s backstories, the environment, and the current situation. They can structure their own investigation while playing with it thanks to the framework it offers.
The backstory might be fascinating to achievers as well. Exploring the background can lead Explorers and Achievers to hidden treasures and/or portals that allow them to advance further in the game without taking the usual route.
Tell The Story In Several Mediums
Alternate Reality Games are examples of “transmedia storytelling,” which takes advantage of the possibility provided by several mediums. On paper, in sidewalk chalk, and with signs, tell the story. Tell your story using animation, graphics, and film.
Use Pinterest, Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Sharepoint, and these other platforms to tell your story. Before the player interacts with and engages with the story in a variety of forms and formats, it is not an ARG.
Use Collaborative Storytelling
An excellent ARG enables participants to interact with and even shape the story on a personal, communal, or cumulative level. As a result, the puppet master who oversees the gameplay as a whole must be available to make changes or add to the story and gameplay based on the overall actions seen.
It is important to look for and take advantage of any opportunities for individual or group gameplay to have an impact on the story. When developing the original ARG story, it is also important to incorporate gaming observations and later revisions to the tale and interactions.
Simple Is Better Than Complex
It shouldn’t be an overly complicated tale. When designing an ARG that aims to enhance knowledge, abilities, and attitudes, err on the side of simplicity. Players may become lost in a complicated story, which would stop the game’s progress.
The gameplay of the ARG must be balanced with finishing the work at hand and maintaining a healthy work-life balance when players take part in the ARG as part of their job.
Also keep in mind that if you’re doing an ARG for business, you’re probably shooting for 100% audience participation. Reaching 100% participation may be in jeopardy if a story is too complicated and turns players off early.
Another risk to finishing within the intended time frame is a complicated story. Players may rush through (or skip) later gameplay elements in order to finish the game in time if it takes them a few hours to grasp the plot and what they should be doing in a day-long ARG.
The Story And Gameplay Should Be Linked
Though it seems logical, it might be challenging to create game elements that support educational goals and a story. While putting an emphasis on incorporating practice exercises, learning collaboration, and learning objectives into the game.
At the same time, it’s simple to lose track of the performance objectives once your imagination starts to run wild and you become absorbed in spinning a story and developing characters.
As with most serious games and immersive learning, ARGs for business and training must balance learning and enjoyment appropriately. The ARG will be dull and similar to earlier tiresome training sessions if there is an excessive emphasis on learning and performance tARGets.
The players won’t learn anything if too much emphasis is placed on having fun, and employee or corporate performance won’t benefit.
Conclusion
Here, a methodical introduction to story writing has been given. It’s not at all organized, though. You can draft your narrative’s conclusion before the first paragraph. You could begin with your cast of characters before moving on to your topic and story.
Even though most of this may have been obvious, I think it’s crucial for anyone organizing an ARG to be aware of.
It’s critical to plan your plot and endgame in advance because doing so will help keep it straightforward and focused, which will greatly improve viewer retention and guarantee that players actually reach the intended conclusion.