I need help making an ARG, because i’m all fresh out of ideas. Who would like to collaborate with me?
ARG, like alternate reality game?
What is the theme? What do you need help with?
Is it more like cutesy touristy scavenger hunt stuff, or murder-horror like Saw, or…?
Horror web based. it all takes place inside of a terminal, and I need help with the story and puzzles, and how to make them. also any website builders you can recommend would be awesome. i’m doing this for an end of year art project.
I hope to have it self contained on a USB, but I can figure that part out myself
Fun project! Sorry I can’t help much. For what it’s worth, though:
There are those ARGs that are mostly real-world based, like maps that point you to some place, or a pay phone that rings at a particular time, a storefront with a particular sign, etc. They’re almost like virtual geocaches in the sense that the most of the game takes place offline, or with printed materials. In that case, the corresponding website should be pretty simple, something you can make with Wix, Squarespace, or any page builder of the sort. For “passwords” to get to the next level, you can either just use secret unlisted URLs (like e984EmgG.html) that your players have to type in correctly, or figure out a simple password system.
There are also interaction fiction systems that can help, like Twine (https://twinery.org/) (see example games like TheBrokenRover Creating Goncharov by albie), but it will take some finagling to make it terminal-like.
Then there are those ARGs that almost entirely an online experience, usually for computer nerds… games like https://sixfaces.top/ that require some general web dev knowledge, light coding, and a lot of ciphers. Those are more involved and can’t be as easily made with website builders, but you can probably make them page by page with ChatGPT or other AI help.
I don’t see how an ARG can exist on a USB drive. That seems to defeat the purpose of one.
If it’s all contained on a piece of media, that just sounds like a traditional video game.
@Atamasama I am making it so some files are locked by password, or I have a way to make them unlockable when you complete a specific puzzle. I am trying something new, and different than a normal ARG. in some docs, there will be links to videos, websites, and all that, but those are just some minor details. I want to make it so that the puzzle is possible with no internet connection.
Well that is certainly interesting, and I wish you luck.
That part is pretty easy. You can save HTML files that link to each other on a USB drive and serve them that way. Or you can make an actual game and load it on there.
If you’re going to make an ARG, though, might as well make the USB drive appear like an actual, normally-used flash drive, with a bunch of office files, old photos, etc.
I did a few escape rooms like that, where clues were in files stored on some generic Windows-lookalike computer.
that’s the feel i’m going for. styled like the early 2000s