If you're not aware of the concept, it would be painful to try and explain it in a block of text so I will link you to one of my favorite shows, extra credits that explain in a less than 8 minute video exactly what they are and how awesome they can be.

Have any of you participated in one of these, and if so which one? What did you do? What kind of experience did you have? I'm seriously curious about trying to keep my eyes open for these things. Makes life a bit more interesting no?

The video:
http://penny-arcade.com/patv/episode/args-part-1

I played one that was supposed to be like Pokemon, but with monsters roaming around your neighborhood. It was... pretty primitive. There was a Ghostbusters-style game that looked to be about the same quality.

I heard some people liked Millenium Falcon Gunner, which overlaid TIE fighters on video coming from your main iPhone camera.

The concept of AR seems enticing, but it reminds me a lot of Virtual Reality back in the 1990s. Even if computing technology got drastically more powerful, I think the market for AR and VR compared with traditional games just isn't there, and won't be there for a long time.

However, there are some productivity apps that seem promising, like the one that lets you pivot around and see restaurants in various directions using GPS and map data. There was an inline translator app that looked cool. And of course, Google Glasses are trying to make all of this mainstream.

The difficult part of ARG's is that there is no way to know what you're going through unless you have a large group and varied skills. I mean I was informed of the halo bees one, but it didn't seem like much and my friends would be useless during that time...well still useless but that's not the point.

I like the idea, adds mystery to life but you need time to do these...and that's the problem. I just started a job that's 8-5 sitting in front of a computer with no internet access and a phone that has very limited access. Trying to partake in these would be almost impossible for me unless right as I got off work I raced to a computer or had a contact constantly updating me. It would make for an interesting game idea where you were trying to incorporate the everyday into your game, but that would take some amazing planning and cooperation.

But then again you can try leaving hints around and messing with people that aren't aware of what they're doing.

So after watching the video, my previous post was obviously talking about Augmented Reality Games, and not Alternate Reality Games.

I think that geoCaching, with its quest-like nature, could be integrated most readily into an Alternate Reality Game. It would have probably been a very effective marketing approach for Dan Brown (author) or Benjamin Gates (character) movies, because you could retrofit "secrets" into historical documents, art pieces and locations. Participants could then enjoy the secret quests in Washington D.C., Paris, Rome, Philadelphia, New York City and other places, eventually assembling a coherent whole. You could even create faux-historical puzzle boxes and other mechanisms and integrate them into existing historical locations (or faux historical locations).

The NiN and Halo Bees examples are relatively obscure, and I don't think that most demographics of fans are willing to attack a giant asynchronous puzzle. I mean, the part about NiN burying static in the signal that resolved to a phone number just seems a bit farfetched for certain segments--you're relying on a person with a very uncommon skill to step forward with enough insight to see what's happening.

I played a fairly fun one once where you were a mage battling for control of your town. You hunted spirits, jumped through gates to get to other areas, built towers to harvest energy (or to protect your energy harvest), etc. I burnt out on it for two reasons.

First, there was literally one guy in my town playing the game. When I got a few levels ahead of him, he wasn't a challenge. The next town over had a single player as well. I think the game would have been funner if I had lived in a more dense player pool. This really isn't the game maker's fault. I live in a suburb still in the process of turning from rural to suburb. But it does point to a challenge in using the real world to base a game.

Second, and perhaps related, the two 'clans' were not evenly balanced (in terms of number of players). When you joined the game, you picked a team. As near as I could tell, there was no mechanical difference between them. But 2 out of 3 players picked one team. And I picked the other. It made team battles hard... too hard. I saw more than one player close their current account and open a new one in order to join the winning team. (You could tell because your energy harvesting towers were geographically linked.) I'm not sure how they could fix this, other than assigning teams based on current membership and participation. Which is certainly less fun than giving players the choice. Or somehow boosting players on the smaller team. Not sure...

Not interested in ARGs until I can re-skin reality as TRON.
--
TAZ

(OK, not completely true. The Love War or They Live might have potential.)

xD Not Augmented Reality games guys Alternate Reality games. Totally different. Well not totally, but different enough that they're not interchangeable terms.

I just think the whole idea is super fucking cool. Definitely not for everyone (or most people), but it's astounding to hear about these things.

Ikoma, was that a mobile game of some kind?

Yup. You played it on your smart phone.

A few times, I would actually drive to a new location in a city near mine, trying to find an energy harvesting tower to take out.

What was the game?