Why I Will Be Looking for a Ringing Payphone Next Tuesday Afternoon
Okay, so web surfing, game playing and the like isn’t just about wasting time. Everyone needs a few hobbies and ways to relax, right? And Fantasy Football (my new hobby this fall) is only a couple of months long, so I can still take on other new hobbies…right?….
After reading a Slashdot story about the Alternative Reality Game “I love bees,” Tony and I were both really curious to learn more. Alternative Reality Games (ARGs), we learned, involves problem solving, code breaking, puzzles, mysteries, fantastic stories, and a little bit of role playing. The games are played out in real time via the web, as well as sometimes instant messages, chats, blogs, phone calls, voice mail, and text messages as players work their way through a storyline. Most games involve player cooperation to solve puzzles and complete other aspects of the game. Once a game reaches it’s conclusion, it’s done forever and players move on to other games.
After reading many pages of information about the “I Love Bees” game and listing to hours of a sci-fi audio drama associated with the game, we’re making plans to get in on this game ourselves and look for a payphone downtown Ames that will ring next Tuesday afternoon. I kid you not. Crazy, huh?
We’re getting in kind of late on the “I love Bees” game - It’s scheduled to end in early November. As I read various websites and forums dedicated to the ARG genre, I learned that there are several other games now in play, as well as half-dozen or so more that are scheduled to start in the coming weeks or months. Some games seem to have many hundreds of players (like “I Love
Bees”) while others may be less complex and have a smaller audience.
Playing ARGs is definitely something I could sink waaaay to much time into. But with a little bit of judgement, it could be another fun hobby to occaisonally dabble in. It combines my interest in science fiction (since many of the ARG game stories fit in that genre) with my often insatiable curiousity, my love of trying new things and of course my sense of adventure. Who knows, it might even be an interesting way to meet people we might otherwise not have an opportunity to reach out to if other Bee fans are also looking for that ringing payphone.