Unfiction - This blog looks like it hasn't been updated in years, but there are many useful links archived on the site. And the Unfiction Unforum is THE place to collaborate with other ARG players and to get in on the conversations taking place OOG (out of game) for current ARGs.
This Is Not A Game and the TINAG Philosophy
Alternative Reality Game Wiki - A wiki created by the Alternative Reality Game special interest group of the International Game Developers Association. It has not been updated in a couple years, but contains a lot of good info.
Alternate Reality Games: The Work Behind the Fun - An overview of the characteristics of a successful ARG.
Gamification: Avoiding the Fate of ARGs - A contrarian view of the feasibility and longevity of ARGs.
ARIS - Augmented Reality and Interactive Storytelling. A design program for creating augmented reality tours and games.
Parade of Kites - The website of Catherine Herdlick, a game designer.
Thinktransmedia - A networking site attached to a NSF grant called "Alternate Reality Games in the Service of Education and Design."
Teaching With ARGs
Alternate reality games for developing student autonomy and peer learning - a paper by Nicola Whitton of Manchester Metropolitan University, where ARGs are used for student orientation.
Seven Things You Should Know About ARGs - published by Educause, a nonprofit association whose mission is to advance higher education by promoting the intelligent use of information technology
Does Game-Based Learning Work? - A report by Dr. Richard Blunt of Advanced Distributed Learning, a part of the US Department of Defense.
ARGs and Education: Why No School Should Be Without One - A white paper by the IDGA identifying some research on ARGs and Education. Several years old.
Alternate Reality Games (ARGs) as Mobile Learning - a blog post on the applicability of ARGs to organizational and corporate training.
The Arcane Gallery of Gadgetry - a history ARG focusing on a mysterious revival of a Revolutionary-era society. "By incorporating counterfactuals and re-imagining the past, AGOG is designed to lead players into a newly enfranchised relationship with history, teach them STEM and information literacy skills, and help them discover the secret stories outside most history books."
The Crypto Hunt - A scavenger hunt game for a cryptography class
ROAR - Radford Outdoor Augmented Reality. A program of Radford University to create ARGs for education
The Giskin Anomaly Survey - A cell phone game/tour of Balboa Park in San Diego
Space Vikings - a conference ARG for the Learning and Entertainment Evolution Forum (LEEF).
The Arcane Gallery of Gadgets - "The Arcane Gallery of Gadgetry is a sort of narrative wunderkammer of an alternate reality game, a “cabinet of curiosities” combining a rich and oftentimes mysteriously fragmented historical tapestry with what Rob MacDougall has called “playful historical thinking.” By incorporating counterfactuals and re-imagining the past, AGOG is designed to lead players into a newly enfranchised relationship with history, teach them STEM and information literacy skills, and help them discover the secret stories outside most history books."
News Articles and Studies
The Arcane Gallery of Gadgetry: A Design Case Study of an Alternate Reality Game - a poster paper presented at the Digital Humanities 2011 conference.
Get Your Game On: How to Build Curriculum Units Using the Video Game Model - A post from Andrew Miller, of the Buck Institute, on Edutopia.
Superstructuring the Future Through Games - A post from the Guardian's Game Blog on Jane McGonigal's game Superstruct.
Alternate Reality Games, Transmedia Textuality and the Immaterial Archive - a 2011 MLA presentation by Zach Whalen, a communications professor at University Mary Washington
How to Save the World, One Video Game at a Time - an NPR report on Jane McGonigal.
Game Links
Perplex City - An ARG that took nearly two years to conclude. The creators tried to develop a new model for a self-sustaining ARG by selling puzzle cards similar to other types of collectible card games. This evidently didn't work, since the second season of Perplex City was put on hold in the summer of 2007.
I Love Bees - One of the first well-known ARGS and a viral marketing campaign for the video game Halo 2.
The Beast - A very early (2001) ARG designed as an adjunct to Steven Spielberg's film A.I. This game attracted an innovative group of players who called themselves The Cloudmakers, and who had a significant impact on how the game developed as well as subsequent expectations of collaboration in later games.
Find the Future - A game designed by Jane McGonigal to encourage exploration at the New York Public
Library.
World Without Oil - One of the first "serious game" ARGs, in which approximately 1800 people around the world envisioned what their lives would be like after "peak oil."
