ARG Netcast, Episode 17: Meigeist, Yourgeist!

ARG Netcast, Episode 17: Meigeist, Yourgeist! [ 1:07:50 ] Play in Popup | Download

ARG Netcast 17 is the Meigeist special!

Subscribe to the ARG Netcast feed through this link or via iTunes. Contact us at our special netcast email address, netcast@argnetcast.info with your tips, suggestions, concerns and submissions. Call us on the ARGNet voicemail at 630-274-5425.

This week we welcome special guests Hazel Grian of Licorice Film, puppetmaster of Meigeist, and Karl Smith (a.k.a. Thunderwolf), one of Meigeist’s active players.  The panelists pepper our charming and patient guests with questions from the forums, and a few of our own.
Discussion and Player Questions

• What made Licorice Film decide to do an ARG?  Poor innocent Hazel had no idea what ARGs were, but wanted to do interactive online fiction, and luckily she had partner Jonathan Williams to tell her that there’s a name for that stuff.
• Part of the inspiration for the plot was a robotic head at a university, named Eva.  No, seriously.
• Hear all about Hazel and Jon’s backgrounds.  You may have seen Jon’s ARG work before.
• We (or rather Meigeist players, by proxy) grill Hazel about all sorts of lingering game details.
• Hazel describes her feelings about the community, its collaborative ethos, her original expectations for the player base, and all sorts of other goodies.  She likes us!  She even comes up with some pretty convincing explanations for why.
• We ask her tons more questions about how the game’s design worked with the player community.
• Hazel gives us behind-the-scenes details on how much of the game was planned in advance vs. how much was changed while it was running.
• The Meigeist PMs are psychic.   Or they’re stalkers.   Find out how they recognized their players on sight.  But they don’t actively spy on the community.
• Learn the dark secrets of welovebeef.co.uk.  And what happened to Daisy the Sentient Cow.
• More on dreamy ARG guys.  Dreamy married ARG guys.  Darnit.
• Asked about the number of links on a webpage and a few other detail questions, Hazel leads us off on a trippy discussion of black light, Schroedinger’s cat, probability and quantum physics.  This is why PMs are cool.
• There will be photos and videos from the Bristol event posted. The photos can already be found here.
• One of Hazel’s favorite moments was the short film challenge.  She’d like to congratulate the players now that she can finally do it out of character.
• We talk a bit about player trust in the context of Meigeist.
• Curious about the music used in Meigeist?  We have the scoop on where it came from.
• We discuss the development process and how long it took.
• In a surprisingly touching moment, Hazel turns the tables on our format by asking Karl what the game meant to him.
• Finally, Hazel answers the question we were all wondering about:  will there be a sequel?

Next week…

Tune in for more special guests:  the Studio Cyphers PMs!