We’re pleased to announce that Elan Lee (Founder and VP Experience Design, 42 Entertainment) will be our guest for Netcast #28. We’ll be including a listener Q&A in our discussion with Elan, so if you have questions you’d like us to ask him, please post a comment for this entry, call our voicemail at 630-274-5425 or email them to us at netcast@argnetcast.info. (Please note: at this time, Elan can’t answer questions about Year Zero.)

New victims — er, panelists — join host Jonathan Waite (ARGNet owner), and regular panelists Jessica Price (ARGNet editor and Unfiction moderator), and Sean C. Stacey (owner of Unfiction.com) this week: we welcome the lovely Michelle Senderhauf (ARGNet staff writer, Unfiction moderator, and owner of varin.org) and Geoff May (ARGNet staff writer, Unfiction moderator, and owner of thebruce.net). 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.

News of the Week

• B Seeing U launches through mailings to some of The Usual ARG Suspects and a few ARG newcomers, as well as Craigslist ads in multiple cities.
• Spike TV’s GameHead features an episode on 42 Entertainment. They also got a full-page article in the latest issue of Rolling Stone.
• There was a puppetmaster chat for Doom Skull on April 15.
• Xenophile Media racks up the awards at SXSW and an international Emmy.
• Heroes 360 has videos for you to watch, but only if you’re an American.
• Deus City needs your help in solving a mathematical puzzle in the White District.
• Is Sammeeeees coming back for a sequel?
• 08nova.com shows up in commercials, sparking ARG speculation.

Topic Discussion

• Jessica is not actually Amish.
• The panelists describe their packages in glowing detail. Jon doesn’t admit it, but he’s jealous. Geoff has to use the internet to figure out what he got in his own package. The future is truly here.
• This appears to be The Month Of Massive Mainstream Press And Awards For ARGs.
• Viral marketing worked on (some) of us.

Thanks for listening — see you next week!

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!