Archive for the ‘ARG’ Category

Posted on November 9, 2009 - by MG

2012 – Farewell Atlantis. (we hardly knew ye).

How very postmodern of Emmerich et al to make the hero of the 2012 movie an author of a novel set in a post-2012 world…

I like it.

Check out the first chapter of ‘Farewell Atlantis’ by Jackson Curtis, the fictional novel written by the lead character. Kudos to the creator of the 2012 Movie Experience for bothering to write it! It’s not the first time such a thing has been done. Remember the manuscript that sexy Sawyer was reading on the beach in the first series of LOST? Well, that novel – ‘Bad Twin’ made the bestseller list in the USA!

Quite an interesting novel opening! Also – search for the title ‘Farewell Atlantis’ on IMDB and you’ll see that there’s already an entry. It’s not what you think though…

Makes me wonder if I should tidy up the 85,000 word manuscript for “The Descendant” and give it away for free like Cory Doctorow did with ‘Little Brother’.

Maybe one day. What do you think, blog readers? Would you like to read about cute action guy Jackson Bennett and his encounters with Melissa DiCanio and the Sect of Huracan?

Seriously I love all of this blurring-the-lines-of-reality stuff. If this kind of thing has existed when I was a kid I would have disappeared into a fictional world and probably never emerged.

(Well I kind of did that anyway with BBC TV’s Blake’s 7.)

Posted on November 6, 2009 - by MG

Get ready for 2012 – the movie

I’ve decided to devote a whole week of blog posts to the Big Movie Event this week – the release of Sony Picture’s 2012 movie.

I’ll be taking some time each day to play on the many 2012 apocalypse websites that have been created by the imaginative team behind the ’2012 Movie Experience’ (basically, an Alternate Reality Game or ARG, not unlike the one we created for Joshua Files – THE DESCENDANT.)

And on November 13th I’ll go see the movie and post my review. Yesirree.

Like The Joshua Files books, the central theme of 2012 is the mysterious end-date of the Mayan calendar – 21 December 2012.

Only, 2012 is a Massive Great Disaster Movie from the king of the disaster movie genre, Roland Emmerich. (THE DAY AFTER TOMORROW, INDEPENDENCE DAY). Whereas The Joshua Files is a puzzly, twisty, young adult fantasy technothriller about one teenager’s role in an ancient secret to protect the world from a global catastrophe in 2012. The final book, Joshua#5, will be published in 2012. So I’m not going to say whether it ends up in a big disaster scenario or not. Except that that wouldn’t be terribly original, would it? Not after 2012 – the movie.

So – 2012 the movie! Will it be any good? I hope so. If Emmerich blows the whole 2012 doomy gloomy excitement for Joshua Files, I shall be Very Cross. Let’s hope that that it will be STONKING.

Good indicators are the video trailers (both the 2012 cinema trailer and a new one which shows a brilliantly exciting escape scene as John Cusack and his fictional family escape spectacular doom in LA. ) and the fabulously serious and kooky 2012 Alternate Reality Game (ARG) that has been running since the launch early this year of the website of The Institute for Human Continuity.

(If this all sounds eerily familiar it’s because I have already blogged about this back in March 2009 Let’s Play 2012 Movie Virals.)

The IHC site was set up to inform people of the serious dangers of 2012 and to enter people in the 2012 Survival Lottery to be one of the lucky survivors. Coolio! I myself entered the lottery. Still don’t know if my number has been picked. Fingers crossed!

The whole 2012 thing is of course terribly controversial. If we’re being serious about it. I doubt that Emmerich et al are about any more convinced than me that there’ll be any actual disaster on 21 December 2012. It makes an exciting premise for an adventure story though.

But some people really believe this! And some people were actually taken in by the IHC site. Not that it was real, but that it was part of a global conspiracy to blah blah blah. You know, the usual They Are Out To Control Your Life crowd. For example, check out this earnest debunking of the IHC website. It isn’t real? You don’t say. We couldn’t tell.

It can be hard to distinguish fact and fiction on the Web. For example, one of the sites we created as part of THE DESCENDANT ARG,  the Joshua Files Alternate Reality Game, is archaeologyconspiracies.com As part of the game, I wrote an entirely fictitious article about how the ancient Sumerians had knowledge of advanced biochemistry. Now archaeologyconspiracies.com is getting lots of traffic – around several hundred visitors per day. And the number one story on the site is guess what? Yep – one former biochemist-turned-novelist’s crazy and totally invented story about ancient Sumerians burying a code in amino acids. Yet there’s a clear disclaimer on the site which says that it’s part of the Joshua Files ARG – THE DESCENDANT. Are people reading that? Hmmm.

Fact vs fiction. Sort it out! (For some fact vs fiction guidance re 21 December 2012, see mayan2012kids.com.)

Posted on March 28, 2009 - by MG

The DESCENDANT ARG concludes

Phew, we’ve had a month of Gabi video blogging, Josh and Gabi watching and commenting on each other’s blogs, secret (or not-so-secret) meetings in Habbo Hotel with mysterious messages left on sticky notes on the walls…we’ve had a strange old geezer who calls himself TheOldMan49 tweeting away as he follows Josh and Gabi around the Web and tries to help.

There’ve been increasingly hysterical news stories in El International de Mexico about murders, unexplained disappearances and a kidnap. Secret surveillance documents revealing that in the world of The Joshua Files, no meeting is secure, no telephone conversation goes un-bugged… Some bizarre organisations have emerged too; the conspiracy theorists at archaeologyconspiracies.com, the Sect of Huracan and Chaldexx BioPharmaceuticals.

And some suspicious names are cropping up; names that might be familiar to you if you’ve read THE JOSHUA FILES…

If you don’t know what I’m talking about – where have you been?! It’s not too late to play THE DESCENDANT - the mystery is still unsolved. But the clues and evidence are now out in the open.

Find them if you can!

Anyway, it’s been fun (and exhausting!) for those of us running the show behind the curtain…

There’s going to be a virtual wrap party so that players can meet and chat to the game writers and lead developer. Check back here for details. Ooh and vote in the poll – would you like a virtual wrap party on Mogulus, Habbo Hotel or both (at different times, obviously)?

Posted on March 23, 2009 - by MG

Let’s play: 2012 movie virals

Okay, time for some fun on someone else’s ARG after all the work on the DESCENDANT…

As-you-know-Bob, the 2012 movie from Roland Emmerich of awesome STARGATE fame, is due out later this year. Emmerich is also known for his disaster movies INDEPENDENCE DAY and THE DAY AFTER TOMORROW.

Mmmm, apocalypse. He wants his apocalypse now. There, that’s the apocalypse jokes over with.

2012 will be another disaster movie, with the good old Mayan Long Count final date as the prediction for this movie’s end-times. It shares that and at least one other thing with The Joshua Files: the notion that the 2012 scenario is detailed in a still-to-be-found ‘fifth’ codex of the ancient Maya.

In the 2012 movie though, we’re cutting to the chase: codex, prophetic doom, disaster, one hero to save his family. Y punto. Oh and John Cusack as the lead. John Cusack! Could it be more perfect? I LOVE HIM! In my mind, he’s Jackson Bennett. (This won’t mean anything to you unless you are playing THE DESCENDANT ARG)

Okay so let’s play.

First, watch the teaser trailer for 2012. Fully awesome! Now isn’t that the way you would like to die…watching that terrifying wave washing over the Himalayas? It sure beats dying in a bed.

Then look at the two linked sites: This Is The End and The Institute for Human Continuity

At This Is The End you can watch nutty old Charlie Frost, a character played by Woody Harrelson, ranting on about the end is nigh on his cable TV show. Brilliant!

At the marvellously-named The Institute for Human Continuity you can watch a video report of the discovery of a fifth codex. I also recommend Joshua fans to look at the IHC’s section on E.A.R.T.H Initiative for a round-up of general 2012 hokiness. It’s a big-budget version of the 2012 page on DESCENDANT in-game site Archaeologyconspiracies.com. So definitely check it out!

They don’t seem to mention the Galactic Superwave though. Huh.

The principle of the Institute for Human Continuity is this: when the apocalypse arrives, we’re mostly doomed. There will be a lottery to choose survivors. You can take a number right now. Oooh, pick me!

Some snooty sci-fi folk have criticised this movie’s marketing campaign for being cheesy. But that’s just what a disaster movie requires! You can’t serve up a dish as scary as worldwide terror and doom without a side-dish of daftness. At least, you shouldn’t. Not if you want young people to enjoy it.

Posted on March 3, 2009 - by MG

ICE SHOCK and doughnuts

ICE SHOCK is out! So just as we did last year, members of the Joshua Files Facebook group met up at Krispy Kreme in Oxford to share a few boxes of doughnuts and chat about the new book.

Two young lads sat down to crack the new code in ICE SHOCK – it’s a clue for the Alternate Reality Game, you know! I had a nice long chat with Jacky Atkinson, one of the organisers of the Kids Lit Quiz.

Then I went home and frosted the big choccy cake that we’re having for the Joshua party at Blackwell’s tomorrow night.

I hope you are all THRILLED by ICE SHOCK. Check out excerpts, downloads and tips about playing the ARG at wonderful TheJoshuaFiles.com.