The MMO-LARP-ARG

I had a dream that is the coolest inspiration for a game. I know that most of the gamers that read my blog will know what these acronyms mean, but just in case . . . MMO: Massive Multi-player Online, a descriptor for huge on line games like Sword of the New World (Free to Play game) and World of Warcraft (Which is an insanely huge Pay to Play). LARP: Live Action Role-Playing Game, a game in which people take on characters and get together to play out a story. Some groups play fantasy games with ornate costumes and padded swords, others have modern day mystery cruises. ARG: Alternate Reality Game, is a game that has clues throughout the internet to help tell a story, the film Cloverfield has an ARG that is massive and has been used to promote the film and deepen the mystery of what is happening in the movie. If you are interested in the Cloverfield ARG the best place to start is here.

This brings me to the dream that I had last night. I was playing an MMO with a few of my close friends when this other player finds our group and tells us that he is trying to meet someone in real life, if we can help arrange this we will get $2000. The mystery man explains that the man he is looking for plays many MMO games and he can't personally monitor them all. Within hours we meet the target of the search and tell him about the unusual offer, he informs us that he is a data security expert named Bill and he explains that he gets crazy offers from headhunters all the time. Bill said he would be glad to help us out and meet with our mystery man, but he wants a free lunch as a show of good faith. My friends and I agreed to meet Tom at a restaurant and treat him too a meal. It is when we get together that I realize that the dream has been about a game within a game, "Bill" is a character played by my cousin. I woke up shortly after this, but I am curious about trying to create an ARG like this one. Character Profiles could be created in Myspace or Facebook, and the game would take place in online and offline meetings. It would be quite a bear to put together, but I imagine that it would be very fun.