Thursday 26 August 2021

a.i.

Via Waxy, we are treated to another instalment commemorating half a century of text gaming (see previously) with a retrospective look at the first major Alternate Reality play and the community of enthusiast who first embraced it with. The elaborate internet scavenger hunt called the Beast was made to promote the Steven Spielberg production the story of the then recently departed Stanley Kubrick touted as the blockbuster of the summer of 2001 about a sentient machine that wanted to be a real boy.  The curious were encouraged to search for hints by phone, fax and web and engaged with this immersive entertainment experience.

The interactive narrative that used entry points (coined as ‘rabbit holes’ and mirroring the plot of the movie as a sort of preview) embedded in merchandising and movie posters that take one through a network of specially created websites revolves around the investigation into a string of murders of humans and cyborgs after a cryptic message leads a doctor to believe the death in a boating accident of a colleague was more sinister than concluded. Much more at the link above and I believe followers at the time—predominately Yahoo! Groups Cloudmaker (name of the above vessel)—were wrapped up with what they knew to be just for fun, but I would if these leading clues and cues somehow informed today’s bent in favour of conspiratorial thinking and specious arguments bound together by red string.