Comments on: Unfiction Unanimous

By: Jeff Somers

Jeff Somers — Wed, 03 Oct 2007 01:08:07 +0000

Vman,

The thing about red herrings is, a lot of that was by no means on purpose. I’ve done a few puzzles in my time, and I know how it is–you start looking at *everything*. Every little discrepancy might be a clue. Sometimes things that aren’t really even there look like clues. I remember working on MAZE by Chris Manson years and years ago and me and my fellow puzzlers spent days pondering aspects of that puzzle that turned out to be simply the whims of the artist.

In other words, some of the red herrings you mention were either mistakes, or things we never imagined anyone would pay attention to. So I guess the lesson learned is, assume *everything* will be paid attention to.

By: Vman

Vman — Sun, 30 Sep 2007 10:56:26 +0000

I posted as Vman on unfiction and this was my very first ARG played from beginning to end as well, I just want to say bravo to everyone who made this ARG. We sure were a little disappointed when you’re supposedly impenetrable beginning puzzle screen fell, leaving nothing else, but it was very courteous for you guys to continue posting puzzles to entertain us. Not only were the puzzles great, but the story was fairly well constructed as well. I agree with Adam, you’re stalling techniques we’re quite good. Props to Mr. Somers and Alex for an entertaining ride. And true to my word and loyalty as a gamer, I will be picking up the book.

The only things I would suggest (a few of which you already mentioned) would be to eliminate a few of the red herring clues (there were too many, even though they tend to be useful), such as the ask ty flash, all the typos in the chapter 1 excerpt, and the time discrepancies on the “nothing to see here” page.

By: Heather Hamilton

Heather Hamilton — Sun, 30 Sep 2007 00:45:08 +0000

HAHA I TOTALLY thought you were a bot!!! Now I wish I had been witty in my emails!!!
Great game, AWESOME book!!
Heather Hamilton

By: Adam C

Adam C — Thu, 27 Sep 2007 21:51:49 +0000

I post as Adam C on unfiction, and I’m also Jeff Somers’ official stalker. I ordered the book because of this ARG, so it was definately a success, and we had alot of fun. Generally, players get annoyed when they encounter overwhelmed PM’s, but I think they clever way you guys stalled (i.e. giving us nearly unsolvable puzzles that turned out to be solvable after all, knowing full well we’d need a hint) was brilliant and made it certainly worthwhile. I’m honestly a little sad it’s already over, but I guess, with the release of the book, you can’t have the ARG going on forever now!

As far as the “gift”, as long as its not some of that moonshine, I’ll be happy.

Great job Jeff and Alex, all unfiction players, and everyone else involved who I didn’t mention!

By: Jeff Somers

Jeff Somers — Thu, 27 Sep 2007 21:01:05 +0000

I’m really glad everyone enjoyed themselves! Did y’all realize right away it was me responding to the Ty emails? I had one or two people comment that I was the best bot they’d ever encountered!

This was a lot of fun to set up, though most of the credit for the puzzles goes to Alex, who really got some momentum going. I’d set up a few of the very early codes and helped with a few more, but then Alex more or less came up with the entire end game, though I wrote some material for various stages.

We never intended to be adding material on the fly–we (naively) thought the first set of puzzles would take a while to go down. Then the big huge Internet brain came along and laughed at us.

By: Alex Lencicki

Alex Lencicki — Thu, 27 Sep 2007 20:32:51 +0000

Hey F,
You got us, everything after “ask ty” was gibberish…When we coded the flash site the puzzles ended with asking ty, but then after we started developing more puzzles we realized that they might be mistaken for clues. There were a few errors that became blind alleys throughout - i.e., the “z” on the death page was sloppiness on my part (I hit control z to stage things in my ftp software, so occasionally if I miss a button an errant z ends up in the code) but we figured correcting that stuff after the fact would cause more confusion so we left it in.

By: wargasm

wargasm — Thu, 27 Sep 2007 20:16:35 +0000

Excelent game my friends. There are some very powerful minds over at Unfiction. I had a lot of fun with this and i look forward to more works by Jeff. thanks guys.

By: Nate

Nate — Thu, 27 Sep 2007 18:19:40 +0000

I post as ‘n8ro’ at unfiction. I too had a great time playing, & though this is my first ARG, I think you did a fine job. Im planning on buying the book to read on an upcoming vacation I have planned.

I understand (from what you responded to waitress) that you were adding and creating on the fly. You did a good job of stalling us while you set the next sections/puzzles up. The only reccomendation I could make would be to have most of the game set or ready to go by “start” time. Of course in the end it all went well.

thanks again!

By: F

Thu, 27 Sep 2007 17:10:10 +0000

I agree with waitress#2; the puzzles were wonderful. The narrative elements provide a wonderful sense of reality for the game as well. One thing that I still haven’t figured out is what are the clues on the Dennis Squalor page after “ask Ty” supposed to mean. Or were they meant as computer gibberish.

wonderful game,
Fred

By: Alex Lencicki

Alex Lencicki — Thu, 27 Sep 2007 16:29:12 +0000

Thanks Marillyn

When we launched the site we thought the first few puzzles were tricky enough to hold people off for a while - so when we saw how fast the unfication team worked through them we went back and added the narrative elements and the additional puzzles. The shout out in the code was our way of thanking you guys for inspiring us to make it better.