Marie provided a succinct explanation of what alternate reality games are (and what they are not).  During the podcast, she noted that “a real ARG has to have two crucial elements, in my opinion, to succeed.  It has to have a really good story, and it has to have a strong community of players.  In the best ARGs, these two are interlinked.”  Then Ken Eklund, Jonathan Cherry, and Chris Walsh each described the rationale behind launching an alternate reality game along with brief explanations of their respective projects.

Click Here to listen to the Digital Edge episode on alternate reality games.

“Howzabout that schedule? Well, I’m not as depressed as everyone else. We weren’t about to rock sweeps anyway, and though there’s a chilly November, December is CRAZY. It’s like an Advent calendar of episodes! We get November to try to spread the word (which I’ll be leaning on Fox to do, though it’s hard to imagine them doing as good a job as the WhyIWatch guy) and then December is pure gluttony. Plus the episodes line up extremely well in these pairs, and we’ll have an absurdly appropriate lead-in.”

It appears as though people desperate for more Dollhouse content will not be forced to wait until the show returns from its hiatus December 4th. Yesterday, Dollhouse fans noticed a new website for Rossum Corporation, the organization responsible for Dollhouses around the world. In addition to advertising an attractive 5-year paid internship for “candidates of superior genetic disposition,” Rossum Corporation provides details about its ongoing Senate investigation. Even the website’s Terms & Conditions strives to establish its authenticity, noting that “all agents shall remain the property of the Company at all times.”

Digging a little deeper, fans who called Rossum’s phone number received a short phone message instructing them to “ditch the tech,” leading to DitchtheTech.com. The website includes a video alongside a message from the future world of 2019 depicted in the episode Epitaph One. The website’s source code notes, “[c]ivilization will fall apart in the year 2019. The Rossum Corporation is responsible. It is already beginning at the L.A. Dollhouse right now. Don’t let them wipe the future!” The source code also provides a reference to WipetheFuture.com, indicating there may be more to discover soon.

While Fox never aired Epitaph One, the show’s 13th episode, its dystopic look into the show’s future provided some of the show’s most compelling moments. By returning to the show’s future plotline over the coming weeks, Joss Whedon’s hopes of using November to spread the word about the show might turn the show’s November hiatus into a blessing in disguise.

Last February, February, 20th Century FOX Television and the Fox Broadcasting Company partnered with The company P to produce Dollplay, an interactive participation drama exploring the show’s mindwipe technology through interactions with a girl named Hazel.

Click Here for our previous coverage of Dollhouse experiences.

The DARPA Network Challenge opens for registration on December 1, and will accept submissions until December 14. The Secretary of Defense is authorized to award prizes under 10 U.S.C. § 2374a for “outstanding achievements in basic, advanced, and applied research, technology development, and prototype development that have the potential for application to the performance of the military missions of the Department of Defense.” To achieve this end, DARPA notes in its contest rules that it “may contact individuals to discuss the means and methods used in solving the challenge.”

The Rules state that DARPA will only issue a single check to the winning individual registered on the event website. Thus, successful entrants will have to find an optimal incentive structure to receive timely and accurate data from the crowd. Even assuming the balloons will be visible from Interstate highways, combing almost 47,000 miles of roadways in six hours will be a daunting task. Verifying that data will be equally difficult, especially if people refuse to share their successes and failures or post falsified sightings.

Games like Vanishing Point and Perplex City have previously tackled the challenge of crowd-sourcing tasks that involve a financial reward to a single individual. Therefore, it’s somewhat fitting that Perplex City developer Adrian Hon has provided an in-depth analysis of the challenges this contest’s winner must overcome. Adrian notes that he is planning on running a similar challenge in London with Philip Trippenbach before Christmas.

Click Here to visit DARPA’s Network Challenge contest page.
Click Here for a partial list of groups participating in the DARPA Challenge.

E-mail apnea refers to when people hold their breath while reading and writing e-mails or text messages. Stone put a lot of research into this common condition, and was told by several medical specialists that irregular breathing can contribute heavily to stress-related diseases. Stone suggests that we do not suffer from information overload, but rather from information overconsumption. If you want to know more, check out her op-ed on the subject for the Huffington Post.

Next, Nicholas Negroponte delivered his keynote speech, which served as the highlight of the third day and possibly even of the entire conference. Negroponte is co-founder of the MIT Medialab and spearheads the One Laptop Per Child program. He’s considered a true visionary and, especially with OLPC, has been working on projects that literally change the world. Although it has been over 15 years since Negroponte asserted “computing is no longer about computers, it is about life,” the sentiment remains highly relevant today.

He started by talking about the reasons for founding MIT Media-lab. While photography was invented by photographers, television was created by engineers. And yet, creativity has always been expected from the creative users instead of the scientists behind the medium. Media-lab brings together scientists, artists and other creative minds to help push the medium forward by innovation and creative use. For instance, while newspapers may be dead in their paper incarnation, innovation and creativity can still keep the medium alive.

He went on to explain that at some point in his life he started believing that his role is to do what normal market forces cannot or will not do. One day, he asked himself “am I actually doing something that market forces are not?” and had to answer no. This is when he came up with the idea for the OLPC program. What is the market doing, in this case? To compensate for projected drops in sales, the market keeps adding features and gadgets. This also keeps the price of laptops up.

Meanwhile, in an average village in India, children often work for a meager salary of $45 a year instead of going to school. Negroponte believes that children in third-world countries don’t stop going to school because they have to work, but because school is mostly boring. Providing them with the right tools to make education interesting would help encourage them to continue their schooling.

When he explained his idea for a $100 laptop, everyone told him it wasn’t possible. Bill Gates, Michael Dell and Craig Barrett all laughed at him for thinking he could pull it off. At this point in his presentation, Negroponte casually took out an OLPC laptop. After throwing it onto the stage, he casually tossed it around, and asked the audience “…can their products do this? I don’t think so!”

When designing the OLPC laptop, Negroponte recognized that it had to have some unique properties making it suitable for use in third-world countries…properties that mainstream laptops did not have. For example, the OLPC needed to be able to operate in low-power environments, so it had a crank that can be used to generate power by hand. It also needed to be sturdy enough to survive being an object of play, so it was built tough enough to withstand Negroponte’s dramatic demonstration.

Another great aspect of the OLPC is its ability to store one hundred books, enabling the shipment books into Indian villages without incurring the expense of shipping so many physical copies. When they rolled out the program in India, not only did they fit every laptop with 100 books, they fit each laptop with 100 different books. Negroponte pointed out that not many people in the conference room had 10,000 books available to them when they attended school. Thanks to the OLPC program, children in Africa and India now have that access.

The next speaker was Philip Zimbardo, a psychology professor at Stanford University and author of a book called The Time Paradox. To explain what The Time Paradox is all about, Zimbardo showed a video of the “marshmallow temptation study.”

The study demonstrates how people react in situations when delayed gratification provides rewards. It also shows that there’s a basic difference between orientation on the present or on the future. Zimbardo, through many underlying studies, found that everyone has their own personal time orientation, and that this influences everyday decisions. He considers the single most important thing you can teach your kids to be the concept of delayed gratification, noting that people who are more future oriented are generally more successful and social than people who are not. According to his conceptual time orientation model, people are categorized into different classes based on their behavior: these classes are then linked to behavioral patterns such as criminal behavior.

The reception of Zimbardo’s speech was overwhelmingly positive. And while I thought Zimbardo conveyed a number of interesting notions, at times the presentation sounded like it was primarily an advertisement for his book. While this detracted from the presentation, I would love to read more about the subject, particularly the scientific underpinnings.

The conference continued with the award ceremony for the Postcode Lottery Green Challenge, a competition encouraging people to come up with ideas that help the environment by awarding $500,000 to help the winner execute their idea. This section was introduced by Niklas Zennström, the founder of KaZaa, Joost and Skype. Zennström briefly discussed the subject entrepreneurship with social impac by providing a summary of his own career, pointing out the choices he made along the way. Englishman Dean Gregory won the Green Challenge Award for his proposal of small, low-cost rooftop wind turbines. 

The final part of the conference schedule was reserved for Ben Ceverny, a strategist and advisor with Stamen Design who presented a series of speakers discussing The City as Interaction Platform. The premise of this central theme is that 21^st century cities will be built collaboratively, which will require an “operating system” for the built environment. Cities are becoming social objects, as the examples that followed demonstrated.

Take the example presented by Greg Sibiski who works for Sense Networks, a company specializing in processing location data. Their approach to cities is from an individual point of view: how can it be made relevant for its users? They developed Citysense, an application that projects where people go in downtown San Francisco on a map based on GSM/GPS data. It shows where people are arriving and departing, providing up-to-date information on current hotspots. Another interesting application of the technology involves plotting data of when people in the financial district leave from work against the level of the Dow. 

The application allows users to divide the city into different districts based on the hour of the day: for instance, there is no financial district over the weekend, and there is no clubbing scene on Wednesday morning. Not only can you divide the city using these datasets, you can also divide its inhabitants into different groups, or tribes, by putting together a ‘lifestyle matrix.’ This way, you can predict where a person is likely to be at a particular time based on his geographic behavior.

Finally, conference host Matt Costello invited PICNIC co-founder Marleen Stikker on stage for some closing comments. As part of the the closing comments, the two briefly discussed some of the post-it notes that were left scattered around the conference area on whiteboards asking people what they would like to see for next year’s PICNIC. I was rather thrilled that my note was one of five picked to be read on stage: “Tell us more about narrative!”

A lot of the presentations this year were focused on means of entertaining and engaging people, and even means of propagating narration, but personally I’d love to hear more about actual narratives and the brilliant creative minds putting them out there. So here’s a short elaboration on my post-it note intended for the PICNIC people: please take heed of people like Steve Peters, Jan Libby, Andrea Phillips, Elan Lee and Sean Stewart as they would be amazing additions to the PICNIC program. Congratulations to all the organizers and speakers on an impressive PICNIC, and see you in 2010!

Molyneux later moved on to Lionhead Studios, where he created ground-breaking games including Black & White  and Fable. Molyneux is currently the head of Lionhead Studios, which was acquired by Microsoft Game Studios in 2006. Since June 2009, Molyneux has also been head of the European division of MS Game Studios.

Molyneux started his speech by showing his passion for games and the games industry. He declared that games are one of the most creative endeavours in existence because they take technology and use it to present a story in the most engaging and immersive way imaginable. For Populous, this involved using a 5×4 pixel grid for a characters face, making it rather hard to show emotions. Molyneux noted that the distance between the screen and the player is still huge: current resolutions are still far from reality. Moreover, games today mostly seem to be for one of only two categories: either for corporate use, or for the hardcore gamer. Games require a lot of manual dexterity, use complicated controllers and create other barriers that prevent players from having an enjoyable experience.

This is where Project NATAL comes in. You have probably heard of NATAL, the new technology allowing you to use your body as a controller, from Microsoft’s showcase of at the 2009 E3. NATAL is not just a motion detection technology, however. It also offers the possibility of facial and voice recognition. Molyneux and Lionhead have been working on taking these technologies and combining them with advanced versions of the AI and adaptive learning systems used in games like Black & White to create a whole new entertainment experience called Milo. Milo is a little boy that lives in your Xbox who interacts with the user in several very interesting ways. The best way to get an idea of what Milo can do is to watch Molyneux discuss the project.

I was truly blown away by what technology paired with creativity is capable of achieving. It was stunning to see Milo work. Unfortunately, the demonstration was not conducted live on stage, but through an extended version of the demonstration given in the Youtube video linked to above. I’m very curious to see if Lionhead and Microsoft will manage to make this into an even greater experience. Molyneux’ greatest challenge has often been to turn a brilliant, visionary concept into a fun and entertaining game. He’s been quite successful with it in many cases, while other attempts failed to fully realize thier full potential.

Afterwards, the folks at Fais Moi Jouer offered to let me tag along for a lightning-fast 2 minute interview with Molyneux. FMJ’s Julien Aubert asked Molyneux to comment on ARGs and how they could be used to extend the experience of NATAL/Milo beyond the console. After explaining the concept to Molyneux, he expressed skepticism about the idea, noting that ARGs can be good as long as they are not just there as an excuse not to have an entertaining experience with the actual game. You can view his response here.

During his presentation, besides being very  impressed, one other thought crept into my mind, which I even tweeted about during the conference: “isn’t Milo ‘just’ a surrogate for making actual friends, and isn’t that a bad thing?”  While I had the opportunity, I thought I’d ask Molyneux himself. Julien was kind enough to record his response. While I’m not sure the Theme Park analogy covers quite the same ground, I agree with the ambition: focus will be on augmenting interaction rather than replacing it. So keep an eye out for Milo’s release.

Pictures courtesy of Danceinthesky and Julien Aubert

If you’re in the mood to flex your puzzle solving muscles before the November 2nd apocalypse, head on over to the unfiction thread here.

According to a complaint filed in the Los Angeles Superior Court on September 28 of this year, Amber Duick did not feel empowered after experiencing the campaign firsthand. The complaint accuses Toyota, Saatchi & Saatchi, and fifty individuals associated with the campaign of: (1) intentional infliction of emotional distress; (2) negligent infliction of emotional distress; (3) negligence; (4) unfair, unlawful, and deceptive trade practices, (5) false, deceptive, and/or misleading advertising; (6) violation of the Consumer Legal Remedies Act; (7) fraud; and (8) negligent misrepresentation. Duick is seeking $10 million in compensatory damages.

Starting in February 2008, print, outdoor and banner ads drove traffic to yourotheryou.com. There, users were encouraged to prank a friend by providing personal information about them including their address, phone number, and alma mater. According to Nicholas Tepper, Ms. Duick’s attorney, the prank’s target would receive an email with a “personality test” containing a link to an “indecipherable” consent form. For the next five days, one of five maniacs would contact the target with personalized texts, emails, phone calls, and videos. The user could track the prank’s evolution through a dashboard indicating which messages their target received over the course of the campaign.

According to the complaint, Duick was contacted on March 29 by an individual claiming to be Sebastian Bowler, a soccer hooligan on the run from the police with his pitbull, Trigger. Bowler informed Duick that he was planning on staying at her house for a few days, providing Duick’s prior address. Between March 29 and April 2, Duick was contacted on numerous occassions with regards to Bowler’s exploits, and received an email from the Coronett Motel claiming she was responsible for a television Bowler smashed. On April 2, Bowler provided Duick with a link to a video of an old man who explained that the entire experience was a prank, while laughing continuously. A picture of one of Amber’s friends was on the desk. Tepper contends that this “Terror Marketing Campaign” was not intended to encourage the targets of the prank to purchase cars: rather, “it was designed to create publicity and ‘buzz’ at the expense of those subject to it.”

This isn’t the first marketing campaign to come under fire for blurring the lines between fiction and reality. In 2007, the digital advertising agency Ralph launched The Dexter Treatment to promote Showtime’s television series Dexter. Visitors to sliceoflifetv.com could provide the name, gender, age and occupation of a target, along with a personal message. The target would then receive a link to a customized news report. Also in 2007, some people exposed to CourtTV’s Save My Husband campaign complained that the campaign’s fictionality wasn’t labeled clearly enough. Most recently, Nestle Butterfinger launched its Dude Where’s My Bar campaign by posting footage of Seth Green freaking out over getting mugged, followed by security camera footage of the incident. Although the campaign’s main page clearly states its fictionality, the initial videos made Gawker and The Examiner question whether the initial mugging videos were real or a hoax.

Christy Dena authored a short article explaining why ARGs aren’t hoaxes. In the article, she makes a distinction between experiences that intend to deceive its viewers and those that strive to trick people. With Your Other You, there appears to be a difference of opinion on whether Toyota and Saatchi & Saatchi did enough to indicate the campaign’s fictionality. While Conor Brady of Organic thought the fictionality was obvious enough that he wouldn’t be fooled, Christine Champagne noted that “Saatchi went to great lengths to make the prank Google-proof by providing fully realized lives for these characters online.” Moreover, while the campaign was targeting a traditionally media-literate demographic, some people are less likely to pick up on cues of fictionality than others.

Whatever the eventual disposition of Duick v. Toyota Motor Sales, USA, Inc. may be, Toyota’s Your Other You campaign raises a number of design concerns for developers working in the alternate reality gaming space. When you employ a viral mechanism to promote the game, how overtly should it indicate the game’s fictionality? How much information do you disclose about the nature of the campaign? Finally, how do you allow for players to opt-out if they no longer wish to continue the experience?

Click Here to download Tepper Law Firm’s press release on the case, including the original complaint filed September 28.
Click Here to read the experiences of another individual subjected to Sebastian Bowler’s antics.

Lewis Murphy agreed to share his spine-tingling experiences at Pleasure Principled: A Night of Xcess in this guest post. So sit back and listen to his harrowing tale…if you dare.

On October 14th, the first part of Yomi Ayeni and Expanding Universe’s Breathe was shown for the first time at the Power to the Pixel party, at London’s County Hall. However, that was not the only thing happening that evening – previously, players who had joined the mysterious secret society Clamamus Pro Aeris received a message to be there holding a copy of TimeOut magazine. Amongst the mingling and drinking at the party, one or two suspicious waiters approached people holding the magazine and offered them a free drink. Upon receiving their free drink, they were given a VIP invitation to the Pleasure Principled Night for Xcess party… and told to arrive at 9pm, one hour before the stated opening time of the party, for free entry. A message was posted to the Clanamus group, requesting players to arrive at the venue by 9pm for “challenges.” I attended the event along with several players.

Once the shutters of the front entrance to the club opened, our group entered the empty club with trepidation. We were soon greeted by a man covered head to toe in a white bodysuit that covered his face. He silently beckoned us into the club, where we were guided by many more people in white bodysuits, including one filming us throughout with a small video camera. This was our first hint of exactly how creepy the evening would become; the people wearing bodysuits were breathing very heavily and audibly, but not saying a single word. Instinctively we followed suit, remaining silent as we approached a series of chairs in one corner of the room. There, printed sheets on a clipboard informed us the reason we were there. We would take part in a test of our strength to see if we were able to join the Clamamus Pro Aeris sect fully. Failure was a distinct possibility.

The clipboard instructed us to remain silent or we would be thrown out. We were also given the chance to opt out at any time if we felt uncomfortable by saying the word “out”. Given the creepiness and intensity of the event, this was probably a good thing. None of us said the word, but having the option provided a measure of security going forward.

After our introduction, we were told to make a single file line, holding onto the person in front of us. We were instructed to remove an item of clothing and use it as a blindfold… and to follow the sound. Once we were all blindfolded, a distinct knocking sound was heard and we followed it. All the while, the other people in white were moving around us, guiding us while still breathing heavily. It’s hard to explain how this feels without experiencing it. You start to breathe heavily yourself, your heart beats faster, the hairs on the back of your neck stand to attention. The creepiness was ramping up, fast.

Eventually we were stopped in our tracks. One by one, we were being taken to another area. As we were all blindfolded, we did not know what was happening to the others as they went through, although we could hear the heavy breathing reach a crescendo with each person. I was about halfway through the line, so I heard this happen several times before it was my turn. A knocking noise guided me to a short set of stairs. The sound of hands banging on the steps encouraged me to climb them. When I reached the top I was turned around, and my blindfold was removed. A clipboard in front of my face read:

“DO NOT TURN AROUND, TRUST ME. FOLD YOUR ARMS.”

I did as instructed, folding my arms over my chest. The page was turned…

“FALL BACK.”

Of course, this is a classic trust exercise. But the adrenaline that rushed through me as I tilted myself back and let myself fall from the edge of the small staircase was still intense. Now I knew what the loud periods of heavy breath were, as a group of the people in jumpsuits caught me and laid me on a crash mat. After the fall, I was guided to a makeshift bench with the others who completed the exercise, and watched as the rest were guided up the stairs and also told to fall. But the event wasn’t over. It was about to get even more creepy and intense.

We were next split into two groups, and guided to different areas of the club. My group was brought to the area of the venue where we started the event. We were given a regular die, and a woman in a white jumpsuit moved to the centre of the area. We were told to roll the die one by one, and the result would determine what happened to the woman. The options varied between pleasure and pain: they were a slap, a biscuit, a nipple tweak, a kiss, a shot of liquor, and the mysterious “pleasure”. The first roll was a 2, so a biscuit that looked like a chocolate digestive was brought out of a pot nearby. The woman in the centre was force-fed the biscuit. The dice rolls continued, and the woman was subjected to various acts, including a slap. After a few rolls, one of the group was brought to the centre, and the dice rolls continued. The first roll was a 6, the mysterious “pleasure” result. The man carrying out the options on the die approached the player and groped the poor man. The dice continued to roll, and more acts were performed on the player, both by the leader and by other players.

After this, there was one final part to the pre-party event. This was to be the creepiest yet.

The two groups were reassembled in a different room of the club, where we were all seated. We were told this would be our final test of the night. One of us was brought to the middle of the room, and knelt before a bucket slightly filled with water. He was informed he could opt out by squeezing the hand of one of the masked men two times. A clipboard was held before the rest of us…

“COUNT TO 5″

As we counted, the player was dunked into the bucket, and removed after the count of 5. Then we were given the next instruction…

“COUNT TO 10″

Once again, the player was dunked as we counted, and removed after the count. Then came our final instruction from the clipboard…

“COUNT TO 20″

The player was dunked a third time… but not removed at the end of the count. Quickly, two of the women in white removed their face-masks, forced the others to remove the guy, and protested the event in general. They were quickly grabbed by other members and dragged out of the room, protesting and claiming we could leave with them as it happened.

Since we’d completed the tests, we were led upstairs to a table full of fruit and drinks. Finally, one of the men in white spoke to us. We were told to eat fruit and drink champagne and vodka. We were told that we had passed the test, and had become part of their society. He told us that they were searching for someone or something named Artemis, and needed to recruit more members to expand their ranks. Then we were handed pieces of paper – one had the Clamamus Pro Aeris logo on it several times, one had a logo for GPS Mission on it a few times, and one had the word Artemis written on it many times.

We were finally left alone to eat and drink, and the party proper began. The party was an incredible club night, with a mix of classical harp and opera, and DJ dance tunes throughout. There were belly dancers, fire twirlers, and even a touring magician billed as a “complimentary therapist.” There was also one more unannounced surprise there; detective John Franks, from the Breathe movie, was also in attendance and mingling with partygoers. Unfortunately, I didn’t get to speak with him for an extended time, but I did see him. Footage of the night was taken by professional filmmakers, which will be incorporated into the next episode of Breathe, to be released on October 21st.

The plot of Breathe is advancing at a steady pace. A USB drive was located and picked up earlier tonight containing a video seeming to depict Daniel’s death at the hands of Clamamus members.

Breathe is currently running at http://www.breathewith.me and on Twitter at @breathewithus – you don’t have to be in London to join in online. Videos of both the first 10-minute episode and the story so far are available on YouTube and through the main site.

Click Here for our prior coverage of Breathe.

Power to the Pixel received 120 submissions from 14 countries for the Pixel Pitch competition. Seven teams from production companies hailing from France, the UK, and the United States were invited to present in London during the festival. In the end, Desedo’s project came on top, with the evocative tagline, “What if Kanye West Met Lord of the Rings?“

Heart of the City was pitched as a “quest narrative set in the world of urban teens: a web series, an ARG, comics, products and a feature film.” The story revolves around two New York City teens who discover a talisman that enables them to transform their daydreams into reality. Over the course of the story, they explore the talisman’s secrets “between skateboarding, romance, and momma jokes.”

Desedo specializes in creating content for new media and minority markets. According to Desedo’s website, their market “is a robust world of Black Nerds, Asian B-Boys, and Muslimah Bloggers. People that we know yearn for brands to better understand them, and to speak intelligently to them. To grasp the nuance of niche.” You can read about some of their early thoughts on how to utilize the alternate reality gaming space with their perpetually-in-beta thought experiment, Fall Down, Walk Up.

Congratulations to Desedo Films for winning Babelgum’s Pixel Pitch Award, and good luck with Heart of the City.

EDIT 10/19: Videos from Power to the Pixel will be available on Babelgum’s website later this week.

Below is an interview that ARGNet’s own Michelle Senderhauf conducted with Tom Salamon, co-creator of Accomplice: New York, Accomplice: The Village, and Accomplice: Hollywood. You can find details on participating in Accomplice at AccomplicetheShow.com.

MS: What made you decide to do theatrical performances in the wild rather than in a traditional theatre setting?

TS: A lot of the inspiration came from just loving to people watch in NYC, and all the quirky, crazy people that you see on any given day.  We thought that if we could figure out a way to develop characters that would blend into the woodwork of the various neighborhoods, and have a way that our actors could identify our audience but not vice-versa, we could create an effect that felt like the city was filled with extras in our little story.  We were also watching a lot of the reality TV of the day, and were interested in the sociological aspects of it, and thought that we could emulate the feeling of being on one of those shows for our audience.  
 
MS: Where did the idea for Accomplice come from?

TS: My sister (co-creator Betsy Salamon-Sufott) and I were on a walking tour throughout lower Manhattan a few years ago.  While we were seeing all of these cool, out of the way spots, we found the tour guide boring, and thought that there might be a more exciting way to experience these locations.  We thought we could design a program where people would get dropped into the middle of an adventure throughout the city.  And while there were various gaming events that incorporated quick bits with actors, I don’t think anyone had really taken the time to structure a story and cast legit improv actors, and give them room to breathe and be funny and engaging, and have a narrative unfold that the audience would be in the middle of.  

MS: After signing up for an Accomplice performance, what should the customer expect?  Do you have any suggestions on how to get the most from the experience?

TS: Come to have fun and play along – the cast loves it when you participate.  You’re not role playing, you’re just being yourself, so have fun with it and get involved.  Also, a group of 10 is the best way to attend because you’re with all of your own people, but if you don’t have 10 it’s no problem – you’ll be paired with others – just work together!  

MS: Have the participants done anything that caught you or the actors completely off-guard?  Have you had to change the overall experience in any way because participants didn’t react the way you expected them to?

TS: More often than not we catch the audience off-guard.  The whole premise of our shows is to have the audience enter a state of mind where they wonder who’s a part of the show and who’s just a random stranger on the street.  When that’s the effect you’re trying to achieve, they begin to think random things are significant, but those make for the best stories.  A guy here in LA the other day asked if all the people wearing ipods were watching them – he just thought anyone with an ipod was a plant.  Another group talked to a homeless man who they thought was an actor – he was rambling, reading the serial number off of his sunglasses, and an audience member wrote it all down, thinking it was significant.  An audience in New York once followed a man into his apartment in Chinatown and got a massage because he was just strange enough that they thought he was an actor.  

MS: Do your customers often come back to repeat the experience?

TS: A lot of the show is built on surprises, so it’s not necessarily enhanced by repeating it.  We do have three completely different shows, though – most audience members who’ve seen one will come back and see another.  Since we’ve opened in LA it’s rewarding to see a lot of the faces that came to the New York shows.  People are traveling just to see the shows so that’s nice.

MS: When I looked at the customer reviews, I saw nearly everyone rated Accomplice five stars.  How do you keep everyone so darn happy?  Free beer?

TS: I think people really don’t know what to expect when they come to an Accomplice show, and they find that they’ve never really done anything quite like it, so the uniqueness of the concept goes a long way.  Our casts and crew are eager to make sure every single participant has a great time and I think that comes through.  Having said that, a lot of people don’t know that in fact a few beers and some food are included in the ticket price, so that never hurts.

MS: Are there plans to spread out to more cities in the US or internationally?

TS: Absolutely.  We’re currently developing a new show in NYC which will take place at an incredible location – we’ll be making an announcement about that shortly.  We’ve discussed many other cities, but I think Las Vegas, San Francisco, and London are on the board for the near future.  

MS: Can you tell us a little about your experience working with Neil Patrick Harris?

TS: Neil came to Accomplice: New York and was excited about the format, brought up transferring it to Los Angeles, and subsequently signed on to produce.  For someone involved in so many different projects at any given time, Neil is extraordinarily hands-on in the Accomplice world.  During the development process he was involved in every aspect, from casting to designing clues to scouting locations.  He’s got a multitude of interests that make Accomplice a good fit because we utilize a variety of different elements – spectacle, comedy, puzzle solving, theatrics, etc.  We couldn’t have dreamed of a more perfectly suited and enthusiastic collaborator.   

MS: Accomplice seems to share many of the attributes often used in alternate reality games.  Have you ever participated in an alternate reality game?  If so, which ones?

TS: I’m sorry to say that I have not.  We get a lot of gamers coming to our shows and I’ve heard about some extraordinarily interesting ones.  Coming into this project I think we viewed it as more of a theatrical endeavor, and the clue solving, gaming element of it came up sort of organically through the process.  I’m going to have to make a point to check some out.