An alternate reality game (ARG) is an interactive narrative that uses the real world as a platform, often involving multiple media and game elements, to tell a story that may be affected by participants' ideas or actions.
__TOC__
List Name Year Developer Promoting Story summary Gameplay summary Scale Status Ong's Hat 1999 Independent N/A A predecessor to the traditional ARG, Ong's Hat encompasses a conspiracy theory and urban legend about Princeton professors in the ghost town of Ong's Hat, New Jersey discovering a means of interdimensional travel. Puzzle solving by online communities. Early pioneer of alternate reality gamesMcMahon, Chris (May 2013) "The Rise Of The ARG: games™ investigates alternate reality games and what the future has in store for the curious experiment." Complete Majestic 2001 Anim-X N/A Science fiction thriller based on a Majestic 12 shadow government conspiracy theory. Receiving clues and solving puzzles to unravel the story. Sent messages via AIM (AOL Instant Messenger), and via voice phone calls. Recognized as the "Best Original Game" at E3 in 2001 and one of the five "Game Innovation Spotlights" at the Game Developers Choice Awards in 2002. Complete The Beast 2001 Microsoft A.I. Artificial Intelligence A murder mystery set in the future featuring artificial intelligences. Puzzle solving by online communities. Rewards in the form of new websites and videos. ~5,000 players Complete ReGenesis Extended Reality 2004 Xenophile Media ReGenesis A biotech laboratory chases down a bioterrorist scientist alongside players Weekly television drama filled with clues for online missions following each episode. Multiple fictional websites which feature as fictional organizations in the series. 100,000+ players.Emmy Awards (2005) "ReGenesis Extended Reality Game - Interactive Emmy Nominee" Complete I Love Bees 2004 42 Entertainment Halo 2 An AI from the Halo 2 universe is stranded in our world and needs help. Puzzle solving by online communities. Information released by phone calls to public telephones. Rewards in the form of new websites and videos. 600,000+ players.McGonigal, J. (2008) "Why I Love Bees: A Case Study in Collective Intelligence Gaming." Complete Last Call Poker 2005 42 Entertainment Gun A cursed gun, passed down through generations, threatens the granddaughter of its last owner. Puzzle solving by online communities. Real world missions in cemeteries. Online poker with dead characters. Rewards in the form of new stories and videos. Over 500,000 active participants. Complete Perplex City 2005 Mind Candy N/A The Receda Cube has been stolen and buried somewhere on Earth. Hidden clues on collectable puzzle cards directed players to various websites, blogs, emails, phone calls, and SMS messages, originating from Perplex City Complete The Charlotte Mystery 2006 AFI Five people leave messages to each other about five types of flowers, which led to invitations to private shows by the band AFI. Clues containing URLs, phone calls, MySpace and Aim profiles, in-person visits to a comic store and a park, a riddle in French, Craiglist listings. Complete Nowheremen 2007 X12 Productions N\A Mystery involving the disappearance of Derek Francis Border. Interactive puzzles and treasure hunts across various mediums. Complete World Without Oil 2007 ITVS Interactive Online A collaborative storytelling game that simulated the first 32 weeks of a global oil crisis, inviting players to document their fictional lives in a world facing peak oil. Participants contributed blog posts, videos, images, and comments to explore the social, economic, and emotional effects of energy scarcity. One of the first ARGs with an explicit educational and social impact goal; supported by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. Complete Year Zero 2007 42 Entertainment Year Zero (album) Set in a dystopian future where the government surveys everyone. Players solve puzzles, listen to recordings, and watch movie clips to gain more info and find sites. Complete The Lost Ring 2008 AKQA McDonald's Six Olympians from another world came to help us save this one. Puzzle solving by online communities. Real world missions. A new Olympic sport "The Lost Sport" was introduced. 3,000,000 players from over 150 countries. Complete Commander Video 2008 Bit.Trip Beat A mysterious persona known as Commander Video issued missions to a group of ten "recruits." Puzzle solving done by online communities. Email correspondence, Twitter, and various Internet interactions are the areas of play. Complete Superstruct 2008 Institute For The Future N\A Give humans a little more time on Earth after five "super-threats" start wearing down civilization. Online puzzle solving. CompleteThe Jejune Institute (The Game of Nonchalance)2008Jeff HullN/AInteractive puzzles and treasure hunts across various mediums.7000Complete This Is My Milwaukee 2008 Synydyne N\A A sinister company creates a bioengineered creature known as Go.D.S.E.E.D. which led to the city of Milwaukee being quarantined. Online puzzle solving with real world dead drops. Complete Xi 2009 nDreams PlayStation Home Set in secret areas in the world of PlayStation Home where users helped to find Jess and the meaning of Xi. Users solved puzzles, watched video clips, and did objectives in and out of Home to gain more information. Users searched in Home as well as in the real world depending on the puzzle or objective. Over 5 million visits Complete The Davenport Papers 2009 Brigham Young University students The Book of Jer3miah A tie-in to the Webby award-nominated webseries The Book of Jer3miah. Clues were hidden in the webseries itself, related websites, and around the Brigham Young University campus. Complete. Picture the Impossible 2009 Lab for Social Computing Rochester Institute of Technology and the Democrat and Chronicle newspaper Rochester, New York Factions representing different charities compete against each other. Explore the city to solve puzzles. 2,500 players. Complete. Urgent Evoke 2010 Jane McGonigal, Funded by the World Bank Institute, infoDev, the Korean Trust Fund on ICT for Development N/A The story was set in the year 2020 and followed the efforts of a mysterious network of Africa’s best problem-solvers. Collaborate to develop innovative solutions to global and local problems 19,324 registered players from 150 countries Complete Lewis Hamilton: Secret Life 2010 Reebok Centered around Lewis Hamilton, a secret agent in the game, showcasing a new Reebok technology such as RunTone or ZigTech. Players worked together to solve puzzles and complete tests online, on mobiles and in the real world. 637,000 players from over 154 countries CompleteBen Drowned2010Alex Hall (Jadusable)IndependentA haunted Majora’s Mask cartridge unleashes a digital entity named BEN. The story expands into an interactive conspiracy of a twisted corporation.Blog posts, hidden YouTube videos, puzzles, coded messages, and audience interaction influenced the story.Widely cited as one of the most influential internet ARGs of the decade.Complete Conspiracy For Good 2010 The company P Various charities Tim Kring's narrative focused on charity and against the fictional corporation Blackwell Briggs exploiting Africa Players cooperated online, on mobiles and in the real world. Four big events took place in London during summer 2010. Gamers on Unfiction, on the game web and in the streets of London during the summer events Complete A Map of the Floating City 2011 Thomas Dolby A Map of the Floating City (album) Set in a dystopian dieselpunk past, a global cataclysm has left the world's inhabitants suffering from amnesia and struggling to move north to the "Floating City" to escape the rising temperatures. Players worked cooperatively and competitively as tribes to collect items, make inventions, solve a mystery, and move north. The game was unique in that the inventory was all based on lyrics from Dolby's back-catalog and (at the time) upcoming album of the same name. The winning coalition of tribes received a private concert as a prize. Worldwide Complete Potato Sack 2011 Valve Portal 2 and 13 indie games GLaDOS of Portal is attempting to reboot herself. Clues were hidden in a selection of 13 independent games. Solving puzzles using clues found in aforementioned games Complete The Optimist July 3, 2013 to August 11, 2013 Walt Disney Imagineering Tomorrowland (2015) A fictional alternate history of Walt Disney and his involvement in a secret society connected to the 1964 World's Fair and an optimistic vision of the future. Clues were revealed through character blogs, including scans of notes, napkins, and phone numbers. Players visited real-life locations connected to Walt Disney and gained special access to restricted areas of the Disneyland theme park. Complete DmC: Devil May Cry: The Eye of Dante November 28, 2012 to May 21, 2013 Capcom DmC: Devil May Cry (2013) An ARG where the player joins The Order, a secret underground hacking group, to fight back against the subtle demonic subjugation of the human race. Clues were revealed through social media blogs, including scans of promotional material and everyday objects. Players could also visit real-life locations to scan "demon propaganda" using the associated companion app to earn points. These points could be redeemed for digital artwork and ringtones, or cashed-out for a voucher of in-game currency to be used in the upcoming tie-in game, DmC: Devil May Cry. Complete Frog Fractions 2 2014 Twinbeard Frog Fractions 2 A sequel to the Flash game Frog Fractions funded through Kickstarter, would only be revealed at the conclusion of this ARG, with clues hidden in a number of other games. Podcasts by the developers, an Obama Shaving Simulator, real life events such as Indiecade and ARG-specific events around Berkley and LA. Complete The Black Watchmen 2015 Alice & Smith N/A Billed as the first permanent Alternate Reality Game, players join the ranks of The Black Watchmen, a paramilitary group dedicated to protecting the public from dangerous phenomena beyond human understanding: including ritualistic murder, occult secret societies, and the paranormal. Puzzle solving mainly by individuals, but acts in a similar fashion to community puzzle solving ARGs. Complete Afterbirth 2015 Edmund McMillen The Binding of Isaac: Rebirth An ARG that began with the release of the Afterbirth DLC for The Binding of Isaac: Rebirth. Upon conclusion, a new playable character called "The Keeper" was implemented. Puzzle solving by online communities. Complete Cipher Hunt 2016 Walt Disney Television Gravity Falls Taking place after the events of the series, Bill Cipher's petrified remains are hidden somewhere in America and must be found. Players worked together to find clues and travel to areas around the world in a scavenger hunt to locate the statue and claim the "gold" hidden with it. Worldwide, but most players were from the U.S. Complete Oxenfree 2016 Night School Studio Oxenfree Based on the game, the Oxenfree ARG delves into the true ending of the game and the secrets that the teenage characters face. The community of the game work together to translate Morse Code, keep up with Twitter feeds, travel to locations, and call phone numbers to solve the mystery. ~900 members of the subreddit, though no community headcount has been taken. Complete Sombra 2016 Blizzard Overwatch Clues and ciphers referencing Sombra, a new playable character, were found in various developer updates and short animations released by Blizzard. Puzzle solving by online communities. Complete Hello Neighbor 2017 tinyBuild, DynamicPixels N\A Clues in the Alpha releases of Hello Neighbor are leading to the announcement of a new release. Incomplete. Puzzle solving, horror, adventure and general entertainment. Ongoing Waking Titan 2017 Alice & Smith, Hello Games No Man's SkyFollows experiments and technology from an organization called the Atlas Foundation. Two seasons of it were made follow