Muppets ARG?!

[LordIllidan]

EDIT: TRAILHEAD! http://www.themuppetexperiment.com/ Your old VMK login should be able to work here
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Any of you who have lurked about the Save VMK forums know how outspoken I am about my opinion that Disney is refusing to advance the potentially explosive new medium that is video games.

Well, as if in answer to my annoyance, they've seemed to read my mind, and are advancing an even more obscure and an even more potentially explosive storytelling medium: Alternate Reality Games.

Posted by another user on an ARG forum I go to:

A friend of mine that works for the Mouse sent me the following - which is ironic, since I live nowhere *near* Southern California any longer:

Quote:
From November 17 through December 12, Walt Disney Imagineering will be testing a new Alternate Reality Game featuring The Muppets. Select Annual Passholders will be invited to play by completing four online puzzles at home, helping Kermit find his lost muppet pals. Kermit will then invite players to continue the search in person in Disney's California Adventure® Park by using clues and answering via text from their personal cell phones to complete the game inside the park. Upon completing the game, players will be directed to receive their prize at the Walt Disney Imagineering Blue Sky Cellar.

For those that do not know, an "Alternate Reality Game" is a game which uses the real world as a storytelling platform. Players have the opportunity to interact with actors posing as the characters through blogs, websites, IM chats, face-to-face talks... Or whatever else the puppetmaster (That's ARG lingo for "The team running the game") can imagine.

I'm very exited about this. An Alternate Reality Game, by nature, is the pinnacle of storytelling immersion. If Disney can get this right, this could potentially be the (admittedly small, but not non-existent. The post DOES make it sound like Disney will be making better, bigger ARGs if this one goes well, however) beginning of a huge movement of moving storytelling away from television and out into the real world.

Don't mess this up, Disney.