A place you cannot go;

A secret you cannot know.

Mary Ann Arias

ARG Presentation
he Trail
A fan site called Speed Hunting Club for the show “Push, Nevada” feature
mini puzzles, one of the last ones was this puzzle

after 6 days the puzzle remained unsolved and was changed to this

when solved it read: “A place you cannot go/A secret you cannot
know/Chasing the Wish”

www.chasingthewish.com was discovered along with a trailer

players would then register on the site and wait for the game to start
“before Feb 28”

this caused some backlash in the ARG community for revea

the PM and that it was a game. This step was needed howev
howe
to accomplish certain aspects of the game...
aunch

n Feb 27, 2003 the game officially launched

hose who signed up started to receive an email from someone named Dale
prague - the email

He is in trouble and has heard that the reader can help. His wife and
daughter have died and he believes its his fault. He says that it was terrib
accident and it wasn’t supposed to happen this way. He has hidden
information on www.synthasia.com and is begging for help because he is
about to committed to a mental health facility. He says that we should tak
good look at the website because “sometimes you can’t see the forest for
trees”
aunch
n the first 24 hours the players are overwhelmed with information

10 website links

the location of the mystery - Aglaura, NJ formerly Ong’s Hat

backstory - Dale had financial problems and was in debt to some shady
people. On Feb 14 he took his wife and daughter to Ash Grove Park and
his wife of his problems. His wife became furious and when they returned
home she packed up her things and their daughter and left Dale. When th
left Dale decided to kill himself but as he was about to “The Wish” appear
and granted him a wish. Dale wished for more money and that his family
never know about his problems and lies. “The Wish” grants this and inform
Dale that he will not remember the details.

Dale wakes up in a hospital and is informed that his wife and daughter we
killed in a car accident that he survived. The timeline does not make sens
him because he was at the park at the time the accident happened. He
remembers his encounter with “The Wish”.
 ame Highlights
Game
the game lasted 6 months and utilized the following:

email archives - players gain access to Dale’s email when they solve
first puzzles

live telephone press conference - a dozen players and several actors

participated

~25 real world items created just for the game - paintings, puzzle dis
stones, manuscripts needing to be translated

video news clips from the fictional Aglaura news station

Real world meetings where characters handed off artifacts to players

chatbot programmed to give out information when the player gave it t

right keyword

AIM chats with many of the game characters

 ame Highlights
Game

ontact with “guides” and the formation of teams

Red, Blue, and White

players were only sent one of the team

emails and they were combined on the
unforums

xtremely difficult puzzles, one that wasn’t

olved until 3 years later: link

computer that takes a life of its own, fortune

ellers, a mob family, attempted suicide, several
eaths, mysterious artwork from a missing
oman, nine stones, and a finale over AIM are
nly a FEW of the plot details
 Dave Szulborski
The creator of
ppetmaster ChangeAgents: Out of
Control, Urban Hunt, &
Author of “This Is Not
Game”
Spent 6 months
developing the game
including 2 months of
writing the plot
"Dave Szulborski is one of the brightest minds examini
new and exploding genre of Alternate Reality Games. H
writes from the unique perspective as both a creator an
Spending a couple hours with him discussing the amaz
world of immersive fiction is like hanging simultaneou
Hunter Thompson and Mos Def."
he Goals
Make real world items and interactions a vital part o
he game
transcend the boundaries of the Internet” more tha
any previous ARG
a RWI distributed in ChangeAgents was a huge
hit
A game that reached out and played with you
have a cohesive and meaningful story
New Kind of Gameplay
borski announced the game prior to its start and created a registration page to gain
ers information

nformation was used to bring real world aspects into the game such as live item
s, graffiti appearing at player’s homes, phone calls, players receiving items in the
from Dale, etc.

as also able to recruit help through two forms

rtists - who created certain elements of the game like websites, paintings, images

ehind The Scenes helpers (BTS) - people who helped hide items around the
ountry, managed player database, and other non-creative tasks. These people stil
articipated in the game and we’re only given the slightest information about what
appen to me since we live in an apartment building. I figured that was too much of a risk.

ell, this week we are moving into a new house. We finally got the keys last night and went over to dro
ome of the stuff from our storage unit. There was tons of furniture and junk still inside so we left (there
een an estate sale there the weekend before by the owner and I guess she forgot that we were startin
ove that day). Our toddler wasn't in too good of a mood while we were there either. She was crying a
creaming the whole time which is totally unlike her. It was dark and there wasn't much we could see
nyway so we decided to just call it a night. We just left our grill, picnic table and a few other things the
he picnic table was in pieces and it was too dark out to put it together so we just leaned them up agai
e house and figured we'd put it together today.

ast forward to today...

oaded up our borrowed minivan with boxes and cleaning supplies and made my way over to the hou
hile I was washing the kitchen windows, I noticed that one of the metal legs of the picnic table had fa
ver. So I went outside to pick it up. I turned around to put the piece back up against the others and the
as the graffitti staring me right in the face on the wood piece to our picnic table!

don't know how well this translates in the picture. I had to use our video camera to take a still since I s
an't find my adapter to my scanner. It looks like it was drawn with a soft rock or maybe a piece of cha
Details

uded over 2 dozen websites

00 players at peak

ost 8,000 posts in the CTW

hive at the unforum

t Szulborski over $1000.00

un the game

onths of total work time

months
ress
TW received world wide acclaim in
veral newspapers and magazines
New York Times
BBC News
 uccess
Success

Chasing the Wish was a huge success in the ARG

Community
Launched a spinoff called “Catching the Wish” in
2006, there is also a comic
changed the way future ARGs would be played - th
eal world elements would only get more involved
rom here.
 ources
Sources

tp://www.varin.org/ctw/Guide/start.html

tp://melangerie.com/ctw/

tp://forums.unfiction.com/forums/index.php?f=203

tp://www.unfiction.com/compendium/2003/01/01/chasing-the-wish-3/

his Is Not A Game - A Guide to Alternate Reality Gaming” by Dave Szulborski