So why did the puzzle task work so well?

It was the first and possibly most interesting task. It required us to get together and discover who was involved*. We learned quickly that it was something to do with the Centennial Exhibition, and a secret message. We were all focussed on what the message would tell us, and then what the secret package was. Following that, the tasks seemed to become less involved.

Naming buildings around Wellington was fun, because it was a little bit urban exploration, but it didn’t come with an accompanying “reveal” it seemed like it was just a time-killer that would lead to yet another task. So instead of story punctuated with tasks, like MN, DWS was tasks punctuated with story.

If people don’t feel like they are getting anywhere they lose interest. So the reveal of DWS’s identity wasn’t as big a “WOW” moment is it should’ve been.

*SIDE NOTE: A neat twist that I think we should explore in a future game is having two teams one like the DWS team (but smaller) and another competing one that is told to be secretive and work against the first group, sort of like a werewolf situation. Then at some point the first team could be alerted to their opponents and then the real game would start.

My feeling is that what you had was a clearly linear storyline similar to MN (which it how I shall abbreviate Midnight Note), but the you had real task points that if not completed genuinely affected the story. So what you needed were **consequences of failure**.

So I play Mario Brothers, in the opening sequence I discover that I have to save the Princess, and if I fail then she’s going to die (or marry that dinosaur guy I forget). But basically I know what my end point kind of looks like, though how I get there and where it is I don’t know. Similarly with MN, we opened with Sam at the end of the story telling the audience what’s going on and then (effectively) telling the audience that they are in for a sequence of interesting events to get where he already is.

I felt that was missing with DWS.

The character of Beth was introduced with the same level of mystery as DWS himself, making the players feel that no matter how many puzzles they solved there was still another level of mystery, and no real reveal. MN had good stages where, upon completing a task, players were rewarded with another large chunk of the plot.

Now, as you say the ARG folks may have lapped this up, but the group you were working with were the same group that had loved MN and so were possibly expecting something similar (“A new game from the creative minds behind Midnight Note” etc).

And this where **consequences of failure** come in.

If I fail in Mario, the Princess dies (or maybe ratifies the treaty with Bowser). So many games have these, don’t find item X and you won’t be able to get to the next level or if get there it will be much harder. Consequences are the last part of every good story logline: Protagonist has to overcome difficulties otherwise there will be consequences.

Think about what would’ve happened if we hadn’t found the package on the 9th. What would be the consequences? Would we be punished in some way for it? would we arrive a day late only to discover the package had been taken by a competing group? Would DWS lose power or parts and become less coherent in his communication every time we missed a deadline?

Essentially a health meter or “Game Over” message.

It makes the story harder but like MN you can keep bringing it back to the main story. Just make them work for it.

I wonder how much people looked at midnightnote.com to keep track of what was going on? It was “where the story was”, but we hoped that ‘Out Of Game’ interaction would turn up on Facebook, and it totally didn’t. Not even a little bit.

Having a single hub point is a good idea though. What would some of the key features be?

• Aggregates game content
• Provides players with a timeline, or a summary, or something that helps new/busy players get up to speed and decide where/how they’re going to contribute
• Allows players to see each other, and talk, and hopefully organise
• Is In Character or Out of Character (but not both)
• Lets players talk to each other
• Allows the GMs to communicate and clarify game details/challenges as we go (either through characters or as themselves)
• Anything else?

I liked what we had with Midnight note. The plot was ours, the big events were all ours, but there was a smaller scale of interactivity by the “players” talking with Sam like he was a regular twitter person. I felt this was a useful tool to engage people into the story. This is my kind of thing. We told a powerful story that was ours to tell. I think we could have had this with DWS, progressing the story once the puzzle was completed. (We ran out of time to really write one, though).

I think we asked players for a good level of interaction in DWS. Yes, it was a high level and it frustrated some people who wanted to be more involved and couldn’t during weekdays, but I still thing everything we gave them would have been possible with a bit of teamwork and a place to catch up. The beginning was just as challenging as the last puzzle – in fact, it was arguably more so, but they pulled it off because they talked to each other.

I think the biggest thing that stopped DWS from working as well as it could have was that there was no central communication hub that felt comfortable for the audience. I think this is something that Flickr could have delivered if we had initiated it from the start. We gave them ARG signifiers, and since ARG players already have unfiction, they don’t need to be given a place to hang out. We also didn’t give them any instructions. Again, fine for ARG players, they know the formula so they don’t need to be given it. Our players needed it, because most of them had never seen anything like this before.

Since we were making an ARG for a non-ARG audience, we could have appointed Beth as a kind of team leader, helping people to organise themselves and know when they were doing stuff right, and keeping track of who was up to what.

If we had worked harder to establish an “official” hangout, so people felt like it was the in-game place to talk and discuss, I think we could have potentially seen a lot more interaction in the later weeks.

I think the lack of response to player concerns about things impacted on their willingness to continue. Perhaps when Badtom had voiced his concerns about the difficult nature of focusing on DWS during a weekday, we should have had Beth or DWS respond with something. Just little touches like this (that, of course, I only think of now) could have made the experience a little more inviting for the players. (This should have probably been my job, since I’m the one with the free time all day).

One of the the things that worked really well in DWS was the photo-matching exercise. We nailed that one really well. Knowing that our friends are photography buffs as well as historical enthusiasts really helped to make that one awesome. Hell, they even picked an Architect to tell their story about!

I think for future projects we shouldn’t be aiming for the more passive Midnight Note model necessarily, but to make participation less “Life or death”. In this one the story (and players) were punished because they couldn’t/wouldn’t participate. We didn’t plan very well for this kind of low-input option, although I think the solution we ended up with worked quite well.

So! To sum up! Things we could do to improve for next time:

- Establish hub point for content/archive/conversation/submission
- Give clear instructions so that new players know how to get involved and what getting involved requires. (<3 you, n00bs)
- Reward any and all levels of interactivity (@ replies, # comments)
- Have a more active role in maintaining and guiding the community (In-character, or OOC)

So, my 2c:

Print or be damned. You’ve done the writing part extremely well and normally the advice is “just write!”, so I think we’ll take that as read.

(Is that a pun? I’m not sure. Though I feel I should point out that the original reply, the one that I assume is digesting in the belly of the WordPress comment-eater, was quite effusive of your effort. Instead we shall just assume that I think your work is awesome and continue.)

I read a few webcomics as I imagine you do. The ones I most love are ones like XKCD and Hark a Vagrant. They have enclosed stories (usually) and only show up once or twice a week at most. Other ones like Order of the Stick are less frequent but have a longer and continuing story line. And of course there are the daily yucks like Garfield Minus Garfield and Cyanide & Happiness (we can ignore these ones for your purposes).

I read all of them differently. Order of the stick I save up until I have a bit of time in a weekend and I’ll read four or five. Hark a Vagrant and XKCD I will read as soon as I see a new one come in. Partially because there is no reason to read a whole batch and partially because the self-enclosed story means I don’t mind missing out on one here and there.

At this point I should mention that by “print” I meant “publish” and by “publish” I mean RSS feeds. Full ones. There’s nothing worse than a webcomic that I can’t just view in my Google Reader.

Now the story. 60,000 words is a heck of an achievement, so congrats. I’m not sure how many pages that is, but assuming it’s in a “story” format (as opposed to discrete episodes) then try this old screen writing tip. Go to page 11 and rip it out. Did it seriously alter the story? (and you have to be fairly harsh on yourself here) If not, you didn’t need it.

Eleven is, of course, arbitrary, but at the moment you’re looking at a hefty tome and that might be stopping your progress in creating the art. Perhaps, if you have multiple plots, concentrate on one then, when your two thirds of the way through start weaving in a second one. (A recent TV show that did it very well was the first season of True Blood.)

By chunking it up, you also make it simpler for your reader. Because let’s face it, people on the internet = short attention sp… Hey! Kittens!

Hope this helps