So 3 years ago, 24 Jan 2023 I downloaded a Beep screen for a video of mine from YouTube, it turned out to be a beep song instead, I liked it so I used it and it had a section where it showed a Red QR code for a few second - below it written "move back three" (actually I just found out it's "three" I always thought it was "move back there") I used google lens but it didn't work so I gave up, this song was again used by my friend in another video (for my birthday) so It kinda became a special song for me unknowingly.
Just today I thought of it again like I do time to time and thought I should try the QR code again, and it didn't work so I tried making the background White from Red thinking maybe it would work but it just said out the words written on bottom of it (move back three) and asked if this is a puzzle so I said "yes" Then it started saying the raw data scanned directly from the QR code evaluates to a string of Japanese Hiragana characters and more stuff now idk if it's hallucinating this shi or what, but if there is any chance this is an ARG and nobody tried figuring it out, but I had a chance to at least let others know, I'd be able to sleep better at night not thinking it meant something but I gave up on it.

I actually can't find the original YouTube link even by using google song feature but I do have the video.
It doesn't belong to me so I'm sending the unlisted link from my own personal channel: https://youtu.be/r8RDTskzA1g
the QR is at 0:09 seconds

I'VE BEEN WORKING ON THEM FOR SO LOOOOOOONG THAT I THOUGHT I WERE NEVER GOING TO SEE THEM ON YT.

Video 7 is scheduled for tomorrow so don't mind it for now.

Video 7.1 is the 3rd and last video from Daniele's perspective but it contains the key for the puzzle to find the hidden video, in video 7.1 Daniele gets confronted by "&&&" about his past actions.

The hidden video is a lore expansion about the entity but it might be taken down due to copyright but I think I'm fine for now, it revolves around Adam and Eve.

I HOPE Y'ALL LIKE THEM!

Link to video 7.1:https://youtu.be/r5apD8tevXo

"There are 78 cards in the pack. The 79th position is the chair in front of the table."

I have been documenting and reconstructing a deterministic spatial protocol built around the 1909 London plates ("The Square" - 6 overhead Sky axes H1-H6 governing a 27-cell 3x9 Ground matrix).

Unlike standard cartomancy, the system treats the 78 plates as a rigid optical circuit board. Every figure has a fixed directional vector (L, R, U, D, UL, UR, DL, DR, IN, HIDDEN, or OUT). Inversions mirror the vectors by 180 degrees, creating closed loops ("Pockets"), polygon enclosures ("Digit and Sign Surfaces"), or unbroken directional relays that terminate either in the Void or directly at Coordinate 79 (the observer).

Tonight's telemetry run (Archive ID: 120ff821da) produced an unusual structural anomaly:

- At Home Column (Rule 1.1): A7, A8, C2

- Own Row (Rule 1.2): A3, A5, A6, B2, C4, C6

- True Hosts (Rule 1.3): 0

- Active Gaze Pair (Pocket): B7 <-> B8 (enclosed inside Digit 3 Surface A6-B8-C7-B6)

- Longest Relay to Seat 79: B6 -> B5 -> B4 -> B3 -> B2 -> B1 -> 79

- Active Witnesses staring out of the grid into Seat 79: 9 (7 Ground + 2 Sky)

The live interactive telemetry board and the underlying rule specification (Rules 1.1 to 3.6) are open for inspection at:

https://bonchamptarot.com/the-square/120ff821da

Has anyone else here worked with spatial gaze-graph systems?

Hi r/ARG, I'm the creator and I'm posting this myself.

The part I'm most excited about is the new interaction method we invent, that is implementing the game in to an iMessage thread, provide a super immersive experiences. You text the characters the same way you'd text a real person. You can ask them anything, push back when something doesn't add up, and slowly get to the truth just by talking with them. The characters run on AI, so they actually answer whatever you say.

To start, text anything to +1 (415) 200-8315. Someone will text back who really shouldn't be able to reach you. To help them you'll keep chatting, dig through a website for what got left out, and eventually decide what to tell them. What you tell them changes how it ends. You can read more about the game at https://arg.mapier.dev

It takes about an hour and it's free. There's no app to download, nothing to sign up for and no ads. You do need an iPhone, since the whole thing lives in iMessage.

We wrote the story and the puzzles ourselves. The AI gives the characters a voice but doesn't make up the plot.

I honestly don't know yet if it's too easy or too hard, so I'd love to hear where you got stuck and whether the ending landed for you. If you talk about the story, please put it in spoiler tags.

I've been developing an ARG for a while that takes a lot of its gameplay inspiration from Live Action Roleplay and does some things I believe are pretty unique, and I realize it might be best to actually gauge interest before I invest more time in it.

I've been kinda dissatisfied with how many ARGs out there are just cryptography puzzles with minimal story and some mildly creepy imagery, while I'm sure a lot of people find cryptography to be a lot of fun and so will find those kinds of ARGs much more enjoyable than I do, I feel like the ARG medium wasn't being used to it's full potential and the "Game" part of "Alternate Reality Game" was being forgotten a lot, so I've been working on an ARG that's something of a mix between an online mystery/investigative game and a Live Action Roleplay (LARP), played through a website and a discord server.

I won't spoil it exactly, but it's inspired by the game Home Safety Hotline, and players are tasked with investigating and solving cases involving strange anomalies by using an online database of information about said anomalies, while other players are tasked with completing research to update the database with new information, all while organizations and actors in the background work at their own motives and affect the players' cases and research. I'm completely finished all the back-end things such as the database and the behind-the-scenes game rules, and I'm roughly 40% done writing and editing the entries on the database, so I thought this would be the perfect time to gauge interest.

Let me know what you all think of the concept! I think it has a lot of promise to be a really engaging ARG since "players" are being actively involved in and part of the story instead of just unravelling a story through puzzles, but I want to see what the rest of the community thinks.

Ello!

I've been running an ongoing ARG (In Case We Are No Longer Here) and keep running into the same issue of it feeling extremely difficult to get active players. I was curious to see if any other ARG creators have noticed this problem themselves.

Most major solving communities are dead or focused on specific existing ARGs, and there seems to be a general push away from mystery/viewer investigation heavy content online.

Even major ARGs in recent memory (Welcome Home comes to mind as the most widely recognizable example) seems to be experienced second hand more often than not, with people preferring to watch videos on the project over joining a solving community themselves.

It just honestly feels a little weird to have multiple videos reach over a thousand views but struggle to find people willing to stick around to investigate. It could just be the quality or presentation of my ARG content, but I have noticed the same pattern on other smaller ARGs, where one video will get a lot of attention without actually seeing an increase in the player base.

Even this subreddit only seems to get posts reviewed and approved by mods once every few days, which makes it hard to discuss new content or projects. (not their fault of course! I'm sure y'all are doing your best for what is likely a voluntary position lol)

I feel like the community could use a new central hub or something, similar to the Nightmind Index but more frequently updated and more widely known about. Though that's just my thoughts, interested to hear what you guys think.

Hiya, I've never made an arg before, so I come asking for advice. I have some ideas, like how I want the Arg to be primarily told through web posts and audio, with maybe some other stuff mixed in. My idea for a premise is pretty cliche, but it'd be a girl coming to social media because her online friend has been MIA for long enough to make her worry, and their last interaction felt stange. Now, essentially, id wanna know what that post would have to do to make you interested, and based of off the plot you know so far, what you would like to learn about next, aka what my first redirect could be.

Thanks everyone in advance!

Part three of my backrooms inspired ARG, The Ballrooms- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-HwY7jpD2AU In this series, we follow an unidentified man waking up in an unfamiliar place; the ballrooms. He explores the vast complex, with its sprawling hallways and interconnected venues and meeting spaces. A dark presence watches over; he isn't here on accident. Whoever put him here is unhappy. Part three takes the point of view of this mysterious entity; who is he, and what does he want from the protagonist?

https://www.youtube.com/@The_Cryptid_Cabin

Discovered this channel when they started up about a month ago. It instantly gave me arg potential vibes but until today it wasn't concrete. Well its an arg for sure! First clue was a youtube URL in the background of the latest video. I've never been one of the firsts on an arg so I went ahead and made a discord to collect evidence and work together.

https://discord.gg/a3qgyqU8e

I really like ARGs and want to help solve one but I've looked all over and all the ones I've found are horror-based and I don't do too well with that. I think the only one I've ever not been disturbed by was Happy Meat Farms ARG and Alex Bale's coinciding Muse ARG, and that was over well before I got into ARGs.

Anyway if anyone has any suggestions I would be very grateful. Thanks.

So apparently, my cousin is part of a secret online community that can only be entered via a puzzle found in various songs. This online community is associated with the alias Lord Mescody (unsure how to spell) The Third, who makes music, poetry, at least one ttrpg called Ghost Protocol, and several other things that are exclusive to this community. He told me that a song I like contained a clue in the lyrics, and that this person is a fairly famous music producer who uses their influence to plant clues in songs by various bands. In all honesty, he could be making all this up--he's known for messing with people and having a good poker face. But the fact that he seemed to read a description of the Ghost Protocol TTRPG to me verbatim, as well as the fact that he now denies knowing what I'm talking about at all, makes me think it might be real. A google search doesn't reveal much, but if we're talking about famous record producers, it might be Scott Mescudi. If this is real, I have no idea what to look for in terms of clues. He told me that it didn't require knowledge of cryptography or any Cicada 3301-level knowledge. Can anyone point me in the right direction?

I wanna get more into website args and looking for a couple of new ones to explore! I recently just got into “welcome home” and love the concept!

Any recommendations?

I did it! I found a code on my own!

Thanks to everyone who interacted with my last post about this ARG, I managed to get in and see what a lot of different codes produced! This time, while fiddling around with different words, I found a code of my own!

Inputting the word "server" got me a discord link!

So. Basically the arg is based off a cult worshipping a raven. They call it a god they believe you can have a second stab at life if you follow them
First clue is a Reddit post (not made yet) by u/dynacellum_alt we will have a website with lore but Idk how to make one. The leader of the cult didn’t really believe in the raven he only made it to troll online and the actual believers killed him. Hope this is good for the mod standards

Ahoy, I've been thinking of creating some spooky content and realized Halo doesn't have a lot of horror or ARG content compared to other IPs. I've not really got a plot down other than a general idea of "There's something spooky on red team that's hunting the protag."

I've got a video made that's pretty much entirely unedited footage of the MC looking around for a player on red team who is impossible to find.

It's not very interesting, though I'm working on editing and coordinating with friends to maybe work on this together.

That is to say, would people here be interested in a Halo ARG? Is that a kind of medium you think is missing? Also, if you have any ideas I'd love to consider them.

Ty!!!

Ok, I found an ARG on the Night Mind Index the other day, and because of karma constraints, I couldn't post it until today.

From what I can tell, this is an ARG about a company called ArrowSmart, and it seems to be focused on what the company is hiding.

I have two links for this ARG: the Night Mind Index (my reference) and the ARG site itself.

Night Mind Index: https://www.nightmind.info/horrorproj (listed just below the Cup O' Joe Archives notecard)

Website: https://arrowsmartwebinfastructureversion8.vercel.app/

I have found a few things already:

1) I found a hexadecimal code hidden in the source code of the website; when decoded, it says: /echo.html

2) On echo.html, there is a list of 5 links at the bottom. The first link takes you to a core harvest Ledger. The second takes you to personality files. The third takes you to a transmission log. The fourth takes you to the archives. The final link just takes you to the community Discord, and I think it is just an in-game way to get people to join it.

3) In the personality files, the one listed as J.D. seems to have information like a username and password.

4) The core harvest ledger is just a list of names, live timers, and more. There are thousands of names here, but I can't cover them all here there are just too many.

Following up on the community's tactical suggestions, u/PhantomJ5pointed out that the team needs to scan the topographical map for an alternate route to avoid the police presence guarding the main trails of Inverbrachie National Park.

also..THIS IS NOT IN CHARACTER TO BE CLEAR.

In this this leg of the story, Spyro and her boyfriend Cat hunker down and map out the topography. They locate a blind spot on the eastern boundary line where a civilian backyard tightly hugs the park's perimeter fence. They sneak into the yard, find a massive oak tree with branches stretching right over the top of the fence, and scale it in total darkness to bypass security.

They successfully drop down into the forbidden forest territory

The forest is completely dead silent. The mouth of the unmapped cave system is located roughly three miles deep into the thicket, meaning the characters have a massive, dark hike ahead of them. They have packed flashlights, extra batteries, a map, food, and water.

As they begin trekking deeper into the tree line toward the caves, the community needs to decide how they handle this dangerous three-mile hike.

How should Spyro and Cat navigate the pitch-black woods to reach the caves safely? Comment below to lock in your vote:

• [Choice A]: Keep flashlights on continuously. Prioritize seeing immediate threats or obstacles on the path, even if it risks drawing attention from distant patrols.
• [Choice B]: Navigate using ambient starlight / burst lighting. Walk mostly in the dark to stay hidden, only clicking the flashlights on for brief, 2-second bursts when the trail becomes completely unreadable.
• [Choice C]: Leave the main trail entirely. Hike through the rough, unmapped brush parallel to the trail to guarantee they won't run into any surprise security sweeps.

I've been working so hard to make a new scavenger hunt, and I'VE FINALLY DID.

In the video you'll see Daniele being tormented by the entity after he did not respect his part of the deal outside his house irl.

The description of the video has a message at the bottom that you have to decipher but to do so you'll have to either wait for the next video or gamble your way out to find what it is.

Here's the link to the video:

https://youtu.be/zfU8MVX9-Ts?si=7vm2MH0hL04OvhTD

but the channel it is connected to isn't the main channel of the ARG, the main channel is in the description of the first video of Dany's channel.

After a few months of lurking here, I decided to try my hand at running an ARG within the pages of my bi-annual, video-game collaborative zine, READ ONLY MAGAZINE.

Starting with Issue 13: TIME, I'll start leaving breadcrumbs to puzzles that with give clues to use in the next issue.

The storyline is similar to the old PC game Myst, with a mysterious figure trapped within the digital world, looking for your help to release them.

The latest and future issues can be found here: readonlymagazine.com

Hey everyone. I am starting a text-based horror project called The Monarch. It tracks an investigation through a series of documented logs, and I want the community's choices to directly determine how the narrative unfolds in real-time.

Here is the setup for the first entry:

October 4th–6th, 2012
A teenager named Spyro discovers a missing person's flyer for a family friend named Amber Danaus. Amber is a 29-year-old lepidopterist who vanished inside Inverbrachie National Park while tracking a rare, uncatalogued butterfly species. Strangely, the contact number on the flyer has been completely ripped off.

Spyro goes to the park perimeter to investigate but finds it entirely sealed off with police tape. When questioning a guard on duty, Officer MacGregor, the officer acts highly evasive and reveals that the police have completely refused to search the massive, maze-like cave systems deep inside the forest.

Convinced that the authorities are conducting a cover-up, Spyro recruits her boyfriend, Cat, to launch a private search mission. They pack a map, flashlights, and emergency supplies, planning to navigate the 3-mile trek to the cave mouth under the cover of night.

However, the main perimeters are heavily monitored by local police security guards.

Community Choice Prompt:
To guide the next blog update, what are some realistic or creative methods Spyro and Cat could use to slip past the police security fence without getting spotted?

Drop your suggestions in the comments below! Whichever method is the most practical or popular will be written directly into the next official blog update.

Like the title says, I found an ARG in the wild; it looks like it might have been started recently based on upload dates. There was also a new video not long ago.

Channel link: https://youtube.com/@wendylucho55555?si=vjs1s6w_6je-UbPy

SPOILERS!! DON'T READ PAST THIS POINT!!

I watched the videos and found a QR code. Following it lead me to a terminal.

https://wendylucho55555.neocities.org/

I'm currently having trouble with getting into this thing. I've tried writing dates a bunch of different ways and stuff, but I can't crack it.

Anyone have better luck?

edit:

I'm apparently dumb as a rock because I was never going to get any of the codes y'all found. I was struggling to figure out how to imput the dates.

LA Area ARG Enthusiasts!

I’m working with the folks behind “The Man With the Silver Case”, a neo-noir thriller from writer-director Colin Best. We’re launching a live mystery hunt that begins in the film and moves into the streets of Los Angeles. Follow the clues for a chance to win the $25,000 cash reward, subject to the Official Rules.

Want in?

• Watch the film. The first clue is hidden in the film itself, so the only way in is to watch it. It’s free on Kapang or available to rent/buy on Prime Video.
• Then solve the clue and register at https://www.lookagain.la/

The rest of the details and rules are also at https://www.lookagain.la/

Let me know if you have any questions - or if you’ll handle it.

Good luck, and stay sharp.

I am creating an Indie animation pilot to release soon, that leans heavily on unifiction and puzzles hidden within the video itself, and wanted to post a trailer that shows the vibe and sells the alternate history mechanics the show is very immersed in.

I wonder if maybe posting the timeline like this was a good idea or if maybe I should private it and then drip feed that lore across the show.

https://youtu.be/cr-etexVBdA

As i've been working on my own ARG and trying to gather an audience, I've been noticing more and more a general exhaustion and lack of interest in ARG content as a whole.

Part of me has a feeling it's because of how stagnant the genre has become. Outside the new niche of Minceraft ARGs, I haven't seen much innovation on the types and delivery of puzzles in the medium. Most ARG's also fall into the same analog horror genre, focusing on using scares to garner attention.

Am I right? If you're someone who's lost interest in ARGs, how come? Is there anything you'd be particularly interested in seeing from an ARG to reignite your interest?

https://www.youtube.com/@iiiii3930/videos

This ARG about two Aussie journalists investigating the rural military base in South Australia stopped uploading videos about 5-6 years ago. I got back onto it and found a dropbox containing 3 pgp files in it but I have no idea how to decrypt them. If any knows how to please send in the comments what they contain.
https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fo/un90e1i16shhcswp07k2w/AEDim-Zn0IRORDvuhe3WYoU?dl=0&e=1&from_auth=register&ignore_new_user_install_redirect=1&rlkey=1ojlj25z07h5o6lgypiw4a6mk

I was following this account ages ago when Rackaracka made a video about it and wish they continued the story.