// Aporia News 2.5

For the past couple of weeks we have been randomly selecting players who have signed up to receive information for the Aporia Agathon Project to profile with a short interview. This week we took the random out and decided we would target one of the players who has been very active in the discussions regarding this project.

He was one of the recipients of the masks we sent out that were covered by ARGN. Interested in finding out more about our friend Derek?

Nickname: lostgunslinger2
Age: 20
Location: Florida
What he does: Neurosciences student

Aporia: Starting with the same line of questioning I have in the previous player profiles, how long have you been involved in the Alternate Reality Gaming genre?

Derek: About 3 month’s actually, the first day I became aware of all this was the night I came home after watching Cloverfield at midnight. I was looking up info about the movie, and found the unFiction forum. I just kinda kept looking around the site and got real interested.

Aporia: From what I’ve seen the Cloverfield experience helped to generate a lot of interest in the genre itself. I wish I had the time to play it, but I did enjoy the movie itself. So was there anything in particular that brought you to the Aporia Agathon Project?

Derek: Not particularly, after seeing how much fun ARGs looked, I really decided I should find one to get in on at the ground floor. So I just kept looking until I found one that caught my eye and sparked my interest. And this was the one I found.

Aporia: We’re glad you found it. You’ve been one of the most active participants in the discussion regarding the project on the unfiction forums, and you were one of the contributors to the Aporia Agathon Challenge. The challenge of course netted you some cool swag. When you heard you were getting something, what did you think you would get?

Derek: I really had no idea what to expect. I suspected it might be game related, but could also have been a t-shirt, or AporiaCME related. I will say that it far surpassed anything I thought it could possibly be. I was almost shouting when I opened that box and saw the mask.

Aporia: Awesome Derek, we’re glad you liked it. I wanted to keep one for myself, and I just may have to pick some more up for later. Having seen some of the character videos released since you received the mask, do you have any theories as to the significance of the mask itself?

Derek: Taking some of the videos into consideration, and the poem by Paul Laurence Dunbar, It suggests it could possibly be symbolic, but the videos also left it open with the mention of secrets that the characters may not want revealed. This is where I’d like to imagine my favorite theory, one of the more popular ones, the one suggesting that werewolves and vampires are involved. I’d like to imagine that the fanged mask supports this.

Aporia: There goes the werewolves theory again, and now vampires. It seems like a popular theory and some would say where there is smoke there is fire, but I can’t confirm or deny anything. Since we’ve already got a good idea where this theory comes from, are there any other theories regarding the story or the characters that you’ve been entertaining?

Derek: I haven’t really been able to come up with anything as definitive as a theory, but I do find it interesting how some of these characters seem to go to a special boarding school, one that they don’t mention much.

Aporia: Yes a special boarding school, that’s something nobody’s mentioned before. Interesting thought and I cannot confirm or deny whether or not that is a component of the story. How have you like the slow tease of the game prior to launch? We know it’s a fairly unique approach, and we’re hoping that we can use it as a model to help improve future games. Has it peaked your interest in the game and would you suggest anything different?

Derek: I think it’s been great. While I’ve been itching to jump right into the game, I do like that you’re giving it enough time for as many people to join from the start as possible. And the occasional teaser bits are just enough to tide those already in on the game over until launch. After seeing how fast the threads explode from 1 to 20+ pages, I can appreciate being able to get into this at the start.

Aporia: We’ve tried to keep that in mind as we develop the game. We want people to be able to come in a month, two, or more after the game launches and still feel comfortable within the environment of the game. We’ve recently put up a request for players who are interested in interviewing us to send us 5 questions and we’d select one of the players to interview us. If you could ask us any question, what would you ask?

Derek: You have obviously been working on this game for quite some time, and I was wondering if you all have got the main storyline all worked out from start to end, or is it going to evolve as it goes along?

Aporia: Derek, that’s a great question and I was really nervous asking that. I had promised myself I would answer any questions you asked 100% truthfully. I’m glad you asked something meta. The majority of the work that we have done as a team has been developing the back story for the game. We’ve taken bits and pieces from legend and lore, from history and science, and mixed them all into one big salad bowl. It has been a very time consuming and seemingly fruitless venture. We have plotted out some goals we have for the storyline, how we want get players to advance the game in one way or another to a conclusion. As with any ARG we have to thoroughly consider the fact that anything can happen at any time with the story, or even with the actors we have volunteering their time for us. Let’s say that the person playing Diego has to leave the team for whatever reason, we can’t rightfully replace Diego with another actor so we would have to adjust the storyline to fit the situation.

The game itself is expected to last approximately a year, and that time frame makes it difficult to plan everything out in advance. There are going to be several approaches to the story that we will take. Players will be able to interact with some of the characters and learn more about the back story without even becoming involved in the main plot that’s going on around them. There will be organizations available for the players to join (Jan mentioned one of them) and due to our limited budget we will be trying to organize some player run activities with some players taking on leadership roles within the structure of the game. We will have activities for players who like to archive the happenings of the game, to include pictures and comments. It’s going to be an adventure through and through for all of us. We’ve already put out some of the sites related to the game, but don’t worry about searching for them yet (they’re pretty inconspicuous).

With that I would like to ask you one last question. If we were to gain sponsors for events, swag, hosting, or other game related material which allowed us to retain our intellectual property and continue the game without any major deviation, how supportive of those sponsors do you imagine you would be?

Derek: I would be behind it 100%, especially if it’s possible to work the sponsor’s into the game itself in a cool way. I think it would actually make the game even more immersive.

Derek, thank you for taking the time to answer these questions. I really enjoyed our conversation. For those of you reading this article, if you would like to be considered for a player profile submit your information through the player info survey. Those who are interested in submitting questions in order to be selected to interview us may do so through our contact form.

For information on how you can sponsor the game please visit our Aporia Agathon Sponsorship page