At the Westergasfacriek (or “gas works park”) as a part of PICNIC2009, there was a demonstration of 3D objects in the Layar Reality Browser. In one demo, a Boeing 747 flew over the grounds. In another (pictured), PacMan ran by, chased by ghosts.A video demonstration is available on the Layar3D site.

Last year at WhereCampPDX, we had lots of fun running our own version of live-action PanMan and we’ll be playing again this year. Refinements to the tracking code might mean that Android phones play in the field without need of a control room. Then again, we’ll probably run at least one game like last year, with an open phone call to manually update the game screen.

And, as it turns out, the PacMan@Lyon kids will be running the final game of their summer season on Saturday. (The only thing that could be improved about that helmet is onboard video.)

In recent years, coupled with the rise of The Amazing Race television reality-competition show, we have noticed an increase in puzzle hunt activities at the local-casual level. Organizations like Shinteki market the activity to corporations as team-building activities. Running clubs and tour group companies are putting on small scale city-based puzzle hunts, like the Stumptown Challenge.

Coming up on the second Sunday in September is a multi-city, near-simultaneous puzzle hunt. Called D*A*S*H* (Different Areas, Same Hunt), this is a single-day event that will run in the cities of Portland, Seattle, Boston, Houston, Los Angeles, Palo Alto, San Francisco, and Washington DC. Puzzle designers in each city have contributed one clue to the event, and each city’s hunt will use each of the clues to point to locations in that city. This is a foot- and public-transportation race for teams of 2-5 people. The deadline for registration is September 10th.

I’ll be there with a team of three people smarter than I. I encourage you to join us!

Ouroboros was one of the designers of the 2009 ARGFest-o-Con FestQuest, which happened in Portland last July. He and Ben Foote ran in the 2008 Stumptown Challenge, with a competitive finish against a field of serious runners.

Alternate Reality Games are an interactive narrative that plays out across multiple communications media and (often) in real locations, sometimes with actors (c.f. article “Serious Fun” from The Economist). The most compelling ARGs solicit player involvement that effects the storyline of the narrative. Many ARGs have incorporated locative features, mostly geo-caching (answering payphones in I Love Bees, hunting for a buried BMW in The Art of the Heist) and treasure hunting (the quest for the Receda Cube in Perplex City). As handheld GPS becomes more ubiquitous, location will be incorporated to a greater degree in ARGs.

The conference weekend consists of an opening cocktail reception, a day of sessions and presentations, and a casual day for touring, catching-up, and scheming. Highlights of the conference include:

• James Kane, creator of the iPhone app The Hidden Park, which delivers a children’s story through the iPhone and allows players to snapshot pictures that include creatures from the story.
• Nonchalance, a Bay Area based immersive media studio that works on urban exploration activities, including the Bay Area Aerosol Heritage Society, a graffiti catalogue and tour.
• The keynote presentation by Jordan Weissman, on Saturday evening as a part fo the conference banquet. Jordan Weissman was part of the team that produced The Beast, considered the seminal Alternate Reality Game.

ARG Fest-o-Con will be a single-track of sessions and presentations, but it won’t be staid or dull. There will be robots looking for friends-with-benefits! Something unexpected may happen! The Unfiction internet community will operate a backchannel over IRC, which will be available from the conference and monitored from the podium. Updates from the conference will be sent out via Twitter (follow Twitter@ARGFest for updates). And there will be a Grand Inquisitor charged to ask the questions the audience is afraid to ask.

Disclosure: Ouroboros is a member of the organizing committee for this year’s ARG Fest-o-Con.

The unconference has moved to Old Town Pizza for food and hacking. We will be back at SOUK tomorrow for more sessions, PACMANhattan and Cruel 2B Kind. See you there!!

On Sunday morning we will play Pac-Manhattan in the North Park Blocks. This is a chase game that is played by teams of runners and operators. The runners take on the roles of the five characters from the Pac-Man arcade game. The operators receive location data from the runners and coordinate the ghosts as they attempt to corner the pac-man.

We need a runner (or three, so they can trade off) to play the part of PAC-MAN and four-to-eight other players who want to walk-and-run around the Pearl District (in the rain) to play the parts of INKY, PINKY, BLINKY, and CLYDE. We’ll need five operators to communicate with the runners (using their own cellphones).
Register on Upcoming and let us know if you want to play!

Pac-Manhattan was developed by students in N.Y.U.’s Interactive Telecommunications Program in 2003-2004. It combines two venerable gaming traditions: Hares and Hounds, and NAMCO’s Pac-Man.

Hares and Hounds (or Paper Chase) was a Victorian-era children’s chase game. One or two runners of a group are designated the “hare”. The hare is given a headstart to run, but must mark their trail with scraps of paper. The rest of the runners, the “hounds”, follow. It is expected that winds might blow the paper trail around and thereby make the chase more difficult (and interesting). Over the course of the 20th Century, the game of Hares and Hounds found a dedicated playerbase in the running clubs known as Hash House Harriers.

The WhereCampPDX group will be running a little party game at the reception to get people thinking and talking about Momentum. We’ll even bribe you to play. Here’s how it works: players are asked to find another specific person at the reception, when they do, an arrivals board announces that a caravan/ship/train/airplane has completed a journey from one of their hometowns to the other.

Here at WhereCampPDX we are really excited to be invited to be a part of this event with Working Artists Network and Software Association of Oregon and hope that you can come down to Olympic Mills Friday evening for the show (October 17, 4-7pm).