Hello, hello! I’m Kimber Fox, and I’m the newest member of the team working furiously to bring you Rachel’s Walk. My primary goal within the project is to type until my fingertips bleed, as that’s really what I do. As a professional writer, I know what an amazing rarity it can be to truly and completely love the project you’re working on – and let me tell you, Rachel’s Walk has me hook, line, and sinker. When I was first introduced to the story, it was captivating; I quickly invested myself in this project. Though we call it working, it is truly a labor of love. We are eager to share all of this with you, this thing that has come alive in front of us, and we really do believe that it is worth the wait. Over a thousand sign ups, guys! That’s unbelievable. You guys are fantastic!

I would like to think that I was brought in due to my incredible wit and fantastic imagery, or possibly because of my uncanny ability to evoke startlingly real emotions in my readers; however, I have a sneaking suspicion my 100 WPM typing average had something to do with it! All jokes aside, in just a short time, I have come to respect each member of this incredible team, and feel so privileged to have been given the opportunity to work with them on such an original, exciting endeavor. I believe so much in Rachel’s Walk, and it’s honestly the chance of a lifetime to be able to have a hand in something that I fully believe is going to change the way a lot of people think about Alternate Reality Gaming.

To echo Owen, it is truly overwhelming to be a part of something that has garnered such an outpouring of anticipation and excitement – especially considering the fact that it hasn’t yet begun! I know we are all so thankful for your continued support and typically gracious patience as we work hard to make Rachel’s Walk a unique, unforgettable experience. I promise you, your patience will be rewarded.

Thank you, again!
Kimber

I have been working on the more abstract elements of the project, composing text, designing mechanics and puzzles.

I’m a little overwhelmed with the anticipation we’ve observed, and I hope that we are able to produce something that will live up to the expectations of our audience.

The original reason for my introduction to the project was my experience with writing interactive fiction, so as well as ARG-style elements, the end-product may also have some of the characteristics observed in adventure games.

Unusual? Yes; I think that what I want most is to create something new. Of course, the hard part is doing that while still making it recognizable to your target audience, and not getting carried away with your own cleverness.

Of course, it could work the other way. Perhaps we’ll draw in some new players to the sub-cultural bubble.

But in some ways the really avant-garde work has been going on elsewhere – in the realm of the ARG, or alternative reality game*. Here, proponents like 42 Entertainment and Darklight Interactive create interactive experiences by placing information around the internet, on faked websites, forums and Wikipedia entries, encouraging players to work together to decipher the clues.

Maybe it is partially all the coffee I just consumed, but my heart is racing!  Our relatively small company has just been recognized on the international scene.  And in the same breath as one of the largest companies in the ARG industry.  We are extremely proud and frankly more than a bit surprised.

In the meantime, despite unfortunate distractions of our real lives — I continue to battle a chronic illness (which I write about in my other blog Novel Patient) and David has had to find a new job on short notice — we continue to move forward on Rachel’s Walk.  We’ve been working on all aspects of the game, but in particular Owen has been putting in a lot of hard work on writing copy for activities players will be able to do within the Dream Engine.

Much to my CPU’s dismay, I continue to render and render and render some more.  And in honor of occasion, I’d like to leave you with another small taste of what I’ve been working on.  Another “screenshot” from the game if you will.  This is one of my personal favorites, and I hope you enjoy looking at it as much as I enjoyed making it.

Fairy River

Around this time I was starting a new role playing game campaign with some online friends and was looking to make a portrait of my character.  I was looking around for free 3D rendering programs to use for this purpose and stumbled across Daz 3D.  I was so pleased with my render of my character and the power of the program that it occurred to me that we could make the whole world of Rachel’s Walk in this fashion.  Instead of being confined to what I could find on stock photography sites, I could custom render each “scene” to our specifications.

I presented the idea to David and he loved the render of my character and the idea.  But we realized that we would need more than just the free DazStudio software and few free models.  So I made up a proposal of all we would need to complete the game world.  We devised a plan with phases of purchases and a budget.  And then I got to work.

Though the basics of the software were easy to master, some of the more advanced features had a higher learning curve.  Frankly my initial renders didn’t look like much.  But with practice I improved.  As I improved I realized the need for more advanced software to complete the game world.  So we purchased Bryce and most recently Carrara.

The process has been (and continues to be) extremely time consuming and extremely rewarding as I slowly piece the world of Rachel’s Walk together.  And today I am pleased to present you with a sneak peak of 3 “scenes” from the game world in the form of wallpapers for your desktop.  They can be found in various sizes in the new Media section.  I hope you enjoy viewing them as much as I’ve enjoyed making them.

Over a year ago I had the idea for Rachel’s Walk, and needless to say a lot has changed since then. My project was rather simple back then (I was a “one man shop”).  When I took on Lauren Soffer as Creative Director, we we started to realize that this project could be so much more. It could be more than “just another ARG”. It could be something groundbreaking, something wonderful.

As the scope grew, our style of development changed. We began to treat this more like a video game than an “alternate reality game”. To be frank, I sometimes hesitate using the moniker “ARG” to describe this project; I prefer to call it “interactive fiction”, a term coined by the great game developers of old  – Infocom, LucasArts, Sierra – which have influenced us and this project dramatically.

So we became a game design and development “shop” of sorts. We were no longer a huddled mass of “puppetmasters”; we had our roles: we were a programmer, a creative designer, a writer, a sound engineer, a video producer… We began to use management software, high end graphics utilities, and professional sound and video editing software. We downloaded several hundred stock images for use in the project. We got an absurd amount of hosting. We even had a budget.  All of this to help us reach the high production value we want to bring to you.

These production values, of course, delayed the project even longer, but we feel it’s worth it. Every time someone asks “when will this launch already?”, I find myself wanting to say the traditional video game developer’s response of “when it’s done”, but there have been so many failures in the video game world as a result of those three words. We do not want to be the ARG equivalent of Duke Nukem Forever.

But recently we decided that, if we are going to continue this style of development internally, we have to be a little more open to our fans. We decided to not stay completely in the dark, and instead be somewhat vocal about what we’re doing and how, all the time censoring ourselves from revealing anything that could be considered “in game” content.

So now it’s time for the world to start seeing what Rachel’s Walk will become.

Over the coming weeks this blog will allow us to talk about what we’re doing, strictly as developers and designers. We will talk about general game mechanics and some creative design, but we will NOT talk about game content, game plot or anything else that could be considered “in game”. That information you’ll just have to dig out of the rabbit hole yourselves.

There are three of us that will be posting on this forum: myself (Project Lead and Lead Developer), Lauren “Ineffabelle” Soffer (Developer and Creative Director) and our latest addition to the team, Owen “Twiler” Parish (Writer and Assistant Developer).

We also have a presence on Twitter and on Facebook, so we welcome all to you to follow us there. If you haven’t yet, we welcome you to sign up on the main website.

On behalf of all of us at Darklight Interactive, we hope you enjoy the ride.

In March 2009, Darklight Interactive (“DLI”, for short) officially announced their upcoming game Rachel’s Walk. The team behind Looking Glass Labs now aims even higher to bring an unprecedented cross genre alternative reality game. Rachel’s Walk will combine elements of traditional ARGs as well as “old school” role playing, adventure games and interactive fiction to engage players in an unparalleled immersive world. The players will have the ability to control and interact with almost everything around them – people, places, and objects – through a specialized interface. The players will have the opportunity to explore the vast lands, interact with the diverse population, and discover a domain that exists only in dreams.

Though much of the story is still shrouded in secrecy, DLI revealed that the players will follow a young girl named Rachel into an unfamiliar fantasy world, and embark on an epic journey that blurs the line between fantasy and reality, a journey filled with mystery and fantasy, heartache and joy.

Darklight Interactive was founded in early 2008 and has been developing Rachel’s Walk for over a year under the guidance of David Flor (Project Lead and President of DLI) and Lauren Soffer (Vice President and Creative Director of DLI). “This project has been an exciting opportunity to push the boundaries of traditional ARGs in a way that we hope will make the story more immersive and engaging than ever before,” said Soffer. “As a storyteller first and foremost, I feel privelged to work on a project like this that puts the story as the center piece and lets all the puzzles evolve from the story.”

“Rachel’s Walk is set to be our crowning achievement, blending traditional alternate reality gaming and real world elements with a fully interactive ‘dream world’ that allows the players to have control over everything that happens,” said David Flor, President of Darklight Interactive. “It is truly a technological marvel, and for that reason we have put as much time and effort in to it as possible in order to make it perfect. When it is revealed to the world, we know that die hard alternate reality game players and traditional adventure gamers alike will not be disappointed.”

Rachel’s Walk is set to launch sometime in late 2009. Players can sign up at http://www.rachelswalk.com/.

Press please contact Darklight Interactive at info@dlimedia.com

(c) 2009, Darklight Interactive – All Rights Reserved
“Omne ignotum pro magnifico”