David and I could hardly contain our excitement this morning when TheBruce, linked us to this article in The Guardian in which Keith Stuart writes:

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

First of all, we apologize for the delay between updates. Things have been hectic, to say the least.

We want to take this opportunity to respond to some questions or curiosities we have seen on public forums, as well as attempt to describe just what Rachel’s Walk is.

*NOTE*: This post borders on the edge of giving out more information than we want to at this time. So if we seem like we’re being vague or not explaining ourselves well, that’s on purpose.

Anyway, here are some of the questions we’ve seen.

“So this is an 80’s video game?”

If you look solely at what we are calling the “Dream Engine”, then yes, it is very similar to an “old school” LucasArts video game. But there is a lot more to Rachel’s Walk than that.

The “Dream Engine” is not the only interface this game will have. If you don’t want to deal with the interactive, game-like interface, there will be plenty of other ways for you to participate.

The reason we wanted such an interface is because it allows for a more robust interaction with an ever changing world, without the need for us to be sitting on the other side of the screen all the time. Using this standalone engine, you can explore and interact with the world at your own pace, in any way you like, without having to wait for feedback from us; the feedback is immediate.

Maybe we haven’t made this exactly clear: the “Dream Engine” is your interface in to an imaginary world, a world that exists only in the mind.  But, for every person that visits the dream world there exists a presence in the real world, and there are those that exist solely in the real world and have a story to tell themselves. In order to get the maximum enjoyment from Rachel’s Walk, you must be ready to explore both sides to fully understand the story being told.

“Screenshots? For an ARG?”

To be honest, this is the reason why we prefer to use the term “interactive fiction” instead of “alternate reality game”… People envision an “alternate reality game” to be a certain way, and we are trying to do something different and contrary to the norm.

What is an “alternate reality” after all? Rachel’s Walk is primarily a dream world where you will be interacting with a variety of characters, from rabbits to faeries, from dragons to centaurs. They are obviously not “real”, but you are visiting their world; to them, everything that occurs within the dream world is within their reality and you are but mere visitors.

Put another way, many people have described an ARG in the past as a “roleplaying game in which you play yourself”. Well, this is just that… except that you’re asleep.

Everyone expects an “alternate reality game” to follow the same style as every other ARG: some social networks, a few websites, a lot of emails bouncing back and forth, the occasional prerequisite cypher… There will still be some of that in Rachel’s Walk (but do keep in mind that we are not fans of “puzzles for the sake of puzzles”), but we are trying to do something different with the “Dream Engine”.

“Will there be other websites other than the main one?”

We do have a propensity to create elaborate websites, some of which are merely cosmetic (and serve only to relay contact information) while others are comparatively complex (with actual development and special functions). And, as has been the case in our past games, you can expect an “in game” form of communication; email at this level is too hard to manage, and we have found that a custom interface to manage all communications makes management and historical tracking of events much easier to manage.

Rachel’s Walk really is no different. Besides the main site that drives the “Dream Engine”, there are several other traditional websites to be explored and interacted with. There will be people in the real world to talk to. There will be multiple forms of communication, and there will be a presence on multiple social networks. The main site reflects your presence in our dream world, but there is most definitely a real world presence. After all, most people don’t sleep all day…

One of the concerns we’re seeing is that some players may not be too keen on the “video game” aspect of this. Quite honestly, although it would be really cool if it would happen, we’re not expecting every player to be traversing the world through the “Dream Engine”. But don’t fear… If the dream world scares you, there will be plenty to do in the real world. You will not be left out, and you will still be able to participate in the story and contribute.

So there you have it. If you’re looking for traditional ARG elements, we’ll have that. If you’re looking to satisfy your craving for 80’s interactive fiction, we’ll have that. We seek to appeal to a large audience, and players will be able to involve themselves in individual parts if they so desire.

When we first began creating the visuals for the world of Rachel’s Walk, we looked to stock photography.  I picked out literally hundreds of images for David to download.  But they all had varying “looks”, and we quickly realized we would have to do something to make them all match if the world was going to have a unified appearance.

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.

Rachel’s Walk Wallpapers

Forest Flowers
1440×900 – 1280×1024 – 1024×768 – 800×600

The Wishing Well
1440×900 – 1280×1024 – 1024×768 – 800×600

The Tree Swing
1440×900 – 1280×1024 – 1024×768 – 800×600