Last Days - the Out-Of-Game site

a friend sent me this from a buzzfeed posting.

i'm definitely getting one for my kid if i ever have one.

saw the wikipedia entry on Alternate Reality Games the other day and it has been much improved recently. under Basic Design Elements is my favorite part:

"ARGs are sometimes described as the first narrative art form native to the internet, because their storytelling relies on the two main activities conducted there: searching for information, and sharing information.

• Storytelling as archaeology. Instead of presenting a chronologically unified, coherent narrative, the designers scattered pieces of the story across the Internet and other media, allowing players to reassemble it, supply connective tissue and determine what it meant."

although that's not really what drives last days - especially since last days isn't a traditional ARG - i just love that idea, that the story of an ARG is one you have to uncover like an archeologist uncovers the mysteries of a past civilization.

it did make me think however about last days, and in particular about how the current lastdaysjournal.com storyline is currently getting woven together by dozens and dozens of loyal users from all over. i'm a little bummed that those storylines will eventually be replaced by a whole new set of stories when the site eventually re-launches - and even once before that when we finally get the beta version of the site up and running. it's an interesting fact to ponder - that basically an entire world can be sort of reset and reborn like that.

the truth is of course that i have no intention of ever taking down the original lastdaysjournal.com. it will probably end up with a different url, but i could never do that to my original loyal users - never. however, what will be known as the last days world will change.

our intention is to move into beta as soon as we can. we were hoping to this past spring, but the web-game portion of the new site is proving a tiny bit more complicated, so while we're hoping to enter beta in the next couple months, it might get pushed to the fall. the process could be accelerated depending upon the results of subsequent pitch meetings.

oh and about the pitches, i really can't be too specific about them at the moment. all i can say for now is that there are some really big people here in town taking a gander at this project right now, but until there's money on the table and signatures on a contract we're just continuing as we always have - grassroots and elbow grease - plugging away here on our own.

if any of you are interested in helping out btw, let me know. my greatest need right now is for some solid experienced php design work and also if you happen to know any venture capitalists, hollah at me. i'm thinking the venture capital route might be the best way to go right now. i'll mention why in subsequent posts.

=ck

that's right! we FINALLY have selected scenes up and ready to view.

enjoy!!!

so if you've seen the CDC video we added to the regular LDJ site a little over a year ago, you've seen Mr. Mark Gantt, aka Dr. Jason Pacheco

well, it looks like Mr. Gantt has now officially sold his project The Bannen Way to Crackle.com. the show was shot on the RED camera and looks fantastic. i just checked Crackle and The Bannen Way isn't up yet, but i'm sure it's just a matter of time. grats, Mark! we can't wait to see it!

now here's another tasty little thing for our original LDJ players: i just finished importing all your user info into this web-site's database so if you registered onto the original lastdaysjournal.com anytime before today, you can use your same username and password from that site to log onto this site. none of the other data transfers over of course, but you can leave comments if you wish.

=D

so currently we have a mid-alpha-beta version of the social networking site up and running. feel free to join up, or if you're already a member of the original lastdaysjournal.com and signed up some time before March 1st, 2009 i'll work on getting all those usernames and passwords to work on that site as soon as i can. incidentally, i'm also going to try to provide that service here as well, but give me some time to figure out what's up with my buggy database exporting situation.

here by the way is the url for the new 1.5 version of the ldj social networking site:

• www.iam100k.com/ldjtest

we'll more widely publish it once we work a few more kinks out, and we'll try to migrate as much info over to that version as we can, but in the meantime, use at your own risk. o_0

started helping out a buddy with his very, very interesting project this week. can't tell you too much about it, cuz it's kinda top secret, but i will tell you that this fascinating research institute that he knows is having an exhibit at the Velaslavasay Panorama on April 11th.

little known fact: there's evidence that a lost civilization was discovered in the mid-1800s and that this civilization was living in Antarctica of all places! that's what this exhibit is about, so you should definitely check it out and be amongst some of the first people in the world to see this recently uncovered research.