0:03

Welcome. You've got that digital

0:05

park line.

0:10

When I was four, my dad bought

0:12

a trusty Xbox. You

0:15

know, the first, uggety, blocky

0:17

one from two thousand one. We

0:19

had tons and tons and

0:21

tons of fun playing all kinds

0:24

of games together until

0:26

he died when I was just

0:28

six. I

0:30

couldn't touch that console for ten years,

0:33

but once I did, I noticed

0:36

something. We used

0:38

to play a racing game, rally

0:40

sports challenge, actually

0:43

pretty awesome for the time it came out.

0:46

And once I started meddling around,

0:49

I found a ghost literally.

0:53

You know how when a timed race happens,

0:55

the fastest lap gets recorded

0:57

as a ghost driver. Yep.

1:00

You guessed it. His ghost

1:03

still rolls around that track today.

1:06

And so I played and

1:08

played and played until

1:10

I was almost able to beat the ghost.

1:13

Until one day, I got ahead

1:15

of it. I surpassed it,

1:18

and I

1:21

stopped right in front of the finish

1:23

line

1:24

just to ensure I

1:26

wouldn't delete it. Hi.

1:29

I'm Perry Carpenter, and I'm Mason Amadeus.

1:31

Today, we're talking about haunted video games,

1:33

alternate reality games and mystery

1:35

solving communities. Content warnings for

1:38

this episode are minor, but there are brief mentions

1:40

of drowning in suicide. This is

1:42

digital phone call. Oh,

1:54

dude, they have donkey kong sixty four

1:56

and the expansion pack still in

1:58

the box. Hate

1:59

places like this. I don't remember like the exact

2:01

story, but there was a bug they couldn't fix in

2:03

the game without adding more ram

2:05

to the

2:05

console. To spend bunch of extra

2:07

money and bundle this with

2:09

the game.

2:09

Are you gonna buy that? I'm super

2:11

ready to go. Why?

2:12

Perry, we barely even got into the back aisles. There is

2:14

so much stuff And also, I'm probably not gonna buy it

2:16

because I don't have a CRT TV and it's not the

2:18

same. No. No. No. I'm not really

2:21

big on pawn shops at all. Why?

2:24

I don't know. It's partly

2:26

the smell feels

2:29

saturated by it. There's this smell

2:31

of dust and oil and

2:33

desperation. It's like claustrophobic and

2:36

desolate at the same time. What's

2:38

the pawn shops seem to

2:40

represent themselves as like this

2:42

big treasure trove filled with

2:45

mysteries over here and bargains

2:47

over there and you know, you get

2:49

inside and you shake around these bins

2:51

and you realize that everything

2:53

that's here has been left here by

2:56

somebody's desperation. I mean,

2:58

and somebody sold this stuff for, like,

3:00

half of its value just to pay

3:02

their water bill for that month or

3:04

toss away painful memory

3:06

here. Dude, look, original

3:09

Pokemon red. Like a regional,

3:11

original wall. Okay.

3:14

Well, I thought you'd appreciate

3:15

it. What about me made you think that?

3:17

Because

3:18

the whole Lavender Town syndrome was because of these

3:20

games. Was it was that the one where

3:22

people claimed that there was like this super

3:24

high frequency tone that somehow

3:26

made people kill

3:27

themselves. Right? Is that -- that it the the

3:29

story goes that the music for Lavender Town

3:32

had that effect on only younger kids who

3:34

played it because it was so high pitched that

3:36

you couldn't hear it past a certain age.

3:38

Right. And think it was just

3:40

the original Japanese edition

3:42

that had that.

3:43

Right? You know what? Actually,

3:45

yeah, I think you're right. And this one's in

3:48

English.

3:49

I hate to break city fellas, but

3:51

that whole Lavender Town story thing with

3:53

the music. Yeah. That never

3:55

happened. Jeez. You scared the heck out of me, man.

3:57

Yeah. It's a creepypasta. Great game,

3:59

though. I'll let you take it complimentary

4:01

if you wanna buy a game boy. Wait. I'm

4:04

sorry. Who are you? I'm Todd.

4:06

Nice to meet you.

4:07

Yeah. This is this is Todd's shop. Oh,

4:09

you guys know each other. I was in a Bandwidth

4:12

Mason's dad in the eighties. Yeah.

4:14

I wasn't alive, but yeah, I mean, I've seen

4:16

photos. Cool. Hey, I don't wanna make

4:18

this awkward or anything. But if

4:20

you got an appetite for spooky video

4:23

game lore, I guess something

4:25

you might be interested in. It's

4:27

Yeah. I don't know,

4:28

Todd. I think we're gonna head out. Perry doesn't

4:30

like

4:30

your shop very much. No. No. It's

4:32

not that. I mean, the shop is fine.

4:35

I'm fine. Actually, I

4:37

really am a little bit curious

4:39

Todd, what were you about to say? Easier to

4:41

show you than to describe it. Follow

4:43

me. Round it back. My special gosh.

4:47

You see, I'm a I'm a collector

4:49

of sorts, rare objects. You

4:51

never know what you might find if

4:53

you keep your eye.

4:56

Have you ever been on a bad road trip?

4:59

No good songs, not enough

5:02

snacks? And one of

5:04

the people in the back seat just decided

5:06

he's a crypto day trader. I'm

5:09

sure you can relate. Right? Well,

5:12

let me tell you they can get

5:14

a lot worse. I'm

5:16

on the most bizarre, the most

5:18

dangerous dissociating violent

5:21

fever dream of a road trip since

5:24

Mad Max decided he needed to get more fuel.

5:28

Don't believe me? Look for

5:30

the new audio drama podcast leaving

5:32

Corbat, and follow me on my

5:34

bizarre journey as I try to leave

5:36

my hometown for the first time in my life.

5:39

Listen to leaving Corva wherever you listen

5:41

to podcasts. Or go

5:43

to leaving corvette dot

5:45

com. I dare you.

5:57

was all made up, but When

6:00

Valencia talks about it, she

6:02

doesn't claim ownership over

6:04

it. She's like, it went

6:06

out of my hands. It became something

6:09

of the

6:10

Internet. Hey,

6:11

Mason. Todd, hold on a second. I gotta go

6:13

check this out. Harry,

6:13

we're, like, right in the middle of

6:15

Excuse me. Sorry to bother you.

6:17

Sounded like you were talking about some kind of

6:19

Internet Folklore.

6:20

Yeah. I was just just

6:22

had my mind blown by a video

6:25

on that came out recently

6:27

that is about the Internet sensation

6:29

that wasn't actually a game, but ported

6:31

to be a game called a kill

6:33

switch. A story about a game.

6:35

Yeah.

6:35

What

6:35

was it called?

6:36

It's called kill switch.

6:37

Kill Switch.

6:38

Yeah. And it's it's a creepy pastor.

6:40

Yeah.

6:41

It's pretty essentially a creepypasta. It was

6:43

about a video game that, you

6:45

know, had all the scary things

6:47

associated with it and -- Right.

6:49

-- like this video game apparently would

6:52

erase itself. Every like, if

6:54

you played it to the

6:55

end, it would like the gone and there was

6:57

no way you could play it. Again, there's no way you

6:59

could show it to anyone else that talk about it.

7:01

It really took on a

7:03

life of its own on the Internet. People

7:06

tried to, you know, like, they're they went out

7:08

searches to find the last remaining copies

7:10

of this game. And What

7:13

blew my mind about it is that it turns out

7:15

it was actually written by one of my favorite

7:17

authors, Katherine Valenti. So

7:19

even if there was a definitive author,

7:21

it becomes Folklore after the fact

7:23

because of how the community reacted

7:25

and created around

7:26

it. Is that right? Yes. Even

7:29

though Kat Valencia wrote the

7:31

original story about

7:33

kill switch. It went viral

7:35

and turned into many

7:37

other stories that became its own

7:39

Internet legend. It

7:41

might help to think about the concept of

7:43

folk groups for this, and

7:45

a folk group can be, like,

7:48

as little as two people or as many

7:50

as, you know, hundred or something or even

7:52

more who all share something

7:55

in particular. Like a family is a

7:57

folk group and like their shared thing is that they're all

7:59

related. Or, you know, a community of

8:02

gamers who are all super passionate about

8:04

one particular game or also a

8:06

boat group because they hang out and they talk

8:08

about that thing. So if you think

8:11

of, you know, any of these communities as

8:13

groups and their output as a kind

8:15

of folk

8:16

lore, I think that framing might

8:18

help.

8:18

Yeah. That does. Thank you.

8:19

Really? I mean, Folklore so enormous

8:21

that we could sit here and talk together

8:23

for, like, you know, fifty hours straight and absolutely

8:26

not cover all of

8:27

it. Yeah. We

8:28

We were, like, right in the middle of Todd taking us

8:30

to the secret stash. What are you doing?

8:31

Oh, right. Todd's

8:32

closes in, like, half an hour. Sorry. I

8:34

think I gotta go. Mason's getting anxious.

8:36

He does that every now and then. Here's

8:39

our

8:39

card. Do you have anything? For sure. Yes.

8:42

Great.

8:42

Thank you.

8:42

Awesome. Hey.

8:45

Thanks for waiting on me guys.

8:46

Yeah. Who was that?

8:47

Yeah. That was Sarah and Brittany from the Carter

8:50

Hall School of and the Fantastic. Oh,

8:52

so you know them?

8:53

Yeah. You might think so, but no. I

8:55

just met them. They gave me their card

8:57

right here. It has a cool tree on the

8:59

shirt. Yeah. We were also kinda

9:01

doing something though. About Yeah. time.

9:03

In here for inquisitive

9:06

minds

9:07

only. Whoa.

9:10

Okay. Well, how

9:11

far back? What is the square footage of this place?

9:13

Much like the Tardis nerd reference,

9:16

it's bigger on the inside.

9:17

Wait. Tardis that? A polybius

9:20

arcade cabinet? Certainly is.

9:23

This bad boy's got a body count. I

9:25

had to cut the cord off it for safety.

9:27

But it's genuine wine. Holy

9:30

smokes, you have taboo. Yep.

9:32

Taboo. The sixth sense get

9:35

that one when it came out actually. What

9:37

is

9:37

taboo? It's it's like a terror card simulator

9:40

that came out for the SNES in, like, nineteen

9:42

eighty something. Nineteen eighty

9:44

nine. And it

9:46

has

9:47

accurately predicted the deaths

9:49

of multiple players. Okay.

9:52

But that's, like, obviously, some

9:55

kind of law of averages. You get enough people

9:57

to play the

9:57

game. It's gonna get a few things right.

9:59

Yeah. Probably, but this

10:04

is my crown jewel, a

10:07

beat up cartridge for the in

10:09

sixty four?

10:10

Yes, but also no.

10:13

This little thing is a lot more

10:15

than it seems. I got

10:17

this from a friend and let's

10:19

just say it's an ordinary

10:22

game. He picked it up at

10:24

a yard sale from some creepy

10:26

old man. Right? The old guy

10:28

walks out of his garage and hands the

10:30

tongue. This beat of character

10:33

no label just majora, sharpied

10:36

on the front of it. And it gives it

10:38

to my buddy for free, says it belonged

10:40

to a kid who didn't live

10:42

there anymore or something. So

10:45

my friend goes home. Right? Thinking

10:47

maybe this is some pirated copy

10:49

or beta version of Zelda Matura's

10:52

mask. Bumps it in, it boots

10:54

up just fine, turns out it

10:56

is majora's mask and

10:59

he finds this save

11:01

file on it. Right? It's

11:03

named Ben. And,

11:05

you know, shrugs it off thinking it's probably

11:07

whoever the kid was, the old guy mentioned.

11:10

So he makes his own save, calls

11:13

it link, and he starts playing.

11:15

Everything's Huggiedora at first, but

11:18

think it's weird pretty quick. He's

11:21

seeing textures and graphics showing up where

11:23

they they shouldn't be bits

11:25

of cut scenes popping up out of

11:27

nowhere and sometimes the characters in

11:29

the game call him Ben. That

11:31

is a thing. Right? All the dialogue

11:33

is text. So whenever you name

11:35

your save. It's what the characters

11:38

call you in except

11:40

he was playing on the link and

11:43

getting called Ben. So

11:45

my buddy's thinking, this is probably

11:47

just some glitchy bootleg copy

11:50

and goes and erases the Ben file

11:52

to try to fix it. But

11:54

that doesn't work. Okay? Now

11:56

the characters in the game don't call him

11:58

anything. Nothing. Just blank

12:01

space where the name should be. He

12:03

still thinks he could just be a pirate and

12:05

janky copy of it. Oh, God knows

12:08

where and so he's not creeped out

12:10

yet. And the rest of the game seems

12:12

fine and he keeps going. And

12:14

then stuff gets

12:17

unsettling. He

12:19

gets to a point and the game starts playing

12:21

all out of order. See, And

12:24

all of a sudden his character appears

12:26

in the biggest town in the game, clock

12:28

town, but all the people are gone.

12:31

Nobody there septies here in these

12:34

faint voices, everywhere he goes. And

12:36

and the game's like totally broken all sorts

12:38

of graphics and stuff out of place,

12:40

even a music playing backwards. He

12:43

told me that at this point it started affecting

12:45

him emotionally too, like he started

12:48

feeling this deep powerful sense

12:50

of dread so he tries to

12:52

reload the game or get out

12:54

of that area, but it won't let him back.

12:57

It keeps popping him back into that

12:59

ghost town. Finally, he

13:01

gets out right, but things aren't normal.

13:04

Now, there's these weird creepy statues

13:06

in the game stalking him. And

13:08

that's not supposed to happen at

13:11

all. Like every time he

13:13

turns around, the thing shows up behind him,

13:15

and he ain't supposed to move. Let

13:17

alone to that. And not

13:20

long after that, it becomes clear

13:22

this game is trying to tell him

13:24

something. It's trying to communicate.

13:28

Out of nowhere, he gets teleported to

13:30

the final boss area. Right? And

13:32

this floating skull kid keeps

13:35

telling his character in impossible ways

13:37

like setting him on fire and he can't do

13:39

anything about it. Nothing works. He

13:41

just has to watch he reloads

13:44

and tries again over and over, and it's

13:46

the same thing he stuck. But

13:48

then eventually, he gets stuck on

13:50

this black screen with

13:52

text on it that says, you've

13:55

met with a terrible fate.

13:57

Haven't you? Pretty

14:00

spooky. After that,

14:02

the game kicks him out to the title screen

14:05

and get this. His

14:07

save file is gone deleted.

14:10

But now, there's a new one

14:12

called your turn.

14:15

So he's curious. Right? He can't stop

14:17

himself. He loads up that new

14:19

creepy save and all it is.

14:22

Is his character's dead body on the

14:24

ground. That same skull

14:27

dude floating over him with creepy

14:29

looping to storted laughter playing over

14:31

and over again. My buddy tries

14:33

to restart the console to get out of

14:35

there. But then, hey,

14:37

that's okay. Sorry talking about thinking,

14:40

oh, what's wrong with you? Don't get my will. Sorry,

14:42

jeez. Thank you. You go on.

14:45

It's fine. So you restart to

14:48

console. And now guess what's back?

14:51

The Ben save file he deleted.

14:53

Right there, all the other ones are

14:55

gone. That's too much for him.

14:57

So he shuts the whole thing down and goes

14:59

to bed,

15:00

sounds familiar. So the next day,

15:02

yeah, he tries to avoid playing this thing.

15:05

It really messed him up. Freaking his bean,

15:07

like Major's mask is supposed to be kind

15:09

of creepy game, but not

15:12

like this. Later

15:14

that night, though. He just couldn't resist

15:16

too curious. I can't blame him really. So

15:19

he loads it up, and the band

15:21

save is still there. But wild

15:23

thing is, it looks like the

15:25

save fight was farther along in the

15:27

game than it was the night before, like

15:30

it'd been played. Creepey. Right?

15:32

But he goes in anyways. And

15:35

now, this is where things get real

15:37

dark, real quick. He

15:40

loads up the Ben save. And

15:43

right off the bat, everything is

15:45

very wrong. His character is

15:47

all distorted like it's back is

15:49

broken and clocked to the side,

15:51

the character's face is all blank

15:53

and dead looking. Every few seconds, it

15:55

keeps twitching and spasming. None

15:58

of this stuff is in the normal

16:01

game, by the way. It's not

16:03

right. More of these creepy statues

16:05

keep stalking him wherever he goes. Appearing

16:08

behind him and stuff. Then he starts

16:10

getting teleported all over the place to

16:12

more and more broken parts of the game

16:15

in impossible and creepy

16:17

ways that don't make sense. The

16:19

text, you've met with your horrible

16:21

fate. Haven't you keeps popping up on the

16:23

screen at the strangest times?

16:26

He's getting zoomed around his creepy broken

16:29

game and and starts turning into

16:31

different characters from the story and stuff.

16:33

Long story short, all

16:36

this lead to him getting sent towards

16:38

a water level, the Greek

16:41

babe. And for this

16:43

level, the character can breathe

16:45

underwater. So he goes in

16:47

and sure enough. One of

16:49

those creepy walking statues is

16:51

sitting there right at the bottom of the bay.

16:54

He swims over to it at this point

16:56

figuring Giana. See this

16:58

story through. Suddenly

17:00

his character starts choking to death and

17:02

dies he drowns. Even

17:04

though the character you're supposed to be able

17:06

to breathe underwater. He's drowned.

17:10

And then instead of just reloading the

17:13

game kicks him all the way out to

17:15

the main screen again, and the

17:17

save files have changed once

17:19

more. Now, There's

17:21

two saved

17:22

camps. The first one is labeled

17:24

Ben, and the next one

17:26

is drowned.

17:28

Ben drowned. Yeah. Right. Yeah.

17:31

That's what he thought. That's the mystery.

17:33

This kid bed must have

17:35

drowned, which means the game blind.

17:38

It's a creepy pasta. It's been

17:40

drowned, the creepypasta. I

17:43

knew it sounded familiar when you were telling

17:45

it. It's actually really popular. No.

17:47

Not surprised you hadn't heard. This

17:48

was my buddy. Right? He told me

17:50

about it. Yeah. I hate to break it

17:52

to you, Todd, but I think your buddy

17:55

found the story on the Internet or

17:57

somebody told it to him and then he told

17:59

it to you and passed it off as

18:01

real. Yeah. I remember reading this too. There's

18:03

also like YouTube Really well

18:05

edited YouTube Videogames. it's a great

18:07

story. I'm

18:07

not even then telling it though. It

18:09

goes beyond the game. Like

18:11

few days after this he starts

18:13

having conversations with a weird chatbot

18:15

online, like an AI chatbot. Yeah. It's named

18:18

Cleverbot, and this Cleverbot starts claiming

18:20

that it is been, and then

18:22

it starts taking over his computer

18:24

too, and then he starts getting headaches and

18:26

nightmares. There's a ton of stuff to it.

18:28

Writing videos. I think there was even like a

18:30

Ben drowned ARG of some

18:32

kind. Yeah. There were these hidden

18:34

ciphers like in the YouTube account that posted

18:37

the videos and those pointed to a website,

18:39

and the website had a whole second story called

18:41

Moon Children. And that was packed with all sorts

18:43

of hidden URLs and secret versations?

18:46

Yes. Yes. You're right. It was

18:48

about a doomsday cult stuck in a

18:50

time loop. It was actually super

18:51

cool. The website would reset every three days,

18:53

and it was really interactive. Yeah.

18:55

Alright. Cool. You two really

18:57

know how to kill a story. Todd,

18:59

it's not your fault. I'm sure you're end

19:01

was just into creepy pastas

19:04

and ARGs and found

19:06

an old copy of majora's

19:08

mask, and he wanted to have a little laugh

19:10

with you. Yeah. Whatever. I don't even know

19:12

what an ARG is. Well,

19:15

it's it's kinda like a

19:17

game, but it's not like a game game.

19:19

It's

19:19

on the Internet, but it's also broader

19:21

than that. It's ARG is

19:23

alternate reality Like the

19:25

netting verse

19:26

headset, then you strap you

19:28

face and win your arms around and buy things

19:30

t shirts, Bitcoin, or something like

19:33

that right now. Yeah. No. That's virtual

19:36

reality. These are alternate reality

19:38

games. They take place in the real world or

19:40

spread across the whole Internet.

19:42

It's more like a puzzle where all

19:44

of the pieces are hidden in different weird

19:46

places. Yeah. You look for these hidden clues

19:48

and, like, web site code or Twitter

19:50

bios or Reddit threads really

19:53

just all over the place and sometimes

19:55

even in the real world.

19:56

And usually it's revolving around some kind a

19:58

mystery or conspiracy that you have to solve.

20:00

You

20:01

don't mean to be weird about this, but

20:03

were you just talking about creepy ARGs?

20:05

Okay. Cool. Yeah. Cool.

20:08

Yeah. Right. Okay. Great stuff.

20:10

Hey, this has been fun. You two

20:12

should look around. I gotta

20:14

go play the actual reality game

20:16

of running this dive. Alright? Yes.

20:19

Sure, Todd. Yep. Thank you. Yep.

20:21

Okay. With your eyes,

20:23

not with your hands.

20:27

I'm sorry. Who are who are you? Yeah.

20:29

I'm I'm Nile Sankey. I I worked

20:31

on the game assemblants. I

20:33

know what you're thinking. Impossible.

20:37

I should be dead.

20:40

You're right. There should be. But

20:42

here I am. We

20:44

initially built the chamber to

20:46

simulate memories. We

20:49

used it to free our

20:51

minds. But as we

20:53

went deeper, we

20:55

found more our

20:57

fears, our hopes,

21:00

the past, and our future.

21:04

And then Everything changed.

21:07

We finally found the answers, but

21:10

it wasn't what we expected. The

21:12

memories took on lives of their own

21:15

and the terrible things it showed us.

21:19

Now, I want you

21:21

to see

21:28

Part of the the themes of assemblants were

21:30

sort of getting lost and

21:32

and dwelling on the past and getting lost

21:34

in your memories and being conceives by your

21:36

own memories and overanalyzing your

21:39

memories at a at a very sort

21:41

of high level. And so I was like, well, I wanna present

21:43

this to where people can feel like they're winding themselves

21:45

deeper and deeper into this. It was maybe

21:47

in the last month of development that I was like,

21:50

well, I'm gonna have to throw in a bunch of these

21:52

ARG sort of elements or

21:54

I'm gonna tease it where people are gonna see

21:56

clues and then hopefully they'll catch

21:58

on because people are pretty smart. And

22:00

then I'll just I'll string some clues along

22:03

with these sources that are not the game. I

22:05

tapped on external sites like Reddit,

22:07

for example, and other

22:09

websites. And I'm just gonna build this as

22:11

though, like, this is crazy. I don't even know if people

22:13

can solve this, but maybe it'll

22:16

be years and they won't solve it because it's pretty

22:18

esoteric, these puzzles. And

22:20

it sort of I threw them together really quick.

22:22

It was never play to like usability tested.

22:25

Yeah. don't think I thought that far into it.

22:27

I think I was just, well,

22:29

let's see. Like, this might be a total disaster.

22:32

And maybe not? Who knows? Let's let's see.

22:34

This is fun. It's what why we

22:37

Videogames. let me take a little

22:39

chance here. And early on,

22:41

like, it's it's funny when someone's first came

22:43

out. Like, I'd never I never actually

22:46

said there's an end game. It just wraps

22:48

up really quick. It's a very short experience. You

22:50

can usually beat it in forty five to an hour.

22:53

And the initial group

22:55

of players, like, I remember watching a video

22:57

review and the first hit came out and this

23:00

this streamer finished the game and he

23:02

was so pissed

23:03

off. That's it. That's

23:05

it. Like this

23:06

game sucks

23:06

and I was like, I guess that didn't work.

23:09

And I was like, well, maybe I should have

23:12

told people there's they're, like, hinted

23:14

that there's more. But we just

23:16

rolled with it, like, okay. Well, maybe it's

23:18

not gonna work out. And then people

23:21

start to be like, wait a minute. After you beat the game,

23:23

if you continue the game, there's something new

23:25

here, there's something different. And then

23:27

if you follow that, it keeps go wait. There's

23:30

way more to this game, and it

23:32

sort of blew my mind a handful of

23:34

streamers, file on this content,

23:36

and then they follow these rabbit holes. And

23:39

Some of them kind of almost

23:41

put their health in danger

23:42

there. There

23:43

was a screamer by the name of I'm the blue I'm

23:45

the blue ranger. I think blue ranger right now,

23:47

but I'm still friends with them to

23:49

this day and I met him through this experience,

23:51

but we were watching him play. And

23:53

one of the rules is I don't interact with the community

23:55

when this happens. It's purely just observation.

23:59

And he was just on

24:01

this thing nonstop, and

24:04

he and a handful of other streamers

24:06

or or gamers were slowly getting

24:08

closer and closer, and it was just this

24:10

great It was actually the most entertaining

24:13

and entertainment I've had as a game developer

24:15

or even just watching games and just watching

24:18

the drama. And I wanted to, like, oh, you're so

24:20

close. Just look over there and but

24:22

we we can't interact with him and

24:25

then to see him finally you can find the

24:27

video somewhere if it's on YouTube, it's still

24:29

on his channel of him. Discovering this

24:31

final puzzle. And

24:33

he's just freaking out. And I remember

24:35

remember exactly where I was He

24:38

was at a restaurant in Seattle. We were at happy

24:40

hour and and just was on my phone just

24:42

watching it. I think he's gonna do it. I think he's gonna

24:44

do it. Wow. And then he did it. And I was like,

24:46

oh my god. This is so cool I'm getting to

24:48

experience, you know, watching him

24:50

sort of find this this final puzzle.

24:53

With a game that has ARG components

24:55

and all of this mystery, you're kind of creating

24:57

this universe for someone to make and

24:59

tell their own stories in and make their

25:02

discoveries, like, how does the approach

25:04

to that kind of thing come together?

25:06

Would I approach the more ARG aspect of

25:09

dissemblances? It wasn't

25:11

an intent to build a social experience,

25:14

but that wasn't like we're playing

25:16

the game in coop or we're playing

25:18

multiplayer. Like coop, multi player games

25:20

are very cool, but there's a lot of those.

25:22

And I think there's something very unique and different

25:24

about it. Well, social, but it's not

25:27

social where you're playing the game together. You're sort

25:29

of Connecting with other individuals

25:31

on this mystery, this quest that has

25:33

all this, you know, hopefully rich fiction

25:36

that people absorb themselves into But

25:38

the truth of the matter is, like, I didn't

25:40

really know if the game would really work. It

25:42

it was kind of just a artistic experiment

25:44

and It wasn't a massive

25:46

success for

25:47

Videogames, but it it did have this core following,

25:49

and it was just a great experience as a

25:51

developer. Had you had any experience

25:54

with ARGs? Had you grown

25:56

up participating in anything like that

25:58

before? Whether that was you

26:00

know, hybrid online, offline, or or

26:02

not? No. In fact, I I kind

26:04

of even hesitate to use the term energy

26:06

with the semblance because I'm not that

26:08

familiar with ARGs in general. I kinda

26:10

know what they ARGs. And I think they're cool. think the idea

26:13

of them are cool. Yeah. Like, I think even

26:15

HALO two, this is before I joined,

26:17

had the I love ARGs, and

26:20

I wasn't really part of that. To be totally

26:22

honest, I'm not really even much of a gamer.

26:24

Like, I sometimes struggle to

26:27

force myself to play games. Like, I

26:29

I really should be playing more games after all. It's

26:31

what I do for a living, but

26:34

I'm not a huge gamer. I'm not an ARG

26:36

person, but I I love the

26:38

idea of building these experiences. So

26:41

It sounds like as you

26:44

had that thread in assemblances

26:46

and you were able to watch people do it,

26:48

as a game designer, that could be a little

26:50

bit of addictive to to see people

26:52

participate at that level because you

26:55

have people that are looking at something that

26:57

could be unsolvable. And they're

26:59

throwing themselves at it and giving, you

27:01

know, potentially hundreds of hours and lots

27:03

of, you know, lots of mineral calories to

27:06

to do that. Yep. Is that something that you're

27:08

hoping to replicate as you do games in the

27:10

future to have this other component that

27:13

gathers communities around

27:14

it? A hundred percent yes. Like, I I mean, I'm sort

27:16

of in process of building another game

27:18

right now. It's it's not developed

27:20

enough to to officially say anything about it.

27:22

But certainly, I think any

27:25

game I release in the future would have

27:27

to have this I feel I consider

27:29

it's sort of a sort of a staple to

27:31

the art I build. So It

27:33

just and it's like you said, it's so rewarding,

27:35

and it does create these very

27:37

unique social situations. It,

27:40

yeah, encourages these lasting sort

27:42

of relationships know, into a lot of the people

27:44

that still will connect online. I'll see occasional

27:47

tweets, etcetera, that, like, oh,

27:49

you were yeah. That's right. You were there when

27:51

we first saw the puzzle or remember when this

27:53

happened. Almost like sort of humbling

27:56

feeling that you can have this sort

27:58

of very as I see the positive effect

28:00

on people's lives to bring them together. For

28:03

you, like, what are some of the things

28:05

that go into design or telling a story that

28:08

make you passionate What are those elements

28:10

that just really get you excited or the things

28:12

you always want to bring to your stories? Yeah.

28:14

That's tough because I'm not a

28:16

very disciplined storyteller. I

28:19

think, to be totally honest, a lot of

28:21

the assemblances were a lot of the games I built.

28:24

I think I sort of picked this up from from

28:26

watching David Lynch movies where

28:28

they have exceptional sound design and

28:32

they're they're they're they're very visually, but they also

28:34

resent these situations or

28:36

these stories that have open

28:39

interpretation, and they

28:41

are sort of emotionally driven and

28:43

they emotionally inspire people to speculate.

28:46

It's it's the way I kinda see pure

28:49

what art should be, which is what, you know,

28:51

the art of it comes from your interpretation,

28:53

how does it make you feel? What do you believe that means?

28:55

What is the artist trying to say? How does it connect

28:58

you with the artist or with other

29:00

people around you that are also experiencing this?

29:03

And that's something I really love about.

29:05

And and it's not just David Lynch, but he

29:07

specifically says publicly he will

29:09

not explain what his movies mean

29:11

and I think that's the the right call. It

29:13

means the the movie will always be

29:16

a piece of art that's open to interpretation and

29:18

that connects people together and it connects

29:20

people to to the universe. And

29:23

so my approach

29:25

is definitely like I wish I was a more

29:27

disciplined storyteller, but

29:29

like a semblance is very, I

29:31

would say, it's it's definitely open to

29:33

interpretation. I mean, I have my

29:35

opinion, like, there's there's actually a there

29:38

is a story that exists. But it's the story

29:40

itself isn't as important as allowing

29:43

people to have an emotional

29:44

interpretation. I I'm curious if you have

29:46

thoughts on like the concept of

29:48

how people can take games and find

29:50

and tell their own stories inside of

29:52

them, whether that looks like community

29:54

figuring out ARG clues or like people

29:56

in open world games discovering and

29:59

telling their own stories. Since it's an

30:01

interactive piece of fiction, you kind of get

30:03

your own story from it even though

30:05

it's a design story.

30:07

I used to tell people a story. haven't told

30:09

it in a while. don't think I'll tell it now, but

30:11

there was a story where I was playing Fallout

30:14

New Vegas and a chest It was

30:16

not a pleasant experience because I

30:19

I just somehow kinda broke

30:21

the game really early on.

30:23

But I I love telling the story to

30:25

to friends because it was it was kind of

30:27

hilarious I wanna call

30:29

it a fail because how can a game be a

30:31

failure if you're telling people this is great story

30:33

that happened in it even though I ended up

30:35

turning it off and never playing it again, but I

30:37

was like, man, that was one of the

30:40

the the best, like his silly

30:43

stories that I've had. think there was another

30:45

one where back when we were developing

30:47

destiny, we were trying

30:49

to like, look at other games that are similar

30:51

and one of them was like MMOs. And I

30:54

am not an MMO person. Like

30:56

I said, I'm not really a gamer at all, but I

30:58

was like, well, I really shouldn't play. Wow.

31:00

World of Warcraft. And so

31:02

we we ended up playing I was like, okay. Let's

31:05

set a night and then we're all gonna play and then

31:07

I'll see if I can learn something from it, I guess.

31:09

And so we we were

31:11

playing and the one one of the people we were playing

31:14

with was sort of at work,

31:16

he I was friends with them is I liked

31:18

him a lot, but he was sort of like a technical

31:20

guy that just sorta we we would tell, like, hey,

31:22

can you fix this thing for for me? Whatever.

31:25

You know, like, please fix this. This

31:27

is broken whenever. But in

31:29

the world of Warcraft, he was in charge.

31:31

He was our leader. And I was like, damn, this

31:33

is cool. Like, Tim, like who who's

31:36

always bugging him. Can you fix this for me? fixes

31:38

for me. Now he's like, Tim, what do I do?

31:40

What do I do? Like, III don't know what to do.

31:43

I I think I I picked the

31:45

majors or something where you're shooting fireballs,

31:47

and and we were in the training area. And

31:49

and we were all I was following Tim and

31:51

we're all like, that's pretty pretty cool, but then

31:54

I I looked over and I saw another player from a

31:56

different group. And I thought

31:58

I saw inciting an animal, and I'm like, I'm

32:00

gonna help him I started

32:02

doing my age power and he was

32:04

fighting a bat or something and

32:06

attacked the bat and I killed it. And I was like,

32:08

yes, I helped that guy. This is so cool. And

32:10

then The guy swiveled and looked at me,

32:13

and then I saw the words what the fuck?

32:15

And I was like, did

32:17

did I do something wrong? I was like, Tim, Like,

32:20

what I think I was trying to help that guy. I he

32:22

was fighting an animal. He's like, yeah. You just

32:24

killed a pet he was trying to train.

32:27

And I was like, what? I I thought he was trying to

32:29

fight someone or fight an animal. I thought,

32:31

I didn't know that was his pet, dude. What do I do?

32:33

I'm so sorry. III feel so bad.

32:35

And he's like, don't worry about it. I already apologized

32:38

for you. He's cool. Let's move on.

32:40

It's like, this is so this is such

32:42

an awesome experience. Because,

32:44

like, Kim, you're her leader, you're her savers.

32:47

Anyway, I was like, man, I'll never forget that moment.

32:49

That was such a cool, like, silly experience.

32:52

I'll never forget that

32:53

guy. That's great. That's that's a great example

32:55

because, like, the people coding wow did not write

32:57

that encounter. They did not create that

32:59

moment for you.

33:00

Exactly. Exactly. Yeah. You had it

33:02

and completely unique. Yeah. I think

33:04

and talking about, like, breaking Oh, yeah. Jeez.

33:06

Oh, if you guys are just gonna play pretend

33:08

NPR and there instead of

33:10

buying something, I'm gonna need you

33:13

to hurry it up. Yeah. Closing

33:15

in ten. Okay.

33:16

Yeah. Thanks, Todd. Anyway,

33:18

Niles. Thanks for talking with us, man. Yeah,

33:20

sure. Just remember, don't disregard

33:23

any detail. That detail could

33:25

be the secret to unlocking the

33:26

puzzle. Of the Ring DVD,

33:29

you know, I got the special edition of that, but

33:31

whatever your loss, coupons

33:33

and mixed and one bag of loose

33:35

from mom. That's

33:38

sixteen twenty eight.

33:39

Okay. Oh, hey, no. It's Latin. What?

33:42

Oh, hey, Matthew. What's up? You two know each

33:44

other? Yeah.

33:46

What are the odds of us all being here at the same

33:48

time? Great. Hey, you guys

33:50

know you can go make friends outside.

33:53

After Matt here, finish paying for his

33:55

stuff. Yeah. But what are the odds? You don't have to

33:57

do this in front of

33:58

me.

33:59

So you know Niles. Yeah. We

34:01

did that to Game of Simulation stuff.

34:03

Hello. Earth ten

34:05

nerd. Yeah. Sorry. Just one second. I need to run

34:07

a business. Yeah. Yeah. I know. I know. But just one

34:09

second. Did you help Nile's make

34:11

a soundance? No.

34:12

No. I was just one of the main

34:14

discord users that was involved in unwrapping

34:17

some of the mysteries. Very cool. How

34:19

many hours did NILE steal from you?

34:21

He stole an inordinate amount of my master's

34:24

degree. I'm ashamed to say.

34:27

Niles talked a little bit about like what the game

34:29

was, but sort of in broad strokes as a developer's

34:32

perspective, what was the game to you as

34:34

a

34:34

player? The story of it

34:36

taking up a large component of

34:38

my masters is because and

34:40

I remember this very specifically.

34:42

I was doing some assignment work in the

34:45

library of the university I was doing the masters

34:47

in. That was masters of teaching. And

34:50

I got an email. Because

34:52

I'd played the first game, there was some

34:55

out of game components that required you

34:57

to email an email address and would automate

34:59

a response. And that response

35:02

would give you some information to then solve

35:04

stuff in the game. And one of those emails

35:07

sent something to me. I just got

35:09

a very indirect email, had some

35:11

information, but it had come to me

35:13

without me asking for it. So,

35:16

you know, what did I do? I dropped the assignments and

35:18

I started pinging all of the email

35:20

addresses from the previous game. I

35:22

didn't get anything. I probably spent like half an hour

35:24

trying to ping those dresses multiple times to

35:27

see if things would come out because you you try to

35:29

game it. Right? There's no way there could be human

35:31

behind that. So you try and just send

35:33

nothing at all or you send random

35:35

words just to see if it needed

35:37

an answer, but it wasn't checking the answer.

35:39

But over the course of a few days after that, we

35:41

got more messages. And those were links

35:44

to audio files from

35:46

SoundCloud. It was bunch of random

35:48

noises, but you take the spectrographic

35:50

imaging of those sounds and

35:53

it creates one quarter of

35:55

a picture because there are four

35:57

sounds and you put those pictures together. And

36:00

you've got a picture of a face

36:02

and then the RSibo message

36:06

that was sent out as a way to

36:08

unpack human language by

36:10

some bloke who was also pictured in that spectrographic

36:13

image. Once that's unpacked, you

36:16

get a Cypher from that Arisebo message

36:18

that allows you to decrypt what

36:21

is essentially dot based binary

36:23

at the very bottom of that image because

36:26

it's referenced by the Arisebo message

36:28

and you unpack that binary and it gives

36:30

you a number. And then you This

36:32

and this was a bit that that made me

36:35

feel like like I I was done. ARGs

36:37

were my life after this point. It

36:39

gives you a number. And you put

36:42

it at the end of every shortened URL

36:45

that he used to send the sound

36:47

files and it sends

36:49

you to what was the result, which is a

36:51

link to the soundtrack. When I'd sent that

36:53

discovery, he then announced it on Twitter

36:55

and it became available for everybody else to

36:58

to access before the game came up. So

37:00

oh, so you unlocked that -- Wow. --

37:02

for everybody. Yeah. Yeah. I had

37:04

to check because I thought my memory might have

37:06

been

37:07

bad, but I've actually got the tweet linked

37:09

here that names me. Was there a was

37:11

there a clue that said if you take those

37:13

numbers and put them at the end of the URLs.

37:16

Was there something that would indicate that, or did you

37:18

have just have to come up with that

37:20

as a possible use? There was no

37:23

indication that that's what you should

37:25

do, but we had a number and it had

37:27

the same number of digits as every

37:29

other number at the end of the shortened

37:31

URL. For every other link

37:33

they'd sent. Okay. You know, there was two links

37:35

in the last email. Having two there

37:37

means that you

37:38

compare the two to the number and you're

37:40

almost like hacking the game apart in

37:42

a sense. Like, you're you're almost looking

37:44

for vulnerabilities or patterns or

37:46

things that they haven't checked or what they might be looking

37:49

for in in every little detail of every little

37:51

thing precisely. And he is

37:53

excellent at a red herring as well. One

37:55

day an email went out. It was just like

37:57

an infrared image of what seemed like

38:00

a body, maybe not.

38:02

It's like red and yellow, I think I

38:04

emailed him directly at some point after I'd

38:06

finished the game. And I said,

38:08

was this anything? And he's like, no.

38:12

And I was oh, god. Okay.

38:15

What is the emotion as

38:17

you're going through that? Because you know that there

38:19

is a game designer out

38:21

there. But I'm wondering if you almost get caught up

38:23

a little bit in the spookiness of it and

38:25

feel like there is something way bigger than

38:28

what niles or niles and a couple

38:30

people put together. There definitely is.

38:32

And if we're talking about

38:34

things like the ghost in the machine,

38:37

I definitely think something like that existed in

38:39

a semblance oversight because

38:42

I believe that Niles was hovering

38:44

over a couple of buttons And

38:46

as we progress through the

38:48

game, he would release updates

38:51

to the game in order to gate our progress

38:53

a little bit. I think that

38:56

manipulating the game through updates meant

38:58

that there were sometimes things that happened that were

39:00

a little bit weird. And

39:02

one of those weird things happened to me. I

39:05

was trying to brute force the game and probably

39:07

outside a time zone as well. That probably wouldn't

39:09

have helped. That was so weird. I'll have to

39:11

send you a link to the But essentially,

39:14

some of the aspects will lead you

39:16

to specific endings to learn more information.

39:19

In a simultaneous oversight. And somehow,

39:22

I'd brute force an ending that

39:24

mashed up a bunch of things together but

39:27

it was really spooky because

39:29

I had those mashed up endings in like

39:31

blurry kind of black and white intermittent

39:34

oversaturated colors. But

39:37

there's also a big head that

39:39

has a big booming voice. And

39:42

all I heard as it was like shifting

39:44

through those different endings, is just

39:49

all the way through the Videogames

39:51

think I emailed Nails about that as well.

39:54

And he said, no, that's

39:56

a bug. We're gonna patch it out in the next

39:58

update. So what I got, I presume

40:01

no one else has ever gotten and

40:03

could very well have been a haunting

40:06

of a semblance of

40:07

oversight. Nice. In that moment,

40:09

you must have thought that you found something wild.

40:11

Right? And then sharing that with people

40:13

in the community. The stories we tell about

40:15

this kind of thing and that community interaction that

40:17

sprung up around it. What was that like? Was it

40:19

a slow trickle of people? Like, And how did the

40:21

community get along? Can you speak on that side

40:23

of it,

40:24

especially as the organizer? Yeah, absolutely.

40:26

It started slow. As

40:28

I said before, symbol wasn't hasn't

40:30

been the most popular game in the world,

40:33

even though I take as many opportunities

40:35

as I can to to talk about it and bring

40:37

it to people's attention because it needs that attention.

40:40

But there was probably even over the three

40:42

weeks, there was probably a core group

40:44

that was there all the time, maybe

40:47

nine to ten people, and some of

40:49

them were just people

40:51

playing the game, but it was slow.

40:53

There was a few people that were trickling in. And the more

40:55

people that we got in the more opportunities

40:58

for answers as well. So there was

41:00

never any gatekeeping there. It was always

41:02

welcoming whoever there was that wanted

41:04

to join. We couldn't have had more than

41:07

maybe thirty or forty people in the Discord

41:09

at that stage. But over time, that

41:11

has changed because there was

41:13

an assembled slabs So I've

41:15

read it actually. And

41:18

I posted the Discord link to that and I posted

41:20

it on Twitter so that people can join

41:22

and so there's form of discovery

41:24

outside discord itself for people

41:26

to seek information. And

41:28

as you can imagine, there's precious little information

41:31

out there about the game because

41:33

Niles would prefer it to be a

41:36

fresh experience for anyone who joins.

41:38

Yeah. How much of the success

41:40

in quote unquote solving it

41:43

is dependent on a community

41:45

aspect. I

41:46

mean, could one person who's super dedicated

41:49

pull it off? Look always. We're

41:52

talking about, you know, multi

41:54

universal kind of right thinking

41:56

there, like yeah. Practically, probably

41:59

not And I think

42:01

NILE saw that with assemblants

42:04

too and through the updates in

42:06

barring certain progress. Did

42:09

stop someone who had an IQ

42:11

of nine ninety nine and was just, you

42:13

know, tearing through everything, wouldn't

42:15

be able to spoil it for everyone else. So

42:17

think That's why I think this community

42:19

experience is really special that we had in that

42:21

discord because he was

42:24

very hands off with it. But he potentially

42:26

was curating an experience for

42:29

those people involved in those three weeks.

42:31

It really did take all of us to

42:34

contribute to the ounces that we needed.

42:36

And that's why this ARG

42:39

is really important to me because

42:41

not only did it take a village to solve this

42:43

thing, but the people that were involved

42:45

in three weeks, I think it probably

42:47

was, those three weeks where we were diligently

42:50

trying to solve all this stuff. That three

42:52

week period of time is a

42:54

memory for the people who involved

42:57

at the

42:57

time. Anyone trying to pick up the game

42:59

now it won't be the same for

43:01

or it won't be the same as it was for us anyway.

43:03

What do you think is more impactful or

43:05

was more impactful or

43:07

meaningful? Was it the sense of community

43:10

formed with the people? Or was it really the

43:12

game's puzzles? Is the community bigger than

43:14

the game? Is the game bigger than the community for

43:16

you? Personally, like where is that

43:17

balance? I think my answer has to

43:20

be the the combination of the

43:22

two. Like as a as a community,

43:24

It hasn't really had chance to be the same

43:27

as it was because assemblants two

43:29

came out, the Discord came together,

43:32

We solved everything, but that community

43:34

hasn't really come together again.

43:37

But the way that this game has brought

43:39

my mind into a state that

43:41

searches for detail and

43:43

to make inferences about

43:46

that detail into a broader picture I

43:48

think is the most valuable part

43:50

for me. To my

43:52

detriment sometimes, like, I will waste

43:55

whole swathes of time because

43:57

of the components that we're in a sense once too

44:00

that lead me to understand how

44:02

ARGs work and how people

44:04

can like manipulate information

44:06

and bring us more stuff. From a cybersecurity

44:09

perspective, it's great because you get

44:11

an email and you scrutinize every single

44:13

aspect of that. And all of a sudden,

44:15

your lake is completely empty because they cannot

44:18

fish for anything. But

44:20

the other part of that is that You'll

44:23

dive down rabbit holes that mean

44:25

absolutely nothing. And the

44:27

perfect encapsulation of this is

44:30

Last night, I did a quick search

44:32

as I usually do because I did spend

44:34

a lot of time trying to rip apart

44:36

assembly labs dot com. So

44:38

assemblants labs as a domain

44:41

has lapsed. I presume Niles

44:43

doesn't want to keep it anymore, but

44:45

it now has on a domain register

44:47

a review of I I don't

44:49

even know what it is. Here it is, a a reading of

44:52

the first couple of sentences. Assemblagelabs

44:54

dot com, updated twenty six days ago

44:57

from Spoon River Valley Scenic Drive,

44:59

PO Box, blah blah. I

45:01

did not know how many of you have had mom and

45:03

dad's Apple pie, but it's amazing. As

45:06

a Christmas present for your grandchildren a few years

45:08

ago, we made an image of them making the pie.

45:10

I set up our kids lighting and clicked along

45:13

as they worked and talked away. I loved

45:15

every minute of making this, and we had

45:17

our kids cherish the final image too.

45:20

Okay. It gives you gives you some

45:22

information. It doesn't tell you enough about

45:25

what's actually going on, but

45:27

you search for a bit more information and

45:29

The general contact is

45:32

for arnett acres dot com,

45:34

which then takes you to an HTML based

45:38

website, which look like it was built

45:40

in two thousand and four, and

45:43

just has a bunch of random activities

45:45

and images and not even link to the Facebook

45:47

page. Now I have to think about

45:49

Arnaud's acres for the next

45:52

two years waiting for a simple answer. Right.

45:54

I'm wondering if this is going to be important

45:56

or not. So that's

45:58

what I mean by destroying my brain. Like,

46:01

I look for stuff and I find things,

46:03

but whether it's relevant or not, I

46:05

I don't

46:06

know. I fully expected Niles

46:08

to have said that he carefully planned

46:10

and engineered the level of difficulty in

46:12

all of this. And then to hear him say, I wasn't

46:15

really sure if this would work at all or not.

46:17

We just put it in. Was

46:19

definitely a surprise to me because I would imagine

46:21

crafting a game like

46:22

this, crafting an ARG experience seems

46:24

like an extreme exercise in

46:26

game design. But I

46:27

think that's why it was so good as well

46:29

because it tells me that

46:31

if he was very last minute with it, that

46:34

he was there. He was looking at what was

46:36

happening and trying to figure

46:38

out which bits to should go

46:40

where. And whether that grew while

46:43

we were playing aspect of that ARG

46:46

or whether it was maybe a little bit before,

46:48

I don't know, that that

46:51

kind of touch is important, whereas

46:53

a lot of people would think about how to

46:56

automate it how to make sure

46:58

it persists across time, but

47:01

Niles, I don't think, was too concerned

47:03

about that either from what I can gather

47:05

because Instagram could get

47:07

bought by TikTok and then disappear

47:10

the following day. And all of a sudden, there's

47:12

whole components of this game as well that disappear

47:14

or the website domain lapses and

47:17

goes

47:17

away. Or that's part of the ARG

47:19

with the Apple pie review, and no one

47:21

will now, don't do this to me.

47:24

III don't need it.

47:26

Yeah. Everything is intentional.

47:29

Everything means something. Hey, listen. This

47:31

is getting weird. You're making this whole

47:34

thing weird. Can you too

47:36

please stop doing this. Thanks. And

47:38

Matthew, Yeah. Oh. Oh. You gotta pay for

47:40

this. Sorry. Or are you three trying to bore

47:42

me to death so he can sneak off

47:45

with it?

47:45

Sorry. Here's here you go. Thanks.

47:47

Great. Cool.

47:49

See you guys later. See you, Matthew. Later, Matt.

47:52

See you. You do buy in anything

47:54

else. I'm locking this place down in

47:56

thirty seconds whether you're in here

47:58

or

47:59

not. No. I'm I'm good. I'm just gonna

48:01

pick up

48:01

that thing I called about a couple days ago. Right.

48:04

You're already paid up. It's a fun, a little

48:06

nook. Cool. What? Thank you.

48:09

Tell your old man I said, hey.

48:10

Yep. Sure thing, Todd. I'll let him

48:12

know. Well,

48:15

that was interesting.

48:17

Yeah. See, pawn shops can be cool.

48:19

You never know what you're gonna find keep your eyes open.

48:21

I mean, the odds of running into an

48:23

ARG developer and then, like, one

48:26

of the major players in the community around solving

48:28

it. That's that is actually pretty

48:30

cool. And also, Sarah and Brittany

48:32

from the Carter Hall

48:33

School, you know, I actually think

48:35

they hit the nail on the head when they talked about

48:37

full groups. Right. And even though

48:39

a published game or a story inherently has

48:41

its own centralized cannon, people

48:44

still form groups around it and

48:46

they create and share their own stories and legends

48:48

inside the scope of that world. And

48:50

that's You know, things like

48:52

fan ARGs, and memes, and music remixes,

48:55

and TikTok videos, or even

48:57

tattoos, they can all be forms

48:59

of folkoric expression Yeah.

49:03

Hey. Not to be

49:05

nosy, but what did

49:07

you

49:07

buy? This seems a

49:09

bit sketchy. Oh,

49:10

no. No. It's not sketchy at all. Actually, you're gonna love

49:12

this. Hold on

49:13

one second. I'll grab this. Okay. Boom.

49:23

Amazing. Right? Bicycle.

49:26

Yeah, dude. Absolutely. ARGs too,

49:29

is it like special

49:33

or something? It is wicked

49:35

special, actually. Okay.

49:39

It's blue. Okay.

49:42

I like it. What makes

49:44

it special? It's special to me.

49:47

I mean, no. That's cool. I'm not

49:49

trying to rain on your freaking parade

49:51

or

49:51

anything. I was just expecting something

49:54

I don't know. Different.

49:57

It is also responsible for the deaths

49:59

of more than eight hundred people.

50:01

There we go.

50:02

No, dude. Yeah. I

50:03

don't know. It's just a bike. It's I like

50:05

it. It's

50:05

mine now and that makes it special.

50:08

This supposed to be some kind of metaphor.

50:11

You're really in that mindset.

50:13

No. Just a bike. I bought a

50:15

bike at a pawn shop because I'm

50:17

an adult. No. And I can do that. No.

50:19

I know you. You're up to something.

50:21

You even phoned ahead days

50:23

ago, but then you wait until

50:25

we're both here to pick it up. Yeah. I'm gonna spoil this

50:27

puzzle for you, Perry. Straight up. Forgot to

50:29

come and get it until you texted me today,

50:31

and that's why I suggested we need here. Yeah.

50:34

Believable. Yeah. Not so much as

50:36

ADHD. But it's worth

50:38

it. Well, I guess it worked out. We got some

50:40

good conversations in. I think we got

50:42

some fodder for some other episodes, and

50:45

we met some cool people. Hey.

50:49

Sorry. Do you think this is do you think this will fit

50:51

in your trunk? I kinda didn't think

50:53

about how it gets dark so early now.

50:55

Of course.

50:56

Oh, uh-oh. Hey, did you leave a light on?

50:59

Yeah. Is there like a light in your or something.

51:01

It's like

51:01

Yeah. Wait. Maybe I left it. I don't

51:03

think. Let me Wait. That

51:05

told you to keep your eyes

51:07

open. You never know what you like

51:09

to suffer. Looks

51:20

like Perry and Mason may

51:22

be unavailable.

51:25

Let me take a whack at this end

51:27

credits did I founded Mason's

51:30

backpacks surrounded by

51:32

off brand snack wrappers and

51:34

something labeled raccoon

51:37

traits. Okay.

51:41

Thanks for listening to digital

51:43

folklore. If you enjoy avoid this episode.

51:46

The best way you can help us out is to

51:48

tell a friend or a friend of a friend

51:50

or a complete stranger. You can also

51:52

leave a rating or review on Spotify

51:55

or Apple Podcasts. Thank you

51:57

to Brook Jeanette, who you heard in

51:59

the opening story. Brook is part

52:01

of the podcast thirteen. Which

52:04

is a monthly anthology podcast

52:06

featuring atmospheric, slow burn,

52:08

spooky stories that will make you smile.

52:10

Break your heart and have you wishing

52:12

for a night light. You can find a link in

52:14

the show notes of this episode, and

52:16

thank you to Rich Dayl, aka

52:19

Maltholmeite for his performance as

52:21

the prolific west and sinister

52:23

voice of Todd. Expect

52:25

to hear more from Todd in future

52:28

episodes. And of course,

52:30

a huge thank you to our interview

52:32

guests this episode, including

52:34

doctor Sarah Clito and doctor

52:36

Britney Worman from MacArthur Hall

52:39

School Folklore and the Fantastic

52:41

Sarah and Britney are award winning

52:44

folklorists and have such

52:46

a deep breath of knowledge. You'll hear

52:48

more from them in an episode coming

52:50

soon. Thank you to Nile Sankey

52:53

of Nile studios. Nile

52:55

is an interactive experienced designer

52:57

in the gaming industry since nineteen

52:59

ninety nine with a lot of projects

53:01

under his belt. You can play the game

53:03

mentioned in this episode a

53:05

semblance on Playstation Xbox

53:08

team or the Nintendo Switch right

53:10

now. And thanks to Matthew

53:12

Bliss, avid ARG solver

53:15

and host of the Dead Drop Podcast.

53:17

It's a ten minute Twice weekly

53:19

podcast featuring video game news

53:21

analysis and industry insights.

53:24

As always, check the show notes

53:26

for links and more details. Digital

53:29

folklore is a production of eight player

53:31

media, which is really just Perry Carpenter

53:34

and Mason Amadez doing the

53:36

best they can to learn everything about the

53:38

fascinating world of floor and bring

53:40

it to you in an interesting fun and

53:42

accessible way. Folklore

53:45

dot f

54:12

Greetings, Adventures. Today, we're excited

54:15

to introduce you to a new story. Dark

54:17

Dice, a horror podcast that

54:19

blurs the line between actual play audio

54:22

drum, where the story is determined by

54:24

the role of the dice. Six adventurers

54:26

embark on a journey into the ruinous domain of

54:28

the Nameless God. They will never

54:30

be the same again. One of the players

54:32

is now what they've seen after a double