I still have to come up with a good title..

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“..Update, Six!“

Well, the timer on MissionIceFly reached 0! Since that moment, a new stage of the ARG got unlocked, MissionIceFly/rescue.

This page contained a video, initially obfuscated, that became clearer (at least visually and sonically) once iceflies were retrieved in the previously mentioned locations.

The retrieved iceflies blinked for some time, in a sequence identified as Morse code. Unfortunately only few people seemed to be able to write down the sequence, and I haven’t come across yet to anybody having translated the complete message. Those who got part of the message seem to agree on the “.COM” end of it, which suggests we are dealing with a URL (probably “survivalcode.com“). This URL in fact appeared also in the video for a couple of frames, once all the iceflies were retrieved.

SurvivalCode.com prepares the next stage of the game. A video gives more texture to the whole experience, and characters become more defined.

You are then redirected to a small flash movie that sees you approaching the entrance of a facility. You are not granted access to this building yet, as a timer counts down to the moment in which I guess the door will open. Reaching this point unlocks a set of log files in your profile page, in the form of pieces of concept art.

Another interesting detail: In the profile page there’s an image that seem to be a QR code. I initially tried to decode it, unsuccessfully.

The structure of the page makes me believe that we are dealing with only a section of the code itself, which will be unveiled later in the experience. What we are seeing now is only 1/9th of the code, hence the fact that we can’t decode it yet. Moreover, this fragment of the code seem to be the same for all users.

If you are not already, you should definitely follow the #missionicefly hashtag. Quite a lot of updates in there!

UPDATE:

..as @eolith pointed out, one of the log files mentions the “Traelek Institute“, which happens to own a site. On the footer of its homepage we can find a phone number, which he suggests to call.

Also three other valid subdirectories were found (even if I don’t know exactly how):

• http://traelekinstitute.com/misguided/
• http://traelekinstitute.com/ascent/
• http://www.traelekinstitute.com/blameless/

..and a new one I just found googling “site:traelekinstitute.com”..

• http://www.traelekinstitute.com/decoy/

This is definitely a legit lead.

UPDATE 2:

Here the transcription of the prerecorded message that met those who called the above mentioned number:

source

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..Remember Reach?

Here we go again! While Halo 4 is still being developed, a new prerelease marketing campaign seems to be in its very infant stage.

Reports from multiple sources seem to associate a new mysterious site (called TestSubjectNeeded) to the creators of ILoveBees, the great Alternate Reality Game campaign that served as viral marketing for the release of Halo 2. If you don’t know what I’m talking about, this will give you a clue.

Anyway, on TestSubjectsNeeded you are asked to volunteer for “unconventional experiments” at the Human Preservation Project. Hints about sensory enhancement make me think about the Spartan augmentation programs, but we will see what is this all about..!

But participating to this initial evaluation test will not allow you to get to know about the mission of the Human Preservation Project. I guess it’s one of those “you will be hearing from us” internship application thingies..

After the test you are encouraged to create a badge representing your “cognitive landscape”, and to register in order to submit it to the system.

Another interesting detail consists in the fact that if you click on that bug logo on the top-left of the screen you will be redirected to MissionIcefly, a different site providing a countdown, a list of cities and the promise that when the count will be over, volunteers will be asked to follow “a signal” in one of those cities listed.

A clickable box links to this video, whatever its meaning might be:

In conclusion, what do we have?

No idea. I guess the Human Preservation Project is related to Dr Hasley’s SPARTAN-2 biological augmentation program, but more than that, no clue!

I’m looking forward to see what’s gonna happen 23 hours from now, when the countdown will reach 0..

Read more at:

• DeviceMag.com: New Alternate Reality Game Halo 4 Related?
• GameSetWatch.com: Halo 4 Prompts ILoveBees Part 2
• StrategyInformer.com: Human Preservation Project = I Love Bees 2.0?

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..Priceless!

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..Taking out a hog crew with style!

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The best way to celebrate the handing in of a school paper..!

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Every day is potentially a coding day! ..But today there was a South Park marathon on tv, so some sofa coding in da kitchenz was a must.
Perfect occasion to start checking out the Halo Reach API, which allows developers to retrieve information about games and players from the Halo universe.
So yea, just for knowledge sharing sake, here a couple of links that supported me in the creation of that small dynamic banner in the sidebar, which automatically loads my current armor and rank using the Bungie.NET API.

First of all, HaloReachAPI.net has a great crash course, which will get you up and running in no time. It also contains what seemed to me to be the most detailed documentation out there.

In order to access the API you will need a valid API key. This key is unique, and can be easily obtained by any Bungie Pro subscriber registered on the Bungie.net forum. You can then use the key to make calls to the API, and juggling with the available methods you will eventually find out a way to obtain the info you were looking for.
In my case I needed the following two things:

• Armor picture. Every player in the Halo universe can customize its armor. Ranking up grants access to unlockable equipment, keeping players constantly on the run to Inheritor. I will never reach that rank, but I do love the idea of a customizable armor, and it is very perceivable how this adds incredibly to the identity of an otherwise anonymous model. Your armor becomes your face, and sometimes even recognizing the helmet of that “MLG Pr0 Snip3z” guy entering a room can infuse terror on the lines of bootcamp-fresh noobs. Lol!
• Rank. Everyone loves outranking members of the adversary team ! Prematch lobby psychological warfare i guess.. Some people fights for them, some farm them, and others eventually get them. I’m in the first and third category. So yea, pretty proud of my Brigadier badge..

Allright, here how to obtain that info in PHP! First of all you’l need to make a call to the API:

$apiKey = ‘ultraSecretAPIKey‘;
$playerGamertag = ‘an evil morlok‘;
$url = ‘http://www.bungie.net/api/reach/reachapijson.svc/player/details/nostats/‘ . rawurlencode($apiKey) . ‘/’ . rawurlencode($playerGamertag);

Remember to substitute apiKey with your actual (secret) API key, and playerGamertag with the player whose info you’re trying to retrieve. According to the method that you are trying to call, the url will look slightly different. In this case I’m executing the GetPlayerDetailsWithNoStats method, which requires such a structure.

$output = file_get_contents($url);
$obj = json_decode($output);
if(!is_object($obj)) die(”Error parsing JSON response\n”);
if(!$obj->Player) die(”Player not found…”);

Here we execute the query to the API, convert it into a PHP object and validate it. If everything succeeds obj will contain whatever the method we called returned us.
And there you have it! You can finally very easily interact with the obj object and retrieve all the fields contained in it. In our case:

• Armor: printf(”<img src=\”http://bungie.net%s\” />”, $obj->PlayerModelUrl);
• Rank: printf(”<img src=\”http://www.bungie.net/images/reachStats/grades/med/%s.png\” />”,$obj->CurrentRankIndex);

..Enjoy!

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Have you ever experienced physical fear to move away from the corner you’re crouching into?

I just did. For the longest 7 minutes of ..ehm.. my life.

A carnage. A disaster. Totally in the hands of the adversary team, whose players were at least so decent not to teabag their waiting-to-respawn prey.

Well, this post marks my first week of playing Halo Reach.

Great single player campaign, lovely moments (often related to a great soundtrack!), and really powerful storytelling to keep all the action tied up.

There were a bit of wtf moments, some unclear passages, and I totally did not get what happened to one of the spartans of the Noble team, at the end of the game.. Reason more to replay it, increasing the difficulty level.

Well, this actually brings up some interesting things. In this game, increasing the difficulty level does not mean more adversaries less vulnerable to bullets. The harder the level, the more aggressive the AI gets. Flanking maneuvers, grenade trajectories that know where you will go even before you decide to do so and much much more.

As I read in an other article, I totally agree with the statement that playing this Halo at higher difficulties will make a better player out of you.

And then the multiplayer experience. How the fuck didn’t I discover it before?

It’s a whole game by itself. It adds an enormous value to the package.

I was initially very skeptical.. I thought I would have been the classic noob, getting shot by everybody at any moment, constantly respawning and making my team loose. But no, the interesting thing is that the story went much differently.

The system has a really good way to organize balanced matches between players of similar skill.

Even if in the beginning I often ended up just trying to survive more than an average 14 seconds, with time and practice the game got much more interesting, and balanced. If you have Halo, or any other game offering the multiplayer experience, I really suggest you to give it a shot!

Here the link to my service record! http://www.bungie.net/Stats/Reach/Default.aspx?player=baroquenroll

And so.. was it worthy the money and the anticipation? Hell yea, without a doubt!

Quoting a guy from Bungie: “Two men enter. The better man leaves. The lesser man is respawning. And that’s Halo.”

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Remember Reach, this is the name of the campaign that will market the release of the latest Bungie’s game, Halo Reach.

In the past I read about “I Love Bees“, an award winning viral marketing campaign and Alternate Reality Game that promoted the release of Halo 2.
I was expecting something big, some really cool idea. I am not disappointed.

I found the site of the campaign querying Google for “remember reach”. It was a bit of subconscious: That is the last sentence of one of the trailers previously posted, and I wasn’t expecting to come across anything particularly new.
First result, rememberreach.org. Not the original Halo Reach pages from the developers, pages that I visited days ago. It doesn’t even show up in the first page of result when trying to Google “Halo Reach”.
So yea, curious site. A funny robot arm, 5 Halo characters represented as dotted silhouettes, a couple of trailers.
And then this mysterious ”Add your point of light” button, unusable for those not having a Facebook account (like me! wohoo!).

Ok, it took me some time to realize it, but practically by pressing that button you log into Facebook and then you are given the possibility to add your “point of light” to the main picture.
I guess that initially that picture was blank, with only the five luminous sparks marking the navigation across the different characters biographies.
Click after click, facebook login after facebook login (I guess there must be some viral element in there), the points of light begin to mark a recognizable shape, a distinguishable silhouette, that of a monument to the Noble Team, the main characters of the game.

I love the idea that every user contribution helps creating this collective experience, developed in a way that can be witnessed live.
A simple but monumental idea, that will for sure be talked about by core gamers and not.

The “points of light” in fact are positioned by a robotic arm, which seems to be (for what I read on dedicated forums) displayed via a live feed of an actual robot, that is probably piloted by the coordinates chosen by each user when placing their points.
Quoting a post that I read afterwards, “the monument IS literally being constructed by us, the users“.

I find this campaign really thrilling (i was ecstatic when I found out about the “points of light” collective experience) and I encourage you to visit the site to discover the rest of the goodies, and see them in action..!
Here the link to the site of the Remember Reach campaign.

Read more:

• Halo Reach

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I just read an article on DigitalBuzzBlog.com about this advergame, and even if initially I was a bit skeptical about it, I’ll have to agree with the authors of that article: This is a real interesting game, for a number of reasons.

First of all, here what we are talking about..

56 Sage Street is an advergame developed for Barclays Bank.

It’s main goal is to improve teenagers’ understanding of banking and educate them about direct debits, loans, statements, fraud avoidance and general money management.

The game itself is a mixture between the money management aspects of Sim City, and a rich storytelling layer that reminds of a Grand Theft Auto kinda thing. Read the rest of this entry »

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