Alternate Reality Games as Simulations

In two different locations across the city from one another, Joshua and Samantha open a website that they receive by e-mail from an anonymous source. The text of the site appears to be for a small company called Patton Industries. Each player opens an instant messenger client, finding the other’s icon glowing quietly. “How do we proceed?” Joshua types, his question flickering on-screen. “Revelation Strategy Two,” Samantha replies. “Sometimes, the link only shows itself when highlighted.” Running the cursor across the screen and holding the left mouse button, a blue highlight shadows the text until a blurry hyperlink appears. They click a barely visible word that glows in the corner of the website and a video begins to play that shows a dark forest, filled with pine trees. After a few seconds, it ends suddenly with a series of letters and numbers. They replay the video a few times, typing their thoughts back and forth to one another across the digital ether until they slow the last few frames down to half speed. A pale white, recognizable face reveals itself for aBsTracT

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