Speaker 1: Brought to you by the two thousand twelve Toyota Camera.
Speaker 1: Get in touch with technology with tech Stuff from how
Speaker 1: stuff What dot com. Hello everyone, and welcome to tech stuff.
Speaker 1: My name is Chris Poett, and I am an editor
Speaker 1: at how Stuff works dot com. Sitting across from me
Speaker 1: as usual as the person who augments all of our
Speaker 1: reality Senior writer Jonathan Strickland. Hey, they're nicely done. So
Speaker 1: yeah they we want to talk about an alternate reality
Speaker 1: game and a r G that uses augmented reality as well.
Speaker 1: It comes to us courtesy of a little company called
Speaker 1: Google and the like. Yeah. They they've made a name
Speaker 1: for themselves in a few things. But yeah, they've created
Speaker 1: this game through a division called Neantic Labs, um and
Speaker 1: it's called Ingress, and it's interesting alternate reality game. But
Speaker 1: before we really get into the game itself, maybe we
Speaker 1: should talk and refresh our listeners memories about what an
Speaker 1: alternate reality game is. Now, we've done an episode about
Speaker 1: alternate reality games, but that was back in two thousand
Speaker 1: nine when we were both so young and idealistic. Sorry,
Speaker 1: um yeah, yeah, so yeah, the differences and augmented and
Speaker 1: alternate realities are in some ways kind of slight, especially now,
Speaker 1: especially now. Um. An alternate reality is is one that
Speaker 1: is I would argue, very similar to ours, um, but
Speaker 1: there are significant differences. Um. You know, you might have
Speaker 1: I think of that sort of in the in my head.
Speaker 1: This is sort of goes to the genre of alternate histories. UM.
Speaker 1: For example, The Man in the High Castle by Philip K. Dick,
Speaker 1: in which the Axis won World War Two? What would
Speaker 1: the world be like? Um? You know, the countries are
Speaker 1: still there, the the nationalities that that were familiar with,
Speaker 1: but things have changed substantially. That that's that's how I
Speaker 1: kind of get into that idea or the mindset that
Speaker 1: it sort of takes, because it could be something as
Speaker 1: simple as um. You know, there are a lot of
Speaker 1: what ifs there. You know, what if a different person
Speaker 1: had won the election, or what if a person hadn't
Speaker 1: been uh uh, had had gone to one university instead
Speaker 1: of another, what if? What if Lincoln had not been assassinated?
Speaker 1: What if? Yeah, there are a lot of what if
Speaker 1: type things. Alternate reality games in general, what they do
Speaker 1: is they use the they used the stuff around us
Speaker 1: in the real world as part of a game that
Speaker 1: is fictional. So you've got a fictional story taking place
Speaker 1: within the context of the real world. Now, in some cases,
Speaker 1: the fictional story assumes that the players themselves are part
Speaker 1: of this fictional world. So you're playing a part, you're
Speaker 1: not really you because UM. One of the two to
Speaker 1: the games I always think of out when I think
Speaker 1: of alternate reality games are two of the big, big
Speaker 1: early examples. One was called The Beast, and that was
Speaker 1: the game that was partly a marketing um push for
Speaker 1: the movie AI Artificial Intelligence, uh, the Spielberg Kubrick film
Speaker 1: that that came out several years ago. Well, there was
Speaker 1: this this game that came out with it called The
Speaker 1: Beast that had a storyline that was uh tangential to
Speaker 1: the story that takes place in AI. Some of the
Speaker 1: characters play a part a little bit within the realm
Speaker 1: of the game, and players were solving mysteries and trying
Speaker 1: to help fictional characters achieve goals within the context of
Speaker 1: the game. And they were all doing it in real
Speaker 1: time with real assets. So you might get a phone
Speaker 1: call in the middle of the night from a character
Speaker 1: in this game, or you might get a facts or
Speaker 1: an email or a file of some sort, and you
Speaker 1: were supposed to act on it in a real way
Speaker 1: to push the game forward. The other one that I
Speaker 1: always think about is called I Love Bees, which was
Speaker 1: part of the Halo universe, and it was again another
Speaker 1: marketing attempt to push Halo, but it it took a
Speaker 1: life of its own and became a game that people
Speaker 1: who had never intended to ever play any Halo game
Speaker 1: became and you know, absolutely fascinated with this game. And
Speaker 1: again lots of different puzzles and uh things that you
Speaker 1: need to achieve. Often we will see these sort of
Speaker 1: games come up as part of a marketing campaign. A
Speaker 1: lot of movies have done this. I remember when The
Speaker 1: Dark Knight came out, there was one that was related
Speaker 1: to The Joker, and I remember getting very very upset
Speaker 1: because I I uncovered one of the clues and discovered
Speaker 1: exactly where I would need to go within Atlanta to
Speaker 1: get it. But I found out about forty minutes too late,
Speaker 1: and by the time I would have been able to
Speaker 1: get to the location, it had already been discovered. And
Speaker 1: I didn't get my Joker custom bowling ball because it
Speaker 1: was at a bowling alley. I was, oh, man, can
Speaker 1: you imagine a custom Joker bowling ball. Okay, that's pretty neat.
Speaker 1: That's pretty cool. So this is this is along those lines,
Speaker 1: but it also adds in the augmented reality angle, where uh,
Speaker 1: a large part of the participation with this game is
Speaker 1: going to depend upon people using devices, primarily smartphones. It's
Speaker 1: really meant for smartphones to interact with their environment in
Speaker 1: order to uh to push the game forward. Yeah, we've
Speaker 1: we've talked about both alternate reality games and UM augmented
Speaker 1: reality software in the past. UM Augmented reality is sort
Speaker 1: of like the heads up display that you would see
Speaker 1: in a fighter jet. UM. It's a layer of information
Speaker 1: that that a device will provide for you. It could
Speaker 1: be a tablet or UM, you know, a smartphone something
Speaker 1: like that, generally that you would carry with you. And
Speaker 1: so if you were looking through a an augmented reality
Speaker 1: divice I says, you walk down the street, you might
Speaker 1: see information about uh the businesses on the street around you,
Speaker 1: or for example, you might see a special going on
Speaker 1: at a cafe or um, you might find out where
Speaker 1: the cleanest bathroom is on the street. Don't laugh, there
Speaker 1: are people who who provide this information. UM, I am
Speaker 1: not laughing. I'm downloading apps. Yeah, I was gonna say, um,
Speaker 1: And as a matter of fact, uh Neontic Labs has
Speaker 1: has already come out with a sort of augmented reality
Speaker 1: app UM that I have on my on my Android
Speaker 1: phone called field trip UM. Now on this particular in
Speaker 1: this particular case, you are not looking at the screen
Speaker 1: on the smartphone to see what the camera sees beyond
Speaker 1: having a layer of information superimposed on that, which is
Speaker 1: a good way to walk into obstacles that are not
Speaker 1: covered in your screen. By the way, avoid that UM
Speaker 1: actually pops up little cards I've seen them called as
Speaker 1: as you will happen to be near by something. It
Speaker 1: uses the GPS UM in your smartphone or I assume
Speaker 1: tablet uh Android tablet. That again, field trip is one
Speaker 1: of those those apps that's it's optimized for smartphones. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it tells you right there on the app like it's
Speaker 1: it's intended for smartphones that will run on tablets, but
Speaker 1: it's intended for smartphones well generally, because it's it's using
Speaker 1: the GPS and your communications network to identify where you
Speaker 1: are and give you information about stuff, and you can
Speaker 1: control how much of that information you see. You might
Speaker 1: watch what type of information. Yeah, there there are lots
Speaker 1: and lots of sources, um, different restaurant review sites, um,
Speaker 1: places of interest, historical points of interest, those kinds of things.
Speaker 1: That's what I have turned on on mine. So it's
Speaker 1: it's kind of fun too to be driving around in
Speaker 1: Atlanta and have a little alert come up and say, hey,
Speaker 1: you're near uh you know, of course here in Atlanta,
Speaker 1: we've had so of war battles. Sure, and they'll tell
Speaker 1: you points of interest just down the road. Here is
Speaker 1: where so and so, uh you know ran, you know
Speaker 1: in in conflict and they set up camp just down
Speaker 1: the street. It's interesting, It's no, it's really cool that
Speaker 1: it gives you that that extra information about the world
Speaker 1: you are in. And I love that idea. I mean,
Speaker 1: I've and this is one of those things that you
Speaker 1: can kind of see playing a larger role with Google
Speaker 1: other Google projects, mainly Project Glass. Yes, the idea of
Speaker 1: wandering around your world and getting information about your world
Speaker 1: that you would you know that that that's accessible, but
Speaker 1: you would have to look for it otherwise. But now
Speaker 1: it's just coming up. So if you are interested in
Speaker 1: things like history and you are visiting a city or
Speaker 1: even just walking around your own city, you may end
Speaker 1: up learning things about your the place you're in that
Speaker 1: you never would have known before. And uh, and it
Speaker 1: it really does try to bridge that gap between the
Speaker 1: digital world and the physical world, which is something I've
Speaker 1: always been interested in. And as augmented reality applications become
Speaker 1: more prevalent, it's becoming it's becoming a real I mean,
Speaker 1: this is something that we can do right now. UM,
Speaker 1: go ahead, I'm sorry, I just wanted to mention exactly
Speaker 1: what project glasses um, you know, because we didn't really
Speaker 1: talk about that. Uh that's UM, it's still sort of
Speaker 1: an experimental product I would consider, you know, or or
Speaker 1: really cutting edge. It's it's on the verge of being produced,
Speaker 1: but only in limited quantities because it's sort of a
Speaker 1: first generation thing or zero point eight generation. Um. And
Speaker 1: that's a a project that Google has been working on.
Speaker 1: UM that it's it's not. It uses a frame, uh
Speaker 1: glasses frame and a small piece of glass that UM,
Speaker 1: a user would be able to see augmented reality information
Speaker 1: on the kind of thing that you would currently use
Speaker 1: by looking at your smartphone. But um, you know, it
Speaker 1: would tell you where places are around you. It would
Speaker 1: be able to make phone calls and um uh you
Speaker 1: know record video. As a matter of fact, that's how
Speaker 1: they unveiled it. They had somebody wearing a project glass
Speaker 1: um set of glasses and walking through and you could
Speaker 1: see what they were seeing as they were they were
Speaker 1: walking through and they I think somebody skydived, didn't they. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that was at the Google i Oh event. They had
Speaker 1: a team of skydivers who who wore the the glasses
Speaker 1: as they were skydiving and then handed them off to uh,
Speaker 1: some some stunt bicyclists who then handed off to some
Speaker 1: folks who repelled down the side of the building, who
Speaker 1: then handed it off to more bicyclists who then biked
Speaker 1: the pair of glasses up to the stage to serage
Speaker 1: brand as I recall, and yeah it was. It was.
Speaker 1: It was a big spectacle and it really spectacle. Oh man,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna hit you. And anyway, the yeah it was.
Speaker 1: It was an interesting demonstration of the of the technology. Well, anyway,
Speaker 1: all of this kind of leads up to Ingress. So
Speaker 1: Ingress is coming for that same group within Google Niantic Labs,
Speaker 1: which is you know that they are kind of a
Speaker 1: R and D group in a way, and the game
Speaker 1: it has several different elements to it, and we can
Speaker 1: only speak in fairly vague terms because neither Chris nor
Speaker 1: I are part of this game yet. We it's as
Speaker 1: of the recording this podcast, it's in beta and we
Speaker 1: are not in the beta testing yet. We have both
Speaker 1: applied for it, yes, so we're hoping to have that
Speaker 1: change soon, but as we're recording this, we do not
Speaker 1: have access to it. It's been again, as they'll recording
Speaker 1: this podcast, active for about fifteen days. Yeah, yeah, and
Speaker 1: I think it really wasn't wasn't really well known until
Speaker 1: probably as of the date we're recording is probably only
Speaker 1: a couple or or three days. I didn't see anything
Speaker 1: in the media about it until a day or two
Speaker 1: before we recorded this podcast. Like a lot of alternate
Speaker 1: reality games, Google started to see every the world with
Speaker 1: hints of the game from months ago, but they're now
Speaker 1: just starting to coalesce into something we can talk about now.
Speaker 1: Some of the seeds started off over at comic Con.
Speaker 1: At San Diego Comic Con, there was a person who
Speaker 1: was taking on the role of a character named Tycho,
Speaker 1: and Tycho is an artist in this uh the world
Speaker 1: that has been created for Ingress, and I guess we
Speaker 1: can kind of give a little bit of an overview.
Speaker 1: If you were to go to Google Play, which is
Speaker 1: where their store is, and to try and download the
Speaker 1: Ingress Android app, you would see this description. Ingrish transforms
Speaker 1: the real world into the landscape for a global game
Speaker 1: of mystery, intrigue, and competition. Our future is at stake,
Speaker 1: and you must choose a side. A mysterious energy has
Speaker 1: been unearthed by a team of scientists in Europe. The
Speaker 1: origin and purpose of this force is unknown, but some
Speaker 1: researchers believe it is influencing the way we think. We
Speaker 1: must control it or it will control us. The Enlightened
Speaker 1: seek to embrace the power that this energy may bestow
Speaker 1: upon us. The Resistance struggle to defend and protect what's
Speaker 1: left of our humanity. So part of Ingrist involves choosing
Speaker 1: aside being either part of the Enlightened or part of
Speaker 1: the resistance, and competing for resources by walking around and
Speaker 1: moving around in the real world and and UH collecting
Speaker 1: resources through the smartphone application. That's part of the game. Yeah.
Speaker 1: The other part of the game involves puzzles that are
Speaker 1: released through various venues. UH. In some cases, you may
Speaker 1: be looking at a physical sign that has a QR
Speaker 1: code that leads you to a puzzle, or you might
Speaker 1: see there might be an ad for something that Google,
Speaker 1: either from Google or maybe from one of Google's partners
Speaker 1: that includes a clue that goes into this game. The
Speaker 1: idea being that parts the game are all around us
Speaker 1: all the time, and that by paying attention we can
Speaker 1: we can see them and and push the story forward.
Speaker 1: So right now, the the main place for those game
Speaker 1: elements is on a website called Niantic project dot com.
Speaker 1: It's in I A, N T I C for Niantic
Speaker 1: or NEANTICU and anyway, that's where the progress gets tracked,
Speaker 1: and you can actually go from the very beginning of
Speaker 1: the game, which is November one as of uh officially
Speaker 1: it's November one, and work your way up and it
Speaker 1: all start revealing more information. You can start seeing UH
Speaker 1: codes that you can break, things like that, and UH.
Speaker 1: There are also some wikies that have popped up already
Speaker 1: of players who are really passionate about this kind of stuff,
Speaker 1: who are dedicated to gathering as much information as possible
Speaker 1: and then posting it on these wikis, So you can
Speaker 1: actually find people who are already neck deep in this game,
Speaker 1: and some of them probably don't even have the smartphone
Speaker 1: app yet. They're not only participating in the part that
Speaker 1: they can over the web. But once the smartphone app
Speaker 1: becomes more widely distributed, then you'll see people um using that.
Speaker 1: Part two and the way the smartphone app stuff works
Speaker 1: is kind of interesting. Did you read about this? Read
Speaker 1: some about it? Yeah? Alright, So the idea is that
Speaker 1: there are these things called portals that are scared around
Speaker 1: the real world, and you use those portals the other portals.
Speaker 1: Well before you ask, yeah, it's not not not aperture
Speaker 1: Science portals UM or black Mesa for that matter. Now,
Speaker 1: you use your smartphone to identify where these portals are,
Speaker 1: and you at playing as a member of whatever side,
Speaker 1: whichever side you've chosen. You go and you try to
Speaker 1: secure these portals, and by securing various portals within the game,
Speaker 1: and this actually requires you to move physically from one
Speaker 1: location to another, usually on foot. From want to understand, um,
Speaker 1: then you start to solidify your side's presence in whichever
Speaker 1: city you happen to be in. Okay, so let's say
Speaker 1: that there's like, I don't know, well, let's say there's
Speaker 1: a hundred portals within a few neighborhoods where you are.
Speaker 1: I mean, I have no idea what the density actually is,
Speaker 1: depending upon you know where it is. Yeah, they do
Speaker 1: say that there's going to be a lot more interaction
Speaker 1: and have more heavily populated places. Uh so cities are
Speaker 1: more likely to have a lot going on. So moving around,
Speaker 1: you know, just by moving around and following the directions
Speaker 1: on the app, you can start to secure port portals.
Speaker 1: Actually getting to a portal of step one, then you
Speaker 1: have to hack the portal. Yes, what actually involves in hockey?
Speaker 1: I don't know. I haven't had a chance to play,
Speaker 1: do you do you well? From what I understand, um,
Speaker 1: And I'm trying not to to bring us back to
Speaker 1: real reality too much. But from what I understand, portals
Speaker 1: are basically places of interest, um, which would kind of
Speaker 1: go with you know that the current m O of
Speaker 1: nine ANTIQ labs. Yeah, if you look at some of
Speaker 1: the there's a video in particular where there's a guy
Speaker 1: who is complaining about cell phone he bought for an
Speaker 1: auction and he says, look, it seems to work. But
Speaker 1: when I walk up to the statue and hold up
Speaker 1: the phone, this weird screen comes up, and it's this
Speaker 1: very odd screen that shows up. And also, if you
Speaker 1: pay attention, in the background, there's a man in black
Speaker 1: watching Yeah, um but um, but yeah, it's it's That's
Speaker 1: kind of the idea, is that that when you get
Speaker 1: to these places of interest, weird stuff happens, and there's
Speaker 1: probably some sort of mini game I would imagine in
Speaker 1: the smartphone that allows you to hack. Yeah, I understand
Speaker 1: that that hacking is essentially a check in at that
Speaker 1: portal like four square, Facebook, places that can and I
Speaker 1: imagine it will be sort of a combination of um,
Speaker 1: something simple that you know, it doesn't frustrate people too
Speaker 1: awfully much, you know, yeah, you don't. You don't want
Speaker 1: to set the barrier too high or you end up
Speaker 1: with a very small group of players. But you don't
Speaker 1: want to set too low or people lose interest very quickly.
Speaker 1: So yeah, it's delicate, And people who have run alternate
Speaker 1: reality games probably have a lot to say about this
Speaker 1: about how what you know, all the challenges that are
Speaker 1: involved in designing and running one of these games. It's
Speaker 1: got to be pretty monumental. But but you do collect
Speaker 1: energy along the way, Yes, Uh, it was an exotic
Speaker 1: material or x M. Yes, it's not the Satellite Radio company. No,
Speaker 1: this exotic material. I like to think of it like
Speaker 1: pac Man pellets. Yeah, that's the way I've seen it described,
Speaker 1: So just what I thought. You don't actually have to Uh,
Speaker 1: you don't do. You don't know if you actually see
Speaker 1: the balls of energy or something like that, but I
Speaker 1: think you walk. As you walk, you collect it close enough.
Speaker 1: If you look at the map on your smartphone through INGRISS,
Speaker 1: it will show where the little XM dots are and
Speaker 1: as you get close to them, it collects them for you.
Speaker 1: Those x M dots. That energy also kind of counts
Speaker 1: as your health because sometimes when you're hacking these portals,
Speaker 1: some of them are booby trapped, and they if the
Speaker 1: booby trap goes off, then you take you take damage
Speaker 1: within the game, so you have to collect more exotic material.
Speaker 1: And if you have been walking around a certain part
Speaker 1: of town quite a bit for you, there may not
Speaker 1: be very much exotic material life. You have to go
Speaker 1: to some other location that you have not you know, scoured,
Speaker 1: so that you can collect it. Whereas someone else who's
Speaker 1: just playing the game, they might be able to find
Speaker 1: exact material, because part of this game is to get
Speaker 1: people out and about and exploring their environments and interacting
Speaker 1: with their environments and not just you know, passively playing
Speaker 1: a game at home. So there's there's this part where
Speaker 1: you are trying to discover, hack and control these portals,
Speaker 1: and as you control more portals, you can link them
Speaker 1: together and strengthen your position. Meanwhile, the opposing teams trying
Speaker 1: to do the same thing, and there will be times
Speaker 1: where you'll have a portal under your team's control and
Speaker 1: then through a coordinated effort, the other team rests it
Speaker 1: away from you, and then you have to figure out
Speaker 1: how you're gonna get it back within the context of
Speaker 1: the game. And meanwhile, you still have this other mystery
Speaker 1: going on between the two factions where they're they're really
Speaker 1: talking about this exotic material, what it's doing, why is
Speaker 1: it here, and is it a good thing or not?
Speaker 1: And bits and pieces of that mystery are going to
Speaker 1: play out over time, and in fact, from what I
Speaker 1: understand a Google, they're talking about it lasting about a
Speaker 1: year and a half. Yeah, yeah, so it will end
Speaker 1: um and they've made it clear that that it will
Speaker 1: end um. So yeah, this this will be an interesting
Speaker 1: experiment to see. Uh, you know, the kind of thing
Speaker 1: that that can be done with with these games on
Speaker 1: this scale. Because at the moment um, UH, the app
Speaker 1: is only available for Android devices, which make up the
Speaker 1: majority of the market at least here in the United States. UM,
Speaker 1: but it will also be available for iOS uh smartphones
Speaker 1: the Apple operating system that runs the iPhone. UM. So
Speaker 1: you know, there, this is the kind of thing that
Speaker 1: that's going to be available to quite a few people.
Speaker 1: And the more they get involved with it, UM, you
Speaker 1: know that the more interesting it will get just to
Speaker 1: see how how well it does. But it'll be UM.
Speaker 1: And it may also end up being a source of
Speaker 1: revenue for Google to right, they've partnered with some companies uh,
Speaker 1: and there may be some advertising or cross promotional stuff
Speaker 1: going on through the app that will generate revenue. UH.
Speaker 1: They may also eventually have other ways of generating revenue
Speaker 1: through this besides advertising. But advertising is certainly something that
Speaker 1: could be part of this, And it wouldn't surprise me
Speaker 1: at all. You know, it wouldn't surprise me if you're
Speaker 1: following the path to the portal and you're like, huh,
Speaker 1: it's amazing. This massive portal that's going to be key
Speaker 1: to the success of my faction is right here at
Speaker 1: this Jamba Juice, Yes, which is one of their partners. Yes. Yes,
Speaker 1: And you'll say, hey, this portal is to hack this
Speaker 1: port all you know now that I'm here, it's smoothie. Yeah. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean, but I mean there's you know there. They
Speaker 1: have to be able to fund the stuff or else
Speaker 1: there's no stuff, right, So I don't I don't really
Speaker 1: object to that. It's it's as long as it's handled well.
Speaker 1: So and it'll since we haven't been able to play yet,
Speaker 1: we aren't really sure how it's handled. True, I would
Speaker 1: hope it's handled pretty well. But it'll also be interesting
Speaker 1: to see how the mystery plays out. And I'm sure
Speaker 1: we're going to see more and more instances of real
Speaker 1: world stuff, uh playing into this game. For instance, Like
Speaker 1: like when I mentioned Tycho, I didn't really get into it.
Speaker 1: But the thing they did at Comic Con was this
Speaker 1: guy Tycho, who is a character within the world of Ingress,
Speaker 1: who is this artist who has had visions and has
Speaker 1: developed art based on those visions that have hidden messages
Speaker 1: in them. Not not that hidden. Actually, if you if
Speaker 1: you look if you look at it for more than
Speaker 1: a second. But any way, he's developed these these images,
Speaker 1: he's developed these posters, um, and he's known as Tycho. Well,
Speaker 1: he showed up as Tycho at Comic Con, like he was.
Speaker 1: It was Tycho who was there, this guy who then
Speaker 1: started to shout out stuff relating to this game during
Speaker 1: a panel. And this was all planned, It was all
Speaker 1: all pre orchestrated. But he was shouting out this this
Speaker 1: weird information and then eventually is carded off by security
Speaker 1: and so um it was all part of the game.
Speaker 1: But at the time, that was one of the earliest
Speaker 1: um examples of the information from the game getting out
Speaker 1: there into the public, and a lot of people would
Speaker 1: have no idea what it was all about. They were
Speaker 1: just they'd hear this and dismiss it as well. That
Speaker 1: was that guy was nuts And maybe people who you know,
Speaker 1: there might be two or three people in the audience
Speaker 1: who are like, I wonder what that was all about
Speaker 1: and start looking into it, and that would just be
Speaker 1: the very beginning of the trail. I'm sure we'll see
Speaker 1: more of that, like at at big conferences, They'll probably
Speaker 1: be things that play into this. I'm gonna be going
Speaker 1: to c E S. I don't necessarily think we'll see
Speaker 1: anything there, but if we do, that'd be pretty cool. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and it's um it's possible too that that someone else
Speaker 1: will gobble up a lot of the XM before you
Speaker 1: get there. Well yeah, I mean, mostly what I want
Speaker 1: to see is just the actual physical event play out
Speaker 1: in front of me, because I've I've I've played in
Speaker 1: these games, these types of games before where I've taken
Speaker 1: part with problems, solving teams and trying to decipher messages,
Speaker 1: things like that. Uh, and I've played from behind a screen,
Speaker 1: but I've never been to one of the ones that
Speaker 1: has a physical gathering or or you know, something happens
Speaker 1: at another event that plays into the game. I've never
Speaker 1: actually witnessed one of those. I've heard about them, and
Speaker 1: I've seen video and stuff, but I've never been at one.
Speaker 1: So that's something I would actually like to experience, just
Speaker 1: to see, you know, how is that handled? I mean,
Speaker 1: part of that is because I love games, part of
Speaker 1: it's because I'm an actor as well, and part of
Speaker 1: it because I just love technology and seeing those those
Speaker 1: worlds of acting and technology come together to produce something
Speaker 1: really compelling is a lot of fun. So I'm curious
Speaker 1: which side are you going to choose, Dude, enlightened, I'm
Speaker 1: all about grabbing that power and using it to subjugate
Speaker 1: others to my will. I feel I haven't decided yet.
Speaker 1: Resistance is useless. What's funny is that I've on on
Speaker 1: some of the articles, uh that I've read in the
Speaker 1: last couple of days, and most of them are have
Speaker 1: about the same amount of information. And since this this
Speaker 1: is still very new, um, there are commenters who are
Speaker 1: have completely in their heads I guess joined up. You know,
Speaker 1: they're arguing on the you know the comments on these
Speaker 1: different forums. You know. Well, the interesting thing is these
Speaker 1: games in Land can really start off some truly h
Speaker 1: truly interesting conversations, philosophical conversations. I mean the The The
Speaker 1: Beast had an element in it where they were discussing
Speaker 1: the idea of artificially intelligent beings and whether or not
Speaker 1: they should be given the right to vote, And there
Speaker 1: was a real debate and there was actually a vote
Speaker 1: held within the context of the game, and all the
Speaker 1: players in the game could vote on the issue of
Speaker 1: whether or not AI constructs should be given the right
Speaker 1: to vote, and I was in one of the very
Speaker 1: vocal members of that community arguing for one of the signs.
Speaker 1: Can you guess which one I would? I would be
Speaker 1: thinking that you'd want them to I argued against voting. Really,
Speaker 1: I said they should not. I said, first of all,
Speaker 1: giving Ai sentience was a mistake, and that to to
Speaker 1: continue down that road was a horrible idea and it
Speaker 1: was just going to lead to our own uh extinction
Speaker 1: down the line. And therefore, you don't give a toaster
Speaker 1: the right to vote. That was my that was my motto.
Speaker 1: I figured in the confusion, you would try to take control. No, no,
Speaker 1: that's ridiculous, there's no no. Robots are too strong and
Speaker 1: they're more than meets the eye. So I was not
Speaker 1: for that anyway. It'll be interesting to see where ingris
Speaker 1: goes uh, And once we have access to it, I'm
Speaker 1: sure we'll play a play it. And probably mentioned it
Speaker 1: a couple of times. So these games are are becoming
Speaker 1: a lot more widespread though in knowledge, and I think
Speaker 1: this is gonna do a lot for that. Plus, I
Speaker 1: think they're becoming a lot more sophisticated. They have to be, because,
Speaker 1: as I was saying to Chris, beforehand. It's gotten to
Speaker 1: the point now where when a game like this comes
Speaker 1: out and people have the chance to play, you have
Speaker 1: such a wide base of people with such a wide
Speaker 1: range of skills and knowledge that it is really difficult
Speaker 1: to design a puzzle that will last more than like
Speaker 1: half an hour under scrutiny. I mean within there were
Speaker 1: puzzles that I looked at that completely confused me back
Speaker 1: at the I Love Bees game, and then other people
Speaker 1: would take one look at because their brains work in
Speaker 1: a different way than mind do. They'd say, oh, I
Speaker 1: bet that that's a topographical map and that the colors
Speaker 1: relate back to elevations, And I was looking at like
Speaker 1: I was just counting how many yellow blocks there were.
Speaker 1: So I mean that's the kind of thing, though, is
Speaker 1: that you get enough people there and all of them
Speaker 1: think in different ways. There are ties where I was
Speaker 1: solving puzzles other people were completely confused about. Um. It's
Speaker 1: a huge challenge to the people running the game, you know,
Speaker 1: to to keep interesting content coming and feeding because people
Speaker 1: are voracious, man, I mean that they want as soon
Speaker 1: as they solve one thing, they want the next clue.
Speaker 1: So the will also be interesting to see how Google
Speaker 1: handles that. I agree anyway, if you guys are going
Speaker 1: to play in grist, let us know. Let's know what
Speaker 1: side do you go on? Like? Are you part of
Speaker 1: the resistance? Are you probably enlightened? Do you think that
Speaker 1: this is an interesting use of technology or do you
Speaker 1: just find alternate reality games to be silly? I want
Speaker 1: to hear all of your your thoughts. Send us a message.
Speaker 1: You can email us our addresses tech stuff at Discovery
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Speaker 1: Stuff hs W and Chris and I will tell to
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