Meigeist: A New Form of Entertainment

enter-geist.com

On Sat 13 Jan a brand new Alternate Reality Game (ARG) Meigeist created by Bristol-based company Licorice Film was launched at enter-geist.com. Meigeist blends the virtual world with the real world as a compelling narrative, humour and short film is mixed with code-breaking and clues enabling players to immerse themselves in an alternate reality running parallel to their own lives. Players act as detectives, following cryptic clues, unveiled over eight weekly episodes, using websites, text messages, live events and email, and it’s completely free to play. Meigeist is the largest non-commercially funded game of its type ever to be produced in the UK.

Meigeist homepage

Once players have signed up online at enter-geist.com they will receive either a cryptic email, a text message or something in the post. Just like the infamous rabbit hole of Alice in Wonderland fame the point is to unravel the mystery and progress to the next stage. Hundreds of players have already signed up, and once the game has started all players will be able to communicate with one another at ARGN.com the alternate reality gaming network. As Bristol is home to Meigeist, there is already growing speculation that one of the live events may take place in the City, resulting in many of the players arriving here.

Meigeist creators Hazel Grian (described by The Simpson’s creator Matt Groening as ‘a funny filmmaking genius’) and UWE star graduate and ARG veteran Jonathon Williams were awarded a Diffraction Placement at HP Labs, Bristol, funded by Arts Council England and managed by Watershed. The resulting game is already causing a stir in the online community as players gear up for the launch on Saturday.

Meigeist Creator, filmmaker and director of Licorice Film Hazel Grian said:

Playing Meigeist means you follow a really entertaining story with great characters, very much set in the real world with a few sci-fi additions. You won’t have to pretend you’re a wizard or open a virtual bank account in somewhere called Zordax or anything. There’s loads of separate bits of video, puzzles and websites you can enjoy but of course it’s a lot more satisfying if you do the detective work and discover the whole story from beginning to end. What you will be able to do with Meigeist is have a go without fear of it being totally beyond you and you’ll really feel you’re part of something cool.

 

Visit www.meigeist.com to get an up-to-date history of the game as it develops