What Was I Love Bees?
March 22nd, 2008 by Mitch
Ilovebees was/is part of a new and emerging game genre called ARGs. ARG is short for Alternate Reality Game. A very suiting term, as these games force the players into a surreal alternate reality in which they must work through using modern day mentality.
The first ARG was "The Beast", also presented by 4orty 2wo entertainment, this game came as a preface to Steven Spielberg's 2001 box office hit "AI: artificial intelligence"
While most ARGs at this point are being made as supplemental projects to rack in hype for another media, ilovebees broke into a new realm of limits and potential for an ARG. ilovebees was by far the most intricate, involving, and powerful display of ARGs to date, and has promised to raise the bar of expectation for it's successors.
But ilovebeees, was a bit more than just a game. Many argue the impact of the story it told, claiming how it has breached new depths in story telling, by physically and actively involving the player in the story, and how it is presented. others debate the pros and cons of having a game that required so much of the players, but rewarded them appropriately.
But really, the overriding theme of ilovebees has been family. And this is also the most significant aspect of the game. It didn't just create a community of players as any game can do, this game made a family.
In June a series of mysterious packages were mailed out across the country, these packages contained jars of honey, with cut out letters floating inside them. Among the phrases that could be spelled with these letters, was "I Love Bees". No further explanation or developments came until mid July, when with the airing of several popular films in theaters, a new Halo 2 theatrical trailer seemed to flash an alternate URL to xbox.com at the end sequence. Approximately 2 frames, and it already had intrigued fan boys and fan girls running home to analyze the oddity.
As it turns out, the URL flashed was www.ilovebees.com. Suddenly more pieces to this puzzle are dropped before the players.
At first glance, the site appears to be nothing more than a humble beekeeper's website that had been maliciously hacked. A more inquisitive glance will provide the preface for a strange and addictive story. In the opening phases of the site, three countdown timers appeared on the front page. Two were ticking days off until phase 1("network throttling erosion") and phase 2("Medium Metastisization"). The third was the real attention getter. The "countdown to wide awake and physical" seemed to end on 12:00am august 24th. As each phase and week went by, the site grew more and more complex, until phase 2 came along. At this point the players were given a list of over 200 sets of numbers. each set contained two decimal numerals, and one in what appeared to be time format. Many later concurred the other numerals were in fact GPS coordinates. These become dubbed "axons" as the Wide awake and Physical stage is reached. At this point in the game no real coordination had been established, so most people were blindly making these trips to the locations and times listed. Around this time the site's webmaster leaves for China, spooked by the interaction with one of the processes on the site, she felt threatened and she booked.
Turns out at each location was a payphone. and at the exact time listed in PDT, the phone rings and the real intricate activity begins.
A voice briefly explains that she is in trouble, maybe shipwrecked. she is dazed, confused, she needs to know she can trust us, that we are her crew. She asks a question... Pay attention to some of the events on the site, and you should be able to exact the answer. Got it correct? Great. you get a few seconds of a scene in an audio drama. if the required number of people also participating, get enough axons in your "transmission", the transmission is broadcast on the website for all to hear.
There are dozens of these transmissions, and they are all scrambled, following different scene. Once all transmissions have been acquired, the players had to rearrange them to make the complete scenes. There are no mentioning of shipwrecks or pious fleas, or spiders in these scenes because this is the second part of the story. And it only gets better. There are new lists of hundreds of axons every week. Even some hidden axons... Notice that the linked recipe.html urls are all sequential except that they seem to skip recipe3.html Plug that into the browser, and you find a whole new set of axons.
These Axons were preceded by a counter that would tally up the total axons as per the relation to a goal of 777 axons answered. Once this Counter hit the 777th axon correctly answered, players were treated to a whole new twist. Live calls. The Voice Actress would make a live improve call to a random axon, in which she would request information from the player, that mainly including name, rank, and a proof of loyalty that would vary on a weekly basis. Those who received live calls and granted permission to broadcast the said calls were counted on a roster of "crew members". As the weeks sheared by, new twists were thrown to the crew members, another personality from the site emerging and commandeering the call, inquisitions, cynical inquisitions, and a wide range of activities or exercises.
Crucially, interactions between eh characters in 2004 and those in 2552 were seen, and these led many crew to a more detailed understanding of the situation, allowing the players to affect the characters in a variety of ways, ranging from suggestions to straight out manipulation.
Eventually, as the game drew upon it's climax, the characters seemed to rectify their problems using the given suggestions. Proofs and answers were no longer required to activate an axon. and this allowed the dramatic ending of the audio drama a more liberal means for distribution.
Following the conclusion of the game, a challenge for a Combat training event in 4 major cities across the United States was presented. At these events, players received a DVD which logged the entire audio drama, images from the site, credits, and creation commentary. Players also received a complementary lanyard and tag, as well as the unique opportunity to play the single most anticipated video game of all time, Halo 2, a game directly associated with ILB and the storyline. At the event held in Chicago, players were granted the honor of meeting the Puppet Masters and Voice Actors, and at each event players were given the opportunity to partake in raffles. Conversations and meetings would take place throughout the night.
At the conclusion of each event, a final puzzle was given. At the solution to the puzzle, players found a heartfelt farewell message from the main character Melissa.
For the many whom would be unable to attend these events, 27 additional locations received cases of 50 of the log DVDs to be distributed amongst player who identified themselves by repeating a pass-code.
Following the conclusion of the game, first time ARGers as well as veterans of the infant genre could unanimously agree that ILB presented the single most involving, interactive and emotionally moving game to date. For the players, it has changed how we view interactive gaming, and it has formed out of vast diversity, great minds, and some closed-mindedness; a community of people, who call themselves a family. A family of people who are proud enough to call themselves, Beekeepers.