"A project isn't real unless it affects your emotional wellbeing." So that is why software engineers call it a project. (This is what I mean: Joy 😐, sad 😐, tired 😐, sleepy 😐, energetic 😐 and "the project is finished" 🙂) It is not easy to lift an ARG off the ground no matter how good it is. I learned this when I posted a one-off puzzle on Discord and Reddit, it is not difficult but no one actually tries it. To me, this is a story of dedication and creativity. It is also a warning, a lesson for other ARG creators. To me, this is pure gold because it can help me a lot with my future ARG(s).
I agree completely. This will be a huge help for the project i'm dreaming up. (A more local ARG contained in just my own city, with geocaching elements and more physical locations and stuff" I feel like the two big things i think will make or break an ARG is: Novelty (just basic ass puzzles with no thought put into them are no fun) and the ratio of reward eg. (story, clues, hints other cool stuff that feels earned). By the latter i mean that you want to dish out story in a way that not only compels the player to start digging, but also keeps them going, from one puzzle to the next. (This is also why i personally HATE long lore dumps without anything hidden to dig into/research more etc.) If the game starts out with way more information than you're going to uncover by solving puzzles. You might as well sit back and wait for somebody else to do it. Also another thing is that you want your story to feel real, and not like the creator is just sitting back and waiting to release stuff for suspense/waiting for players to solve that one puzzle. Real information is scattered, some is old and out of date, some is just plain wrong. Also: I saw your post with the one off puzzle, and in my opinion it wasn't a very good test. Mostly because of the lack of subterfuge: "5 dollars to solve this puzzle" Doesn't pique my interest, at all. (The puzzle in itself is not a part of something that feels real enough to suspend disbelief. Also there was no promise of anything except 5 bucks on the other side. For most people that's really not an uncommon amount of money, and that's the reason why more money = more views on youtube f.ex.) I didn't look at the puzzle itself and i'm sure it was good, but the overall presentation missed it's mark, imo.
i've said this on the discord server, but i wanna add onto it some more here. this is a story about both perseverance and obsession, no matter which way you spin it. it's a story about a group of people coming together and overcoming everything that almost made this project fail, and it's also a story about how obsession can drive someone to a very low point in their life, losing the joy you'd gain from working on something. the fact you kept working on walker creek, despite everything that happened, is both amazing and concerning. you truly deserve more respect for what you've done with walker creek. (AND A BREAK) i'm glad to have played a big part in it, being the runeologist and all that. i'm really excited to see what you're working on next.
Thank you for the kind words :) I truly appreciate it, and it was great to have you along for the ride through the entire series! I hope you're doing better now than you were during those final puzzle chains!
I know this is 2 years old and I'm only commenting now but this is amazing! I've recently started my own ARG and I've gotten more interested in ARG content. This is amazing!
Very inciteful. I was also scouring the internet about how to make an arg. This is the best thing I have found so far, and will share around. Thanks for making it!
Building my first ARG (that took me over 2 years to fully conceptualize the narrative for lol) and found this beyond helpful. You are such a great teacher; eI can tell you choose your words carefully and with conviction and intention. I really appreciate how much effort this video must have taken, thank you thank you thank you!
Only fifteen thousand views? That needs to change. Time to spam share for the good of your channel because you put an OBVIOUS amount of work into this project and I applaud you guys for the amazing universe you were able to create. It needs to be going viral because you guys deserve it
Stumpled upon this amazin doc rather late. A friend and me were participating in your ARG, doing most of the puzzles ourselfs and keeping away from the discord for the time being. We had a lot of fun with it for about the first 3 or 4 months and were able to solve the puzzles, but didn't follow it that much afterwards due to time constraints. After having played around in some reddit quality ARGs, at some moment we realized that this one was different, of much higher quality. The analogue tapes were my favourite. One could definatly see that this was the work of a filmmaker, and not some random slap base64 everywhere type of ARG. And just like you said - we were still part of the majority that did not engage with the deeper lore. When we decided to check if it was still running, we solved some more puzzles on our own, leading us to those mortal sin websites. At that point we were a bit lost, not knowing at which point in the game we should have found them, if they belonged to the current progression line or if we had already found something else that would lead us further. You did an outstanding job on this, and if I should catch a new project of yours going live, I will follow it.
I always wondered what happened to that Wendigoon video, I love ARGs but often don’t have the time to play or dive into them in between work and school and living tasks so I often rely on RUclipsrs to explain and flesh out series and started watching walker creek because of that wendigoon tweet, this is an amazing doc and I really commend you for finishing walker creek despite low interaction and your own mental health struggles
watched this whole thing, never heard of walker creek before. this was great, super inspiring! to make the whole series and then a full feature-length documentary about it is insane, and as someone who really loves behind the scenes stuff i really appreciated this. im sure whatever you do in the future you'll be successful in it with this amount of passion and work you put into your stuff! looking forward to whatever you make next.
i'm not sure why this was recommended to me, i've never heard of walker creek and haven't participated in any ARGs, but this was really interesting and i appreciate you making it
Your story is fantastic! I always go back to watch this video over and over it’s so inspiring. This and other ARGs (Happy Meat Farms, Local 58, and many other analog horrors) And I want to share with you my story: After I watched your video I set of to create my own, basically about a cult using hypnosis in RUclipsrs (long story) This ARG is still going on my main channel but my biggest problem is I didn’t plan the story from the beginning, but it is finally getting better. You are so inspiring and I love your content. My ARG is called Diamond Eye, and this is my story!
Omg why do you have like 50 subs it should be like so much more! I didn’t know anything about neither you nor the project before this video and I’m impressed!
I made my second arg two years ago and it was a improvement of my first I actually planned out my story drew sketches and unlike my first arg that I made in one day of making stuff up as I go NO I didn’t get to finish my arg cause I was busy and I lost the notebook that I wrote the outline of the story is and i didn’t finish it but just today I found photos of the notebook and I can continue the arg again finally Edit: Turns out I sold the notebook at a garage sale and forgot that I sold it
That's a great question, haha. I would say probably not, for a few reasons - I wrote it in high school so it's not that great, it's outdated by several years now, and it's suuuper beginner level information since I was writing it for, well, high school students who had never heard of ARG's. So honestly, I'm not sure if it would even be helpful.
@@alexhera_ oh right, and have you thouht of writing down some guide or interesting plot designs etc.? I want to get into ARG as a school project kinda thingy but I don't have many tries (most likely one to make it right :D ) and I would want to avoid the beginner mistakes. Or maybe if you could direct me to some place where I can learn that, that would be cool too!
@@Holsp You can check out a writing piece of mine on the NightMind Index (www.nightmind.info/walker-creek). As for other places to learn, I highly recommend ARGNet, the Game Detectives Wiki, NightMind's "How To Make a Webseries" videos, and overall just...watching and playing other ARG's and seeing how they work. I had played ~10 ARG's before making Walker Creek and had learned about probably another 100.
hello alex hera I really like your arg and I would like to ask you the question: which editing site you use for analog horror videos? (if my English isn’t good it’s because I’m French )
In an interactive webseries direct viewer interaction really adds a lot. I was a viewer and participant of Peaceful Watcher almost from the start to end and at some point fell in the role of being in contact with the main protagonist and the antagonist over Twitter DMs and that added a whole different aspect that you don't get from just viewing and puzzling. Others received texts and wrote back over a phone number and 1 viewer was in contact with a secondary group over Instagram. Made a lot of "Ask this" "show him that" discussions on the fan discord. Though of course that also adds a lot of workload and unpredictability.
It gets increasingly harder to manage an interactive webseries with the more moving parts and the more direct viewer influence & interaction you add in. It's a big part of what makes ARG's so great but it can also be sort of a nightmare if you overdo it.
I'm coming into this without having heard of Walker Creek. What an incredible process!
same.
"A project isn't real unless it affects your emotional wellbeing."
So that is why software engineers call it a project. (This is what I mean: Joy 😐, sad 😐, tired 😐, sleepy 😐, energetic 😐 and "the project is finished" 🙂)
It is not easy to lift an ARG off the ground no matter how good it is. I learned this when I posted a one-off puzzle on Discord and Reddit, it is not difficult but no one actually tries it.
To me, this is a story of dedication and creativity. It is also a warning, a lesson for other ARG creators.
To me, this is pure gold because it can help me a lot with my future ARG(s).
I'm so happy to hear that it's helpful to a fellow creator :) Good luck on your future projects!
I agree completely. This will be a huge help for the project i'm dreaming up. (A more local ARG contained in just my own city, with geocaching elements and more physical locations and stuff"
I feel like the two big things i think will make or break an ARG is: Novelty (just basic ass puzzles with no thought put into them are no fun) and the ratio of reward eg. (story, clues, hints other cool stuff that feels earned). By the latter i mean that you want to dish out story in a way that not only compels the player to start digging, but also keeps them going, from one puzzle to the next. (This is also why i personally HATE long lore dumps without anything hidden to dig into/research more etc.) If the game starts out with way more information than you're going to uncover by solving puzzles. You might as well sit back and wait for somebody else to do it. Also another thing is that you want your story to feel real, and not like the creator is just sitting back and waiting to release stuff for suspense/waiting for players to solve that one puzzle. Real information is scattered, some is old and out of date, some is just plain wrong.
Also: I saw your post with the one off puzzle, and in my opinion it wasn't a very good test. Mostly because of the lack of subterfuge: "5 dollars to solve this puzzle" Doesn't pique my interest, at all. (The puzzle in itself is not a part of something that feels real enough to suspend disbelief. Also there was no promise of anything except 5 bucks on the other side. For most people that's really not an uncommon amount of money, and that's the reason why more money = more views on youtube f.ex.) I didn't look at the puzzle itself and i'm sure it was good, but the overall presentation missed it's mark, imo.
i've said this on the discord server, but i wanna add onto it some more here.
this is a story about both perseverance and obsession, no matter which way you spin it.
it's a story about a group of people coming together and overcoming everything that almost made this project fail, and it's also a story about how obsession can drive someone to a very low point in their life, losing the joy you'd gain from working on something.
the fact you kept working on walker creek, despite everything that happened, is both amazing and concerning. you truly deserve more respect for what you've done with walker creek. (AND A BREAK)
i'm glad to have played a big part in it, being the runeologist and all that. i'm really excited to see what you're working on next.
Thank you for the kind words :) I truly appreciate it, and it was great to have you along for the ride through the entire series! I hope you're doing better now than you were during those final puzzle chains!
I know this is 2 years old and I'm only commenting now but this is amazing! I've recently started my own ARG and I've gotten more interested in ARG content. This is amazing!
That's awesome, good luck!
@@alexhera_ didn't expect a reply lol. It's my first ARG and I'm planning to do more in the future.
Very inciteful. I was also scouring the internet about how to make an arg. This is the best thing I have found so far, and will share around. Thanks for making it!
Building my first ARG (that took me over 2 years to fully conceptualize the narrative for lol) and found this beyond helpful. You are such a great teacher; eI can tell you choose your words carefully and with conviction and intention. I really appreciate how much effort this video must have taken, thank you thank you thank you!
Only fifteen thousand views? That needs to change. Time to spam share for the good of your channel because you put an OBVIOUS amount of work into this project and I applaud you guys for the amazing universe you were able to create. It needs to be going viral because you guys deserve it
Stumpled upon this amazin doc rather late.
A friend and me were participating in your ARG, doing most of the puzzles ourselfs and keeping away from the discord for the time being. We had a lot of fun with it for about the first 3 or 4 months and were able to solve the puzzles, but didn't follow it that much afterwards due to time constraints.
After having played around in some reddit quality ARGs, at some moment we realized that this one was different, of much higher quality. The analogue tapes were my favourite. One could definatly see that this was the work of a filmmaker, and not some random slap base64 everywhere type of ARG.
And just like you said - we were still part of the majority that did not engage with the deeper lore.
When we decided to check if it was still running, we solved some more puzzles on our own, leading us to those mortal sin websites. At that point we were a bit lost, not knowing at which point in the game we should have found them, if they belonged to the current progression line or if we had already found something else that would lead us further.
You did an outstanding job on this, and if I should catch a new project of yours going live, I will follow it.
Thank you so much for the kind words! I hope to see you in the next ARG ;)
I always wondered what happened to that Wendigoon video, I love ARGs but often don’t have the time to play or dive into them in between work and school and living tasks so I often rely on RUclipsrs to explain and flesh out series and started watching walker creek because of that wendigoon tweet, this is an amazing doc and I really commend you for finishing walker creek despite low interaction and your own mental health struggles
Thank you so much, I'm glad that you still found Walker Creek!
watched this whole thing, never heard of walker creek before. this was great, super inspiring! to make the whole series and then a full feature-length documentary about it is insane, and as someone who really loves behind the scenes stuff i really appreciated this. im sure whatever you do in the future you'll be successful in it with this amount of passion and work you put into your stuff! looking forward to whatever you make next.
Thank you so much! I'm glad you enjoyed it.
Coming in to this arg, I have instantly fallen in love with it! I highly resepct the work you and your crew have put into this.
Why does this man only have 43 subs
i'm not sure why this was recommended to me, i've never heard of walker creek and haven't participated in any ARGs, but this was really interesting and i appreciate you making it
Your story is fantastic! I always go back to watch this video over and over it’s so inspiring. This and other ARGs (Happy Meat Farms, Local 58, and many other analog horrors) And I want to share with you my story:
After I watched your video I set of to create my own, basically about a cult using hypnosis in RUclipsrs (long story) This ARG is still going on my main channel but my biggest problem is I didn’t plan the story from the beginning, but it is finally getting better. You are so inspiring and I love your content. My ARG is called Diamond Eye, and this is my story!
Thank you so much for the kind words! I'm so glad I could have an impact. Good luck on your project!
Omg why do you have like 50 subs it should be like so much more!
I didn’t know anything about neither you nor the project before this video and I’m impressed!
I made my second arg two years ago and it was a improvement of my first I actually planned out my story drew sketches and unlike my first arg that I made in one day of making stuff up as I go NO I didn’t get to finish my arg cause I was busy and I lost the notebook that I wrote the outline of the story is and i didn’t finish it but just today I found photos of the notebook and I can continue the arg again finally
Edit:
Turns out I sold the notebook at a garage sale and forgot that I sold it
This deserves way more views!
Thank you for this Documentary. It's nice to have a look on the other side of these things
Is there any way to find your essay on the topic of ARGs?
This was so helpful! Thank you so much! Btw you are so underated!
A series taking place in my Washington, count me in.
I wish more ARGs made because the scenes videos like this
Man, I was tripping at the start when I heard that music. Didn't realize it was royalty free thought it was made specifically for unus annus.
You should drop the essay link!!!!
This video was so great and insightful! Is there a chance to see your essay on ARGs?
That's a great question, haha. I would say probably not, for a few reasons - I wrote it in high school so it's not that great, it's outdated by several years now, and it's suuuper beginner level information since I was writing it for, well, high school students who had never heard of ARG's. So honestly, I'm not sure if it would even be helpful.
@@alexhera_ oh right, and have you thouht of writing down some guide or interesting plot designs etc.? I want to get into ARG as a school project kinda thingy but I don't have many tries (most likely one to make it right :D ) and I would want to avoid the beginner mistakes. Or maybe if you could direct me to some place where I can learn that, that would be cool too!
@@Holsp You can check out a writing piece of mine on the NightMind Index (www.nightmind.info/walker-creek). As for other places to learn, I highly recommend ARGNet, the Game Detectives Wiki, NightMind's "How To Make a Webseries" videos, and overall just...watching and playing other ARG's and seeing how they work. I had played ~10 ARG's before making Walker Creek and had learned about probably another 100.
I want to know if a person can make an analog horror with two people and in cap cut?
Hi, i was wondering, whats the best site maker to make a website ARG?
What program did you use for the custom font I can’t find anything that works with Davinci resolve
If I remember correctly, it was this website: www.calligraphr.com/en/
@@alexhera_ thank you
In terms of like camera editing and creating "monsters" or "spirits" on the screen, what would you suggest???
If possible, use practical effects! Look at Daisy Brown, hiimmarymary, EverymanHYBRID, etc. for inspiration!
@@alexhera_ thanks so much! That's perfect because I'm already big fans of those pieces of content!!!
blackpink hit you with the dududududud girlypop slayy fax no printer material gworll
hello alex hera I really like your arg and I would like to ask you the question: which editing site you use for analog horror videos? (if my English isn’t good it’s because I’m French )
I use a program, Davinci Resolve. It's free for the basic version.
Very thanks
Haha first got em
very nice keep it up
In an interactive webseries direct viewer interaction really adds a lot. I was a viewer and participant of Peaceful Watcher almost from the start to end and at some point fell in the role of being in contact with the main protagonist and the antagonist over Twitter DMs and that added a whole different aspect that you don't get from just viewing and puzzling. Others received texts and wrote back over a phone number and 1 viewer was in contact with a secondary group over Instagram. Made a lot of "Ask this" "show him that" discussions on the fan discord.
Though of course that also adds a lot of workload and unpredictability.
It gets increasingly harder to manage an interactive webseries with the more moving parts and the more direct viewer influence & interaction you add in. It's a big part of what makes ARG's so great but it can also be sort of a nightmare if you overdo it.