Imagine someone rings your doorbell. A courier hands you a bouquet of flowers with a USB stick attached. You're surprised, but since you run an internet portal and enjoy reading crime novels, your curiosity is piqued. You check the USB stick for viruses, plug it into your PC, and watch a video. Shaky footage, an elevator sequence. Suddenly, a web address pops up: www.push11.com. You go to the address and see the elevator again. Now you type the search term „push11“ into Google and find numerous results. There’s even a forum where others who also received a bouquet of flowers are discussing the mysterious video. You realize that only specially selected people were contacted—handpicked, and all with a strong connection to the internet. One member of the group has already managed to solve a puzzle and open the elevator door. And now you know: you’re right in the middle of an Alternate Reality Game, or ARG for short, a new interactive game format that is still relatively unknown in Germany but is gaining more and more followers. Here’s a brief definition: An Alternate Reality Game (ARG) is an interactive form of storytelling in which reality and fiction merge, and the players become co-narrators through their actions. The ARG utilizes multimedia tools such as emails, websites, chats, phones, videos, and more, so that, for example, you can communicate with characters who appear and arrange to meet up with them. Together, the goal is to solve tasks and puzzles that arise repeatedly as the story unfolds. I think an ARG is comparable to an interactive scavenger hunt. But why am I writing about this here? Well, after the players at push11 had come together as a community, they very quickly managed to solve another puzzle and stumbled upon a little boy’s diary. You can guess who this boy „really“ is. Exactly: „The Child.“ The story of Simon Sachs, the ten-year-old boy who believes he was once a serial killer in a past life, has already begun. And just a few hours after the first post about push11 appeared online, countless users interactively shaped, experienced, and wrote the prologue—that is, Simon’s final days BEFORE the book begins. In the weeks that followed, the ever-growing number of participants were able to read Simon’s diary, chat with him, and write him emails; among other things, they got to know his psychologist, Dr. Tiefensee (http://www.wer-war-ich.org/...they even spoke to the killer on the phone personally...after a riddle led them to a lake in the middle of the night where a cell phone was ringing...and much more. Push11 was the first ARG in Germany where a book was at the center of the puzzle story. If you weren't there yourself, you can retrace the essential stages of the prologue here. A prologue that, for the first time, doesn't exist in the book, but only in „reality“: http://www.push11.com/ But don't worry – if you don't feel like it – no problem at all. Put your feet up and wait in complete relaxation. You don't need to know the prologue to read „The Child“ as a book. Although both belong together, they function completely independently of each other. I wish you lots of fun and, as always, an exciting time, Sebastian Fitzek
