After recently discovering the ARG (Alternate Reality Games) community, I have been on the lookout for ways to "immerse" myself in the language and culture of this new genre of games. I have been reading online archives of games past, such as "The Beast", "i love bees", and, of course, "Metacortechs/Project MU". When I saw that the Metaurchins (the players) had produced their game archive in book form, I could not resist ordering a copy.



Project MU, also known as Metacortechs, was an independent game based on The Matrix and put into play just before the release of Matrix: Revolutions in 2003. It was not sponsored by a corporation as a viral marketing campaign; rather, it was designed by a team of non-professional PuppetMasters who also happened to be fans of the Matrix universe. Last year, the Metaurchins, as the Metacortechs players named themselves, put together a printed copy of the Metacortechs experience, complete with commentary from both PMs and players, photos, the rabbit hole and puzzle trail, character bios, and much more. They designed the print and page layouts themselves, put it all together, using Lulu as the POD vehicle to turn a virtual experience into a real-life artifact.



It is evident that a strong community has formed around these ephemeral game experiences. Both the players and PuppetMasters are passionate people, and their passion is not about winning or dominating or being first or having the highest score in the game. Instead, their passion is collaboration, teamwork, problem solving, and reaching out to help even the most fictional characters. To the people of this community, nothing is unreal. And therefore, nothing is impossible. Together, they create a compelling and awe-inspiring reality of their own.



This book is a labor of love, a tangible representation of the Metaurchins' accomplishments. It is gorgeous. Every line of it, every page, reflects on glossy paper the dedication this community has to its art. The Metaurchins' attention to detail is as careful as that of the PuppetMasters themselves when they created a game. It's almost a physical metaphor for ARGs. There's an unspoken accord that whatever you give to the game will come back to you manyfold. The give and take between the PMs and the players, the community spirit and the teamwork, all of that and more, is captured in this book.



While it is true that the full experience of the game cannot be captured on paper, the vibrancy of the game characters and the players transmits clearly through the written accounts of gameplay. The players, ever-mindful of the collaborative spirit of ARGs, pass the story-telling baton amongst each other to usher the reader through the game's timeline. The editors sifted through the large amount of material - files, images, whole websites - and selected the most pertinent for inclusion in the book, making notes that will allow the reader to delve deeper into the "online" parts of the story if he or she so chooses. Even without the supplemental online material, the story of Metacortechs and its players is very present within the pages - and as Brooke Thompson, one of Metacortechs' PuppetMasters, stated, some of the story can be found "between the lines".



"The Project MU Archives" is an excellent introduction to the world of Alternate Reality Gaming as well as a well-captured experience that could so easily have slipped away, living only in the memories of those who played the game. Instead, the Metaurchins combined their strengths and talents once more to produce a book for all of us to enjoy, over and over again.