horse ARG

Michael Andersen@mjandersen.bsky.social · 3d ago

Somebody just searched ARGNet for the word "horse". The funniest part is, I know exactly what they're looking for and I didn't write an article about it.

Great reporting from @byrobdavies.bsky.social here. Puy du Fou is the top park I need to visit (uncomplimentary) because it presents such a spectacular, exclusionary, nostalgic view of the past - and by implication, the present and future.

From occupied Crimea to Oxfordshire: the Kremlin links to new £600m UK theme park

Exclusive: Puy du Fou worked with under-sanctions oligarch on plans for Crimea resort longer than disclosed, and later courted Iran and China

theguardian.com

Wish I were in Shanghai for [[rect*]]repair's HTML Day, where people write HTML by hand in the park! "No internet on site, and no AI allowed ... Yes, you can probably vibecode a webpage in a few seconds, but HTML Day is about the few hours we spend writing together." rect.repair/html-2026/

A few months ago I decided to try out making video essays after a quarter-century of blogging. It's going well so far! Video 1 (May): 900 views I started on easy mode by adapting a talk I'd already given and rounding it out with more film excerpts. Almost 1000 views isn't bad!

The Immersive Austenland Experience and the Impossibility of Romantic Larp

YouTube video by Adrian Hon

youtu.be

You: Spidey 4 shows the MCU is back Me, an intellectual: On the Calculation of Volume 4 shows the NCU never went away (Solvej Balle’s November 18th Chronological Universe)

Hank Green today: "I need to come to terms with the fact that the level of dopamine I've been getting from interacting with LLMs ... is not healthy for me or good for the world. It is careless..." We need to cool it with the dopamine talk. Just say you're addicted, sheesh!

I knew Laurent Binet's hilarious Perspective(s), an epistolary Renaissance murder mystery packed with real-life artists, paid homage to Assassin's Creed, but nothing could compare to reading the actual thing.

70+ NPCs in this 1940s Shanghai game is one of the highest performer numbers I've seen for what looks like commercial immersive theatre/larp. Shades of Secret Cinema here, but this is longer and more interactive... (via @mjandersen.bsky.social)

6 hours. 70+ NPCs. 100+ storylines. You don't just watch the story — you live it. You pick a team, get a role, and suddenly you're in 1940s Shanghai, scheming with gangsters, negotiating with merchant...

TikTok video by MeetPanda

tiktok.com

I feel like "dopamine apps" are an elemental form of hypercasual games, life sims, and idle games. Sometimes you just want to press a thing and play pretend without all the other fluff. At the same time, a fake food/fashion delivery app is prime ARG fodder...

Why people are ordering fake food and fashion deliveries on free ‘dopamine apps’

Even when an app is free, there are downsides to watch out for – including how your choices can help advertisers better target you in real life.

theconversation.com

Do I know any first aiders who could help at our Strandfall orienteering larp on Sat 5th September in Edinburgh? We’d be super grateful and can make it worth your while!

Strandfall

Survive the Storm

strandfall.com

Great news: the talks from Jubensha Con are now available online for FREE! Big thanks to our amazing speakers for agreeing to this, and to Joe Strickland at @chronicinsanity.bsky.social for producing the videos. A lot of much bigger and more expensive conferences don't do this – but we just did.

Jubensha Con 2026 - YouTube

The talks given at JubenshaCon 2026 Find out more about the convention at https://jubenshacon.com Buy jubensha from: https://jubensha.co.uk https://www.suspe...

youtube.com

Ahhhhhhhhhh

E.Saxey@esaxey.bsky.social · last wk.

Saw this, thought of you. (Then thought: Tesco, teaching me the slang of the young? Tesco?!)

Had a blast at @lockwoodimmersive.com’s new Shades of Grey escape room, which uses Obra Dinn/Golden Idol-style deduction mechanics for puzzles and storytelling! Based in Toronto, a must-play for anyone into Obra-likes! www.lockwoodimmersive.com/shades-of-grey

Is there an argument that video games are the true millennial form of art?

Ryan Broderick@ryanhatesthis.bsky.social · 2w ago

I wrote about the lost decade of millennial creativity www.garbageday.email/p/you-get-wh...

Looking forward to all those Very Smart People changing their minds on Miami/Florida politics being a model of affordability with this news. Now that’s what I call an abundance of expense!

The worst kind of immersive art is when they say “we synthesised the sound of 300,000 bees into this music” - my brother in christ, it sounds exactly the same as every other bass-heavy Hans Zimmer wannabe. Bad art *and* bad science!

I’ve been bingeing John Wick lately and mulling on the whole “men just want to pay for things with gold coins” meme - and of course has already been a John Wick larp

A Villain's Villain: "The Continental" LARP Report - David D. Levine

I’ve just returned from Spain, where I participated in a Live Action Role Play event called “The Continental,” a game of international super-assassins set in the universe of the John […]

daviddlevine.com

Really enjoyed @mjandersen.bsky.social’s post on the parallels between Kai Cenat’s “Streamer University” and blockbuster larps!

Streamer University and Thoughts on Education

Kai Cenat's newest event offered up three very different answers to the question of what a streamer's education can look like

open.substack.com

Urban Dead, the text-based massively multiplayer zombie apocalypse game, has been revived (revivified?!) by fans as Worldwide Dead!

Seeing The Odyssey at a theater, there was a young woman sitting next to me who had dragged her boyfriend along. She was into it but he declared it "boring" in advance. He kept squirming except when there was a mighty storm. It calmed his restless spirit.

I thoroughly agree! After all, the direct product of the OG Camelot myth was real life Round Table tournaments where medieval dudes role played as Lancelot, got into fights, hung out, feasted, told tales - classic third place social fun!

Zack Davisson@zackdavisson.com · 3w ago

I ask as always: What were these mythical "third places that previous generations had available to them?" The whole idea of "third places" is just so much Camelot mythmaking.

What I really like about this is how it's focused on the act of roleplaying itself, rather than releases or products.

Rascal News@rascal.news · 3w ago

Finland recognizes roleplaying as living heritage and culture worth preserving www.rascal.news/finland-reco...

The gamblers yearn for a Bloomberg Terminal larp

Kalshi Launches Advanced Trading Terminal

Kalshi Pro is the latest step in company’s evolution from a retail app to a full-service financial exchange

news.kalshi.com

This is satire, but I’m over people using “larp” as a shorthand for dissimulation and scams. 404 Media recently did the same. IMO it’s a consequence of larp becoming a political pejorative, and it’s Not Good.

It breaks my heart to see r/marathon celebrate this plainly AI-generated lore guide. I don’t know why this hits harder than other gen-AI stuff. Maybe because I got my start in games by writing strategy guides and walkthroughs, and this slop feels like an insult?

MARATHON // World Guide

What killed the colony on Tau Ceti IV, who the Runners are, and why a mad AI from 1994 is pulling the strings. A four-language fan guide to Bungie's Marathon (2026).

a-danyaev.github.io

Now that Misha Glenny's first season of In Our Time is wrapping up, I must shout out the recent ep on Vigée Le Brun, as good as any that Bragg did. Amazing subject, pacy storytelling, cool guests, great hosting.

BBC Radio 4 - In Our Time, Vigée Le Brun

The woman who became Marie Antoinette's official portraitist and won fame across Europe.

bbc.co.uk

idk I think that if you *say* that games discourse keeps repeating itself and forgetting the past, but you don’t bother citing all the people who’ve covered the same topic before, you’re part of the problem too

Anti-Haidt hive rise up!

What if It’s Not the Phones?

An evolutionary psychologist is challenging the popular understanding of kids and technology.

theatlantic.com

New dystopian larp just dropped (from a thread on Amazon Mechanical Turk stopping accepting new customers)

If you’re into this piece, this is a huge part of what my next book is about

The Fun Shortage Is Real, and It’s Making America Miserable

With fewer places to relax and socialize, and steeper prices for entry, having fun is quantifiably harder than it used to be.

bloomberg.com