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Ourcolony is a Search Opera type Alternate Reality Game and a viral marketing campaign for the marketing of a successor to the Microsoft Xbox. The game asks players to form colonies and earn points by completing various tasks. This use of an ARG is similar to Haunted Apiary, which was a viral marketing campaign for the Xbox game Halo 2.

A brief history

On March 14th, emails were sent to members of the ARG community, from someone named Gamem8ker, with a link to an image. On the main page of the site were instructions to submit 36 images, as well as a strange series of letter combinations. It was explained that "when the right 36 pictures are sent to me, the real game begins." The letter combinations turned out to be the codes of international airports.

File:Colony360.jpg
picture appeared on site as the probable Xbox Next joystick prototype

Ourcolony hit a larger gamer audience April 6th after an article was published on Gamespot. This caused major headaches as servers became overloaded and the error message "The colony is quickly growing. Please be patient." became common. With this influx of users came rumors of hacking, cheating and spies.

Initially Ourcolony's general forums were setup to allow any user to delete any post or thread, making it almost impossible for people to have steady and meaningful communications. This led many players to create forums outside the official site where communication could continue without disruption. Currently the site's general and colony forums no longer exist.

According to the site the game has progressed from the first stage, chaos to the second stage - truth.

Scoring and game play

Although so far little is known about the game, and there is no official objective, players have been encouraged to create teams, or colonies, and gain points. According to the website, ourcolony.net, the game is being run by Gamem8ker who posts challenges and awards points for accomplishing goals. A colony cannot begin to play the game until it has at least 5 members. Points can be gained through solving puzzles, called challenges and submitting photographs of the ourcolony symbol in real world places, similar to these. Players are also encouraged to make the game "their own" by submitting challenges, and bonus points will be earned if a submitted challenge is used. Colonies also gain bonus points for being the first colony to answer a challenge and for each nation that is represented by colony members.

Official rules of the game

  • Grow your colony and work together
  • Answer right and answer first
  • This is global, get people around the world in your colony
  • Make it your game
  • Show our symbol and shares

Challenges and solutions

On March 15 2005 the first challenge was given to the colonies to solve; each day thereafter a new challenge was published and the previous challenge removed. Ourcolony does not archive the challenges or publish the solutions.

  1. Finish the game, see my bikini. All in 2 hours
    • Answer: SamusAran
    • Reasoning: In Metroid for NES if a player finished the game in under 2 hours they were shown an ending with Samus Aran in a bikini.
  2. Joshua's launch code
    • Answer: CPE 1704 TKS
    • Reasoning: In the movie War Games Joshua is the name of the computerized missile defense system.
  3. Look out football, here we come . . . number one.
  4. Pictures, letters.... what can it all mean?
  5. LAST " " 0761537082
    • Answer: just imagine the future
    • Translates to: The last quote in the book Opening the Xbox : Inside Microsoft's Plan to Unleash an Entertainment Revolution by Dean Takahashi (ISBN #0761537082) The requested quote, and solution to this challenge is, "just imagine the future".
  6. 20000 CMWKTRW. Who?
    • Answer: Trelawney
    • Reasoning: CMWKTRW is an acronym meaning "20,000 Cornish Men Will Know The Reason Why." This comes from the Cornish song "Trelawney's Army" The solution to this challenge is "Trelawney". One should note however that Cornish men should be Cornishmen, similar to Englishmen, as this is how the song is generaly written; the acronym should have been "CWKTRW." However, this exact puzzle had been used on another site in the correct "CWKTRW" format so the challenge was altered to keep players from discovering the answer.
  7. Your memory is lost, your aura is high, your life within an inch, you have one weapon left to finish off the enemy what is it? If you read closely you should know the answer
    • Answer: Finisher
    • Reasoning: There is a game called Phantom Dust, in which you have lost your memory, have an Aura, and when you are low on health, you can use your finisher.
  8. Up for anything as she marches to the beat of 11 drummers. No that's superficial.
  9. Circle Banner Image
    • This may have been a challenge posted by mistake as it was only listed for about an hour and a half.
  10. Here sweet margie sits. At this distance it sees the rich, the poor and everything in between.
    • Answer: Western Avenue
    • Reasoning: There is a candy store named Margie's On Western Ave. in Chicago.
  11. Stella's peddler. Imagine if he had one of these
    • Answer: Joe Decuir
    • Reasoning: This challane was a picture challenge, with different colonies having different puzzle pieces, when put together they formed this image with the text on top of it. Stella was the in-house name for the Atari VCS while it was in development. Named after a bicycle owned by Atari CEO, Joe Decuir.
  12. It is "The End" when Alpha, Delta and Omega are destroyed.
    • Answer: Missile Command
    • Reasoning: Alpha, Delta, and Omega are the names of the bases in the game Missile Command from where you attack the incoming missiles. Once they're destroyed, the game ends (thus, the end).
  13. XYXXXY
    • Answer: Izuna Drop
    • Reasoning: XYXXXY is the code to do the move Izuna Drop in the Xbox game Ninja Gaiden.
  14. In 79, two rods can save the family.
    • Answer: Robotron
    • Reasoning: 2005 (the current year) + 79 = 2084. Robotron: 2084 is a 1982 arcade game in which the mission is to save the last human family. The two rods refer to the dual joysticks on the arcade machine.
  15. 112798.jpg
    • Answer: Reset Reality
    • Reasoning: This challenge was a picture challenge. Blank lines on the image formed a barcode that, when decoded, revealed a phone number. When called, an answering machine would play back the message "Reset Reality, message #512".
  16. Challenge
    • Answer: 96877353
    • Reasoning: This was a picture challenge with many, many red herrings. Part of the Microsoft [[E%B3]] Xbox_Next briefing invitation. fits over the word puzzle in this challenge to reveal the phrase "call yourself". The solution is the word "yourself" translated into the correlating numbers on a phone pad. This picture was rewarded for solving the challenge.
    • Addendum: This challenge and the previous have links to Mocrosoft's [[E%B3]] invitation site. The decipher image used to solve this challenge and the phrase "Hit reset on your reality."
  17. I am in 6 places where you talk. 1 2 3 4 5 6
    • Decription: The text "i am six places where you talk" appeared on the colony page. From here the above six images were discovered in threads named "i am where you talk." on the following six forums: TeamXbox; Unfiction; IGN: Xbox 2 forum; Xbox-scene; Myspace (gamem8ker's profile, not a forum); and Xbox.com, respectively. There has been much speculation as to their meanings.

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Press coverage

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