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Beginning at 4:00 p.m. EST, 1:00 p.m. PST, Chasing The Wish will be running a mini-quest to "whet our appetites," in which the first five players to complete the quest will be awarded some cool CTW swag. Check out the Mini-Quest rules for gaming guidelines and then have a peek at the prizes.

Main game registration is slated to begin on Tuesday, December 3, 2002. You can choose from a couple of registration options to balance your privacy requirements with the level of immersiveness you'd like to experience in Chasing The Wish. It looks like a big part of this up-and-coming campaign will be comprised of real-world clues and interaction, and we'll personally be giving up all of our personal info, including our most embarrassing baby pictures

The JadedMedia Experience (JMX) starts on Sunday, December 1, 2002, the same day as the live chat with Push, NV, Puppetmaster, Doug TenNapel. Head over to JadedMedia to check out the new look for the site, and to register for JMX if you haven't already. And don't forget to show up in #unfiction on irc.chatsolutions.org for the live chat, which starts at 5:00 p.m. PST, 8:00 p.m. EST.

Strange things are afoot at the Circle JM. As a member of the JadedMedia.net forums, I received an email offering pre-registration for an upcoming event. It said, among other things:

the jadedmedia experience is fast approaching, so if you would like to get in on the action, you have the unique opportunity to pre-register.

simply go to the registration page at www.jadedmedia.net/cgi-bin/locked.cgi to create your account, which will grant you access to the game starting dec. 1, [2002]

thanks and good luck.

kevin clarke,
webmaster - jadedmedia.net

So what are you waiting for? Head over and sign up, baby!

On a related note, I poked around jm.net and its sister-site, Guys Guise, and lo and behold there were counters on each one! Counting down, no less! A little bit of quick math (or looking in the source code if you suck at the maths, G) shows us that the sites are counting down to December 1st. Looks like that's going to be one exciting day.

Ever wished you could play online games instead of doing your homework? Okay, so maybe many of us have done just that. But here's a guy with a novel approach: Tommy Nordkvist is a Danish student living in the Netherlands who is writing his thesis on social interactions in the world of EverQuest. Not only that but he wrote a semester paper about Alternate Reality Gaming. Unfortunately it's in Danish, and he won't be able to translate it for us until next March at the earliest.

We told Tommy that we were surprised there was enough material already in the ARG universe to write a thesis and here's what he had to say:

Tommy wrote:
Believe me, there's was already back in June more than sufficient material for a thesis and a doc.disp. in that subject. Just establishing the phenomenon as a genre took a LONG time!

Check out his blog, Tempus Tommy, where he's been tracking the ARG and MMORPG genres since at least February.

Thanks to Trallyus for putting us in touch with Tommy! Stay tuned for a huge list of interesting webgames Trallyus also pointed us toward.

ARGN and Unfiction.com will be hosting a chat with Push, NV, consulting producer and "Push Puzzle Kingpin" Doug TenNapel on Sunday, December 1, 2002, at 5:00 p.m. PST (8:00 p.m. EST). Join us live as we grill Mr. TenNapel on all behind-the-scenes aspects of the Push campaign.

Before working on Push, NV, Doug TenNapel got his start in television as an animator for the cartoon version of "Attack of the Killer Tomatoes." Later, he got into video games and created both the "Earthworm Jim" game and subsequent television show. His upcoming TV effort, entitled "Gear," is based on his graphic novel of the same name, published by Fireman Press. Mr. TenNapel has dozens of comic book, video game, animation, and television credits, and he also wrote, directed, and played a part in the 2000 movie Mothman.

The chat will be held in #unfiction on the Chat-Solutions network (irc.chat-solutions.org). Please try to arrive a little early. This will be a moderated chat. Chat and question guidelines can be found here.