On August 15th, Alice & Smith launched a Kickstarter campaign for ‘The Black Watchmen’, a science fiction alternate reality game and comic book. The game blends a virtual storyline into the real world. In a cross-media environment, players interact online and offline to complete missions. Fifty per cent of the game’s content and storyline is produced as a result of players’ actions, giving participants a much greater feeling of immersion.
“Our games have always been about making people’s lives … fun! For some, it was a phone call at 4 a.m. and the sound of a five-year-old girl reading passages from the Book of Revelation, while for others it was overcoming the chaos found in a raid of 4,000 players,” – Andrea Doyon, Black Watchmen Puppet Master
Since launching the project on Kickstarter, a popular crowdfunding platform, the campaign has raised nearly $25k from 230 gamers and gained supportive testimonials like “I’m continuously amazed at how in-touch you are with your community, that alone deserves admiration. That you make amazing things as well, makes all of this even greater.” – Kickstarter Backer.
The success is attributed to an enticing game storyline and veteran alternative reality team. For six years, the team behind ‘The Black Watchmen’ has developed technologies to support and hold major ARGs. In addition, the founder of Alice & Smith also created Human Equation, which won the award for “128th Fastest Growing Company” in 2013 and recently secured 2014’s “48th Fastest Growing Company” in Canada. She is also 2-time nominee for Canadian Business Woman of the Year.
This new project, ‘The Black Watchmen,’ further expands the AGR community with a compelling game and comic book.
”We are building Alice &Smith to allow this type of entertainment to emerge. We want to wake up the stories, we want people to experience emotions!” – Nathalie Lacoste, founder of Alice & Smith
The project will be live on Kickstarter until September 30th. During this time, backers can pledge their support in exchange for ‘rewards’ or ‘perks’ including dog tags, a copy of the comic book, a TBW army jacket, a gold forum membership, and more. For more information, check out the Kickstarter here or contact the creator below.
