Serial Experiments ARG Pre-Announcement Post! (Patreon)

Synopsis

In the wild years of the late 90s, a mysterious technology corporation appeared and caught the attention of everyone, including the U.S. Government. After a few short years of unsettling experiments, the organization went underground again, never to be heard from again, or so we thought.

Years later, a series of short-form micro videos appeared on various social media platforms, showing the adventures of several shrunken people attempting to survive being reduced to various tiny sizes. The videos quickly went viral, but the person...or group, kept themselves behind an alias. Just as the short-style videos exploded to mass market appeal like a reality TV show, the uploads stopped, and the accounts disappeared. The viewership was enraged...they wanted more.

Follow along and solve the mystery! Why did the mysterious company disappear, and what was the purpose of their experiments? Who was uploading these videos, how are they connected, and what happened to the shrunken people featured in the this make-shift social media reality show?

And most importantly...are you going to find all of the clues before it all disappears? It's time to dive in...welcome to the Serial Experiments ARG! (Augmented Reality Game!)

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Basics

Woohoo! This is going to be an *interesting* project! Let's talk about a few things on this top-tier patron only post. I'll be making a very similar announcement on the full launch of this project in just a few more days, but I need feedback from you all first. I'll discuss the structure to give you context for your feedback, but first...

What is an ARG?

For the uninitiated, an ARG or Augmented Reality Game, is an interactive game (not a video game, but also sometimes includes video games) where participants gather clues scattered throughout various media platforms and content types to piece together clues about the mystery or story behind the content they find. Serial Experiments has always had kind of a through-line that didn't go into much detail until Serial Experiments 3. This ARG will give you an opportunity to really dive deep into the world of the story, while also getting that size-changing fun you've come to expect from me. Not all of the content is unaware, but much of the 'regular' content will be.

'Regular Content' will be posted weekly, most of it being animated clips that I'll discuss more about in the next section. I aim to have a regular weekly post on the same day of each week, but I haven't decided what day that is. Even though the scope of this project is the biggest ever, it's built in such a way to reduce stress for me. Much of the early content is already rendered, edited, and ready, but I'd like to be even farther ahead.

Content Structure

Every week, I'll be posting a very, very short clip of a shrunken person in a potentially dangerous situation...up to 30 seconds of the usual content from me, lots of feet, vore, and some random other situations. There will be two versions... a vertical YouTube Short (as long as YouTube doesn't ping me anymore...) and a traditional 1080p version. Both videos will be the same content, but with the wider aspect ratio of the short, there may be additional easter eggs, clues, or things you should pay attention to to help you progress faster. The 1080p videos will be posted  for $10 and $25 patrons, the YT Short will be posted for $3, and $5 patrons, and some of them will also be posted publicly, and on DeviantArt.

We will start there, and once the ball is rolling, there *may* be an opportunity to find additional content outside of Patreon. These opportunities may come sooner if you pay attention to content that would otherwise be hidden by the more narrow aspect ratio of a YouTube Short. I'm just saying, I rendered two different versions of all of these animations for a reason...!

Once you have *found* this additional content, there might be a place to check for regular content updates outside of Patreon, and a way to get notified if that content changes (still working that part out, it may end up just being a post on Patreon)

At the end of the ARG, I will take all of this content that I've been working on for 2 months (yes, also while I was working on the previous animation) and dump it all here, for everyone to enjoy. I don't know how long this will last, I've got content planned through at least the end of July. So, that leads to my question for you all!

I want your feedback!

As top tier patrons, you pay a lot, and some of y'all don't have the time to go trolling through the internet looking for a hidden code to put on a hidden website to unlock a hidden vore story somewhere on the interwebs...you just want cute girls unintentionally harassing tiny shrunken people, and that's legit. With that in mind, I am considering, for this tier only, also posting new content updates directly to this page, including the ones that are hidden in the ARG. These will be separate posts and tagged appropriately so that those of you who want to find the content on your own can do so, and those of you who just want to, uhm, enjoy the content without the game aspect, just check here once a week.