Even in this fast-moving world, in which more or less anything with a silicon chip in it is a gaming platform, you don’t often come across a game with its own neologism. So that instantly makes Alt-Minds, a collaboration between French developer Lexis Numerique and Orange, stand out. For it describes itself as a transmedia game. Admittedly, transmedia is a word that has already established itself in the lexicon – it means “To tell a single story across multiple platforms”. Which, judging by a recent demo, describes Alt-Minds perfectly.
Lexis Numerique may not be the best known developer around, but it does have a track record of making innovative adventure games – its highest-profile such effort being 2003’s In Memoriam, published by Ubisoft, and the recent PSN game Red Johnson’s Chronicles. Both games are essentially jazzed-up point-and-click adventures, and that, deep down, is what Alt-Minds is, too. It’s a popular genre among French developers, as Heavy Rain reiterated, and seems to suit the French love for the off-beat and cerebral.
Lexis Numerique’s marketing and business development director Djamil Kemal, who demoed Alt-Minds, explained the game’s curious structure: “We call it “a total fiction”, and you can access it from all your screens – PC, mobile phone or tablet – at any time. It will be like a TV show, in that it is a game which has a beginning and an end. It will consist of eight episodes released over eight weeks – you will get the first week’s episode for free, and then each subsequent weekly episode will cost about £2.80. We expect it to come out in November.”
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Transmedia is a word that has already established itself in the lexicon – it means “To tell a single story across multiple platforms”. Judging by a recent demo, this describes Alt-Minds perfectly.
Kemal explained that the main aspect of the game will be an app (operating on the PC or tablets), which resembles Facebook (although it is visually distinct, which is just as well, since he said it will playable on Facebook, too). When you download a week’s worth of the game, your Facebook-style interface’s feed will set you a new mission each day. Alt-Minds’ gameplay will then test your investigative web skills – you’ll have to visit Facebook pages (both real and fake), characters in the game will send you text messages or even call your mobile, and you’ll have to use the likes of Google Maps and Street View to progress. According to Kemal, “There are additions to the regular game which will let you earn XP. For example, the most involved players can use geolocalisation, where you got to a specific place and check it out with your phone.” Luckily, he added that although Alt-Minds is a pan-European game, that geolocalisation element will pegged to players’ general vicinities.
The basic plot of Alt-Minds centres on a group of five young scientists working at a foundation in Belgrade, who disappear in Ukraine – and your job, as a member of one of a pair of investigative teams, is to find them. Much of your raw investigative material will come in the form of video (shot, according to Kemal, in Russia, Ukraine, Germany and the UK). You’ll be fed info and assigned tasks by the (fictional) members of your team, although Kemal asserted that although it is designed to be a solo game, you can collaborate with real-life friends who are also playing it.
The episode shown included tasks like identifying a man whose first name was Viktor, using sketches made of him by children, other written evidence including possible surnames and searching Facebook. Later on, we were shown a holiday-style video showing a car on an Eastern European road driven by a man we were told was now dead– the task involved using a Sharpen tool to get the number-plate, and Google Maps and Street View to investigate the area where his body was found. Gameplay-wise, Alt-Minds should appeal to devotees of CSI and the like – don’t expect action to be on offer.
It’s impossible to say, on the basis of a short demo, whether Alt-Minds will be much fun to play, but you certainly can’t fault Lexis Numeriques’ ingenuity and determination to innovate. Those who prefer games that shun the mainstream and obvious would do well to keep an eye out for it – its release date is not yet set in stone, but you can bet Orange will trail it heavily (Kemal insisted that you don’t have to be an Orange customer to play it), or keep your eye on http://ign.com/www.lexis-games.com. If nothing else, it should give you a handle on precisely what transmedia actually is.
Source : ign[dot]com
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