With the paint still drying on ‘Well Done Team GB’ banners adorning gardens and shop windows across the UK, the Olympics and Paralympics have shown how determination, dedication, technology and science can elevate mere mortals into powerfully impressive superhumans. We’ve come a long way and are smarter, more mobile and living longer than ever before, however the topic of altered bodies is still a prickly one for some. Following extensive roundworm research at Harvard University into how mutated genes can extend life spans, a troop of student scientists who were rumoured to be working on similar trajectories involving quantum electrodynamics and artificial intelligence has mysteriously disappeared from Belgrade University…

Or so Alt-Minds would have us believe. With the future very much in mind, transmedia experts Lexis Numérique and Orange are launching an Alternative Reality Game (ARG) this autumn that requires participants to become online detectives to help track down the missing researchers via a series of real time investigations. Djamil Kemal from Lexis Numérique at gamescom told us “By using your laptop or PC, mobile phone or tablet you can access the game’s newsfeed online or by the mobile app, check your e-mail for tips and hints, receive text messages and scout well-known social networks to become completely immersed. The Alt-Minds experience might become part of your everyday life!”

The level of immersion will be completely up to the individual. For those wanting to adopt a passive approach, there will be an on-going ‘catch-up’ web series that will explain what has happened in the investigation so far and highlight any new developments alongside some associated casual games to play. For those with bigger, Rick Deckard aspirations, Alt-Minds will offer the chance to assist in real time missions. There are eight chapters to the game, the first of which is free with further chapters expected to cost around £3. Each chapter lasts seven days and should take around 3.5 hours to fully complete whilst the full game lasts an average of 28 hours. Follow all the leads with in-depth sleuthing and there is potentially over 100 hours of game to explore thanks to a massive operation across Europe by Lexis Numérique to blur to lines between gaming, real life and online content. What we’ve seen of the game’s scope so far shows the long lengths the developers have gone to in order to make the experience thrilling and authentic. Using an iPad, via the investigation’s newsfeed we accepted a task to complete after watching a surveillance video of a white van leaving the student’s last known location. Using technology created by Orange especially for the ARG, we were able to not only zoom in on the licence plate but clean up the fuzzy picture, quicker than any Channel 5 C.S.I. lab. One google search to track the owner of the van later and we had completed our first task but it left us thinking… What else could we find out about the owner? What’s his job? Does he have a family? The most obvious place to look for connections was Facebook. One of only 6 companies in the world officially working with real Facebook-permitted, integrated accounts to strengthen the game, suddenly we had a name, friend’s names, links and more pictures, and so the plot thickened.More than 100 people have been working on the ARG for the past four years, yet only 10-15 know the full story of the first episode. Amazing considering the unprecedented scale, with fact and fiction mixed up and planted across real and fake websites, newspapers and other media. Real people are already uploading YouTube videos of fake scenes they have witnessed, believing them to be real and unexplainable. Fake articles have been appearing in national newspapers across the world. It’s not confined to major cities either. Those taking part who become heavily involved may find evidence and characters appearing in their local area. If a key witness is due to board a specific flight from Bournemouth Airport, would you travel there to capture a photo, perhaps order a ticket to sit next to them on the plane?! Certainly, a huge investment has gone into the planning of this complex experience. Some people will come into some contact with the game without ever knowing it whilst others may become so deeply immersed, they might be invited to become permanent investigators, shaping future episodes. It will be interesting to keep an eye on how many people stay the full 8 week course.

“Our ultimate aim is to tell a story.” Djamil beams at us “And it is a thrilling story! Alt-Minds is merged in between movies, TV and games, unlike anything game you will have played before and YOU are leading it, shaping it.” Using extreme science, unexplained mysteries, and conspiracy theories thicker than a Wookie’s mane, Alt-Minds may not only change the way we seek out and use information on the web but question the very way we think about and participate in gaming. You will play yourself at whatever pace or level of immersion you want as the story unfolds via whatever means you prefer. Prepare to have your mind altered.

Alt-Minds will be available from November onwards. See the website for more, teasing information.