Six to Start

We’ve had some fantastic coverage for the work we’re doing with Penguin Books for We Tell Stories. Here’s a quick, brief roundup of some blog entries and articles from everything that’s out there that have caught our eye:

Contagious Magazine - Penguin Tells Stories

Another week, another cool ARG-type story to report on, this latest from perma-cool publishing house Penguin.

The company has teamed up with Six To Start, newly formed by the creators of ongoing ARG Perplex City Dan and Adrian Hon, to launch a project that encourages six top authors to explore how the interactivity, connectivity and immediacy of the internet can enhance and evolve storytelling. Readers who can answer six questions about the stories are in with a shout of winning themselves the entire library of Penguin Classics – that’s 1300 titles (or 25 feet of shelf-space). [more]

Wired - Perplex City Creators Spin New Thriller

Alternate reality game-maker Six to Start, whose co-founders helped create the popular ARG Perplex City, has a new project that’s just as mysterious: The 21 Steps, a thriller that uses Google Maps, of all things, as its storytelling medium.

The 21 Steps tells the story of Rick, a man with a checkered past who finds himself mixed up with a dangerous organization that wants him to smuggle a mysterious vial into Scotland. A blue line traces Rick’s path across satellite images from Google Maps as you work your way through the story by clicking on location markers. [more]

Google Lat-Long Blog - How do you read a map?

Well, on a new Penguin Publishing site, you read it like a book. The text of select stories is literally displayed on maps. The site promises “Six authors. Six stories. Six weeks.” The first is a short story by Charles Cumming entitled “21 Steps,” inspired by the John Buchan novel The 39 Steps. And you can read chapters, snippets, and dialogue on a map of London. The interactive map guides you through the protagonist’s travels, revealing the next chapter of the story as you–and she–reach the destination. Visualizing the connection of the story to its physical setting expands the reader’s perspective and makes the story more palpably real. [more]

News.com - Interactive game mixes classic novels with Web 2.0 mashups

The alternate-reality game genre has a new friend, and a new format, thanks to Penguin Books, the famous British publishing house.

On Tuesday, Penguin and startup Six to Start launched their new ARG, We Tell Stories, a new-style game that its creators say is a hybrid of traditional story-telling, Web 2.0-style mashups, interactive games and classic novels. [more]

USA Today - Tell me a different story

What happens when you mix classic literature, modern writers and alternate reality games? You get We Tell Stories by venerable publisher Penguin. The site mashes up all those ingredients for a six-week experiment in digital fiction. Game designers Six to Start and six top authors re-tell six classic stories over the course of six weeks with one goal: to blend the ‘immediacy, connectivity and interactivity’ of the Net into a new form of storytelling. As the site says, ‘These stories could not have been written 200, 20 or even 2 years ago.’

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Gamasutra - Q&A: Perplex City Creators Craft ‘We Tell Stories’

The milieu of digital games has been significantly extended by the Alternate Reality Game, which was pioneered by titles such as Majestic and The Beast, and uses puzzles and clues hidden in webpages and even real-life to entice readers.

UK ARG startup Six To Start, founded by Dan and Adrian Hon - previously at Mind Candy, where they developed the collectible card-based Perplex City, described as “the world’s first commercially successful ARG” - is now embarking on its first projects as a new company.

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We’re always on the lookout for interesting clients to work with. Do you have a story to tell? Let us know.