Players encounter alternate reality game across multiple indie games

In several indie games, puzzle pieces and characters have been found that are very similar and connected to each other. On Reddit, users and gamers are looking for more puzzle pieces to find out what the solution is.

Multiple indie games are connected to the alternate reality game of arg. Players noticed this when a conspicuous ‘eye’ symbol was found in several games. At first it seemed to be just Steam games, but later it turned out that games that are not on Steam are also related. At the time of writing, seven puzzle pieces have been found, and there is an eighth game that contains the eye symbol, but in which no puzzle piece has yet been found.

The games in which puzzle pieces were found are Crypt of the Necrodancer, Mini Metro, Legend of Dungeon, The Magic Circle, Neon Struct, Mos Speedrun 2 and Flickers. The eye symbol has also been found in Kingdom of Loathing, but a corresponding puzzle piece has not yet been found. The eye symbol has been in the latter game since 2014.

There seems to be no correlation in terms of the type of games and where they were found. For example, in some games the puzzle piece is hidden in the game files, while in other cases it can be found in the game itself when certain conditions are met.

The puzzle pieces seem to connect to each other, resulting in a round maze where the arrow is probably the starting point on the outer line. The end point is presumably the square, but the information is not fixed. This is because several puzzle pieces seem to be missing. What to do with the result after completing the maze puzzle is not known.

On Reddit and on a Discord chat server, gamers work together to discover new puzzle pieces and connect the pieces to the already existing part of the maze. An extensive spreadsheet has been made for this on which all tested games are indicated and what has or has not been found. One of the researchers also put all the puzzle pieces in a message on imgur.com.

One of the theories that has been put forward states that the arg has to do with Jonathan Blow’s new game, The Witness. That game is full of puzzles and therefore fits well with the extensive arg puzzle that gamers work on. However, The Witness is already out and so far no match has been found. Another theory suggests that it may not be a flat maze, but a 3D puzzle, such as a sphere. So far there is no evidence for this either.

The use of alternate reality has gained popularity in 2015. For example, there was the arg in The Binding of Isaac: Afterbirth, which required deciphering tweets and real-world quests to find clues. Valve also implemented a small alternate reality game during the Winter Sale.

Source: Imgur.com