It’s hard to believe it’s been five years since we released our first ARG, The White Door’s Mental Health and Fishing.
We were eager to try something entirely different after the crossover with Cube Escape: Paradox and the Paradox short film. One of our prototypes stood out and became The White Door- a game with a unique style in the Rusty Lake universe: split-screen, mostly black-and-white graphics, no inventory and a focus on creating an emotional narrative. In the game, you play as Robert Hill, a man with severe memory loss who checks himself in a mental health facility. Explore his dreams and help him uncover forgotten memories while navigating the facility's strict routine. The White Door was also the first game co-published by Second Maze, our new label to help publish and fund other indies with their passion projects.
Halfway through development, in the Summer of 2019, our intern, Romane, pitched the idea of an ARG to amplify the release of The White Door. We loved the concept of adding an extra layer of immersion, so we quickly decided to go for it. Our base idea was to hide a telephone number within the game and that players who called them would be led to a secret website.
On January 23, 2020, 2 weeks after the digital release of The White Door, the website: mentalhealthandfishing.com went live. This 90’s inspired website set the stage for an intense puzzle hunt triggered by fans who already got the URL from the telephone number. Players had to “hack” the site, find physical cubes in real-world locations, and connect them with the game to unlock The White Door’s secret Basement ending.
https://store.steampowered.com/app/1145960/The_White_Door/
It became one of the most stressful yet exciting events we’ve ever experienced. We had to carefully plan and set up everything: the website, a video to kick off the event and additional social media accounts for characters you uncovered throughout the ARG. What we didn’t anticipate was just how many people from all over the world would jump into the ARG and participate in the physical cube hunt. We expected it to take at least a month to solve…but events transpired quite differently! The puzzle-solving power of our community, particularly on Discord, was mind-blowing. Watching it unfold was impressive, but it also meant we had to rush to wrap up the event in a satisfying way.
Nearly 20,000 people participated. The website crashed at launch, and in no time, players were racing across the globe to find black cubes in cities from San Francisco to Tokyo. Fans in South Korea were searching for a cube in a local barber shop, and in China, where COVID-19 just hit, we had to caution players to stay safe and not travel too much. Funnily enough, the final cube was hidden in Amsterdam. Mr. Crow revealed the last cube, and all locations were made visible on the world map on the website. Players who filled up our contest form and the winners of the cubes were added to the Mental Health and Fishing Hall of Fame.
This ARG was one of the highlights of our community engagement, and we want to, once more, thank everyone who took part. You all did an incredible job that day, and who knows… your help might be needed again in the future!
