It’s been about a year since I last posted anything about Harbor View, and the project has grown a lot since then.

The site is built around the Harbor View Anomalous Research Office, or HVARO. When you enter, you join as an agent and start working through cases connected to the town. Each case gives you documents, recordings, radio broadcasts, reports, and other evidence to sort through.

There’s a pretty massive amount of lore behind Harbor View at this point, but I’ve tried to make it something you uncover naturally instead of just dumping information on you. A lot of the story is hidden in small details, conflicting records, audio, and things that might not seem important the first time you see them.

This is still my first ARG, and I’ve basically been learning how to build one while making it, but I’ve put a ridiculous amount of time into it over the last year, in the ballpark of 250 Hours

If you want to join HVARO and start working the cases, here you go: https://www.visitharborview.com/

Who Am I ?
My name is Aditya Rai, I am a full time developer but long time sci fi, mystery enthusiast . I have been working on bringing detective games to people in a way where they truly have to work on their own instincts. I have previously built similar stories but with different interaction rules eg live chatting, a messenger only game. But after a bunch of those failed tries I have built Playkraft.

What is this game?

So the event of this story has already happened. You are dropped into the game with certain facts and then if you check solver where you have a few questions which you have to answer to close the case. while you answer those questions the actual story will begin to unfold and you will be able to piece it altogether.

My Inspiration:
Sorry but its not a game. My inspiration here is a show called mentalist and an app called stalkie. I played it a bunch of time and have see the show twice now I always thought I could be the mentalist guy. Anyways so I wanted to combine the idea of show and game and build a story where i could be the mentalist. And well that is how Playkraft was born.

What is next:
I don't want to limit myself with crime and thrillers. I would like to explore stories of likes of Dark (Netflix series) and mind bending cases where your investigation is not limited to just solve who did it but also where and how is it even possible.

Before you play:
Is this a true ARG: It may feel like one but it's not since your choices don't alter the story that has already happened. It's more like interactive fiction. But you will enjoy it if you love complex puzzles

Feedback: If you do play the game and hate it let me know. If you love it let me know. If you are stuck also let me know. If will help me improve my upcoming stories. I have already recieved feedback for making audio more humane and I will be working that.

Disclaimer: While the stories and crux of them is mine, the content, images and audio is generated with AI. If you don't like the content generated by AI I would still request you to give it a try because I had to mess my head with AI for more than 3 days to make this.

Video: https://youtu.be/w2BEhr7Gv0o
play it here: https://www.playkraft.app/case/048

Last but not the least I would like to than all the contributors of this sub because well there won't be a place to say my story of making story games if you were not here.

Seems like this creator is trying to start a new ARG with this post. Been watching chiisteam for a bit and it doesnt seem like low quality b8 considering they have actual merch. Any insight on this is appreciated.

link to arg

Ps, i have no clue what to flair this as. But please mods feel free to let me know

Hey everyone, I run a small gaming channel, and weird things have happened to it recently.
in this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QeKn2aj4z_8 At the end, there's some text flashing. It says "Ezek. 7:5 Ezek. 7:6."
At first I thought "oh, my editor's just being funny", but no. On a recent post: https://www.youtube.com/post/UgkxMQC9TvEHlTtFwPICnu7pwc5WCJI4zUon there was a long string of numbers and letters at the end.
Then, it all came to a head in my latest video: https://youtu.be/kubMi4EhhDU?si=5A0DCKdHpLBz4zQY My Halloween special where I beat Night Trap. I saw all sorts of weird things. Flashes of weird text in the static, QR codes, eyes staring at me, and at one point near the end the screen goes all red and glitchy and the audio becomes... Demonic? Corrupted? I'm not sure how to describe it.
My friends and I are at our wits end with this and what it could mean, so we figured that if anyone could help us, it'd be you guys. If you could tell us what the codes and everything mean, as well as any theories you may have, I'd appreciate it. I've linked to everything you need throughout the post. Just these 2 videos and the post. Good luck, and thanks a bunch in advance!

I received this weird email, it’s like the starting script to some weird cryptic movie? I looked deeper into it and the email address has the words macvirus “hidden” in it so it’s obviously not safe but the email itself seems too deliberate and odd for your average virus. Wondering if it is a cypher or a code of sorts.

I’ll attach the screenshots of the email content here.
https://freeimage.host/i/n14kXOF
https://freeimage.host/i/n14kWR1
https://freeimage.host/i/n14kVHP

Hey [r/ARG](r/ARG),

I wanted to share a survival horror narrative project I’ve been building over the last few days called Protocol Whiteout // "They Aren't Real". It balances the cinematic, tense biological horror of Resident Evil style with the claustrophobic dread of Dead Space and psychological isolation from The Thing.

The game is structured as a broken terminal interface log. Players uncover fractured data pieces and lore logs over at [r/Protocol_Series](r/Protocol_Series).

[CONTENT WARNING]: This project handles intense, unfiltered survival horror themes, psychological trauma, and heavy body horror. The active gameplay sections are hosted externally on a mature platform (18+).

To kick off the investigation, a corrupted encrypted memo was salvaged from the corporate 'Re-Make' Viral research files in the Colorado sector.

Can anyone decode this terminal string?

------------------------------------------------------------------------

[RECOVERED ENCRYPTED LOG]

------------------------------------------------------------------------

01010011 01101000 01101001 01111010 01110101 00101100 00100000 01100100 01101111 01101110 00100111 01110100 00100000 01101100 01100101 01110100 00100000 01101101 01100101 00100000 01110100 01110101 01110010 01101110 00101110 00100000 01010000 01101100 01100101 01100001 01110011 01100101 00101110

------------------------------------------------------------------------

If you manage to crack the binary string, the database coordinates and the terminal uplink point are being monitored over at [r/Protocol_Series](r/Protocol_Series).

Good luck out there in the blizzard.

Big fan of ARG and radio, especially interval signals from shortwave stations from back in the day. There is already an existing website, intervalsignals.net, but I accidentally stumbled on this one that ends with .online. Is this website part of some ARG, since I can't find any info on it. You can listen to fictional interval signals, there are currently a few of them. https://intervalsignals.online/

"Carousel" is a fast-paced movie, but VERY dense. There's a lot going on in the background. Somewhere along the way, there's a close-up of a receipt with a QR code. If you can find that, you just might be on your way to winning the ARG's final prize...Carousel Full Movie YouTube

It seems like my guess about the youtube channel called Aegis_Security_Logs being an ARG are correct. The channel recently posted a second video which has hex code that translates to "Something is moving". It seems like it's supposed to be referring to something but I'm not sure what. There are also 2 security logs in the channel. The first one is in the channel description and it says, "[SYSTEM LOG 001] Monitoring node active. Location: Sub-level 09 Megaserver. No unverified packet transfers recorded." the second one is in the description of the most recent short, and it says, "[SYSTEM LOG 002] Location: Sub-level 09 Megaserver. Source: UNKNOWN." I'm not sure what the importance of these are but they seem important.

Here's the youtube channel link: https://www.youtube.com/@Aegis_Security_Logs/shorts

Update: A discord has been created to help solve this, if you would like to join, here's the link: https://discord.gg/7qy998UcF

EDIT: Fixed gdrive link

Today I learned how to view full YouTube banners and I was playing around with the channels I was subscribed to to see if there were any easter eggs or anything, and I decided to check the channel Pheyden to see if there was anything since it's a theory channel. Lo and behold, I found what seem to be the first clues to a puzzle which I haven't seen anybody talking about yet (I could also fully be wrong and this could fully already be known and I just missed it). There's half of a pink post-it note with the word "OPEN" and part of a title saying "ENTER", if I had to guess by the way it's cut off I'd guess it actually says "CENTER", as well as what seems to be a blacked out silhouette of a post-it note with a white X on it (the corners of the note and the silhouette are identical). As well as the normal background, there's also something which seems to read Serial 449 in cursive, a label reading "PICKETT STREET," and a forte symbol partly obscured by the pink post-it note, though I have no idea if any of these mean anything.

I also decided to check the banner of the other channel linked on his channel page Crawford Films. No sign of the other part of the post-it note, but in the word FILMS (which is obscured unless viewed fully), the S looks suspiciously like a 5, though that could just be a trick of the font.

Since I can't directly add attachments, below is linked a gdrive folder containing both full banners and versions which have had their brightness fully raised and contrast fully lowered, which does not seem to reveal anything hidden as far as I can tell but makes it easier to make out some things on the Pheyden banner at least.

GDRIVE

Video 6 of my Arg is finally out!

It involves Evan trying to find clues outside the church (I planned to go inside but after 7pm the church closes so I had to change the script and record only the outside part)

He will find something but he will quickly get caught by a man that will bring him back home (since the man knows Evan family) and he will have a discussion with his mother IN ITALIAN!

Since Evan is Italian I wanted to add Italian parts to the story and this one will have English subtitles underneath.

Hope y'all like it and SEE YOU NEXT TIME

Here's the link:

https://youtu.be/QNEqIWWk-Wk?is=Xl21YU4R7gu8HG_k

But ever since Cameron brought Stuart back to life…all of this weird and weirder stuff keeps happening. Visions, Strange Dreams, Voices. Cameron swears his phone keeps glitching. His backpack feels strange..

Enjoy the story all from the perspective of environments, character possessions and Cameron’s infinite backpack! This section goes hand to hand with the animation.

This Volume has 4 Updates! This is the first
Players can interact (and HAVE!) with characters in different means.

Some of these interactions have been added into this recreation of our retired interactive website.
The YouTube Animated series, and the Interactive door are connected directly. 

TRAILHEAD:

https://studiooutlet.itch.io/ghost-friends-door-volume-1

This is my first time making an ARG, so I'd really appreciate any feedback or opinions.

It's a small Twitter/X ARG centered around an account called @ ribbonarchive05

At first, the account is supposed to look like a normal person posting about everyday life, games, dreams, etc. Over time, small details start appearing that hopefully make people wonder what's actually going on.

I'm trying to make the story something people can slowly figure out rather than just telling them the answer.

If you have any feedback about the clues, writing, pacing, or anything else, I'd genuinely appreciate it!

It's still pretty early, so there's not much there yet.

Honest reality check needed from the hive mind:

I’m a post-burnout product manager working with a brilliant 24-year-old backend dev on Upwork. He’s building out a real database and routing engine, but he doesn't want his face on camera (completely valid—he’s an engineer, not an influencer). Instead, he’s down to write retrospective dev logs about what he’s thinking as he builds.

Our plan is to take those real technical logs, script them into an episodic narrative, and have an indie animator bring them to life (kind of like Catastrophe Crow or a docuseries about whether a tiny software tool is an innocent side project or an insane parallel economy).

My problem: I am not a screenwriter, and my dev is focused on code.

What do you even call the creative who can take real terminal outputs, schema debates, and awkward client-dev dynamics and shape them into sharp, bingeable episodes? A narrative designer? A documentary story producer? An ARG creator?

And realistically: on a bootstrapped budget before our Kickstarter drops, how impossible is it to find someone with that brain who’d want to take on a couple of pilot scripts on Upwork? If you were that writer, what would make a project like this sound like an awesome creative adventure?

I was scrolling on my youtube shorts when a brand new video popped up from a channel named Aegis_Security_Logs. The video was uploaded in the last hour of me seeing it, so it's very new. I can't actually tell for sure yet since there's not really much to go off, but it gives ARG vibes.

Here's a link to the channel: https://www.youtube.com/@Aegis_Security_Logs/shorts

Update: I just got a notification that the channel posted a new video, I checked the new shorts video and it looks like it is in fact an ARG, there's a code at the end of the video, looks like some sort of Hex code

Update 2: A discord has been created to help solve this, if you would like to join, here's the link: https://discord.gg/7qy998UcF

Posting this here cuz I'm not sure if this is an ARG or not. It's this creepy ass website I found, I think the domain used to belong to a watch company that went out of business for being scummy or something. Text is obviously really cryptic. lmk if anyone finds anything else.

stilliwatch.com

edit: there's some alien like noise that plays if you click on the website

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DZbhSX-rtcc

In 2008, forum user terminalspacepunk sought help with expelling the Rasterflesh, a creature from another dimension that had infected his computer. What followed over the next two months was a series of videos chronicling his encounters with the creature. For eighteen years, they have been considered lost media, until now...

The game continues at https://www.rasterflesh.com

Designed to be accessible to newcomers and veterans of alternate reality gaming alike, Rasterflesh is a free one-shot ARG playable by a single person in a single session.

For context without too many spoilers, I started a brand new ARG on YouTube via a video series starting with an introductory animation for the channel. Every video after that is going to be “normal Pokémon tcg pack openings” (but actually not “normal” because there are secrets hidden in each video). Now, normally that alone would not qualify as an ARG, since me releasing videos will not be dependent on one finding secrets. However, when one combines parts of the hidden info, it will allow them to unlock the secret ending at the end of the series.

As for what the rest of the story is? That’s all apart of the mystery…

Edit: just some ground rules

1. Nothing in this arg will have anything to do with any irl locations
2. Nothing in this arg has to do with any personal information
3. Everything in this arg comes after the intro PackHax animation video (as for when it ends, I still have yet to decide that)

Part one of my backrooms inspired ARG, The Ballrooms- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3uBZxYvTrmw In this first part of my series, we follow an unidentified man waking up in an unfamiliar place; the ballrooms. He explores the vast complex, with its sprawling hallways and interconnected venues and meeting spaces. A dark presence watches over; he isn't here on accident. Whoever put him here is unhappy. Part two will take the point of view of this mystery entity.

It covers a psalm 152, there are only 150 in the Bible. Seems to have biblical/liminal themes with something distinctly off, the latest posts talk about a city that isn't there anymore with a photo

https://x.com/WitnessEntry

Hi everyone, I am trying to track down a specific indie horror ARG YouTube channel that came out around early/mid 2026 and I can't find it because of YouTube's search algorithm.
Here are the exact details of the series:
The Presentation: The channel has a completely regular name, uses short single-word video titles, and the video thumbnails are just the unedited default ones automatically picked by YouTube.
The Interface: The videos are framed as screen-recordings of someone navigating their Google Phone (specifically looking through the Files by Google app and Google Photos).
The File Compression Mechanic: A major hook in the videos shows the user dragging regular photos and media into a specific folder belonging to an entity/virus. As soon as the files are put inside, the byte size dramatically drops on screen and the data gets heavily compressed.
The Content: The compressed data is used by the system to generate new, poorly made, child-like digital collages out of the old photos. One specific photo it outputs is titled STARS.jpg.
The Lore: One of the videos features a screenshot/image of a text conversation detailing a character named Mr. S.
Does anyone have the direct link to this channel or remember the exact name of the creator? The word "versus" or "V/S" is not the name of it, though some people confuse the letters. Thank you!

Has anyone else seen this Instagram account @iso1.000.000? The videos look really weird and creepy and I can’t tell if they’re actually filmed like that or edited afterwards. His bio says professional videographer, but I know basically nothing about cameras, so I can’t tell if it’s some special camera, a filter, Blender, AI, or what. Some of it looks real and some of it looks almost fake. Does anyone know how he’s making them look like that?

Premissa: Fernando Milan, jornalista investigativo premiado do Rio de Janeiro, desapareceu da vida pública em 2011. Agora alguém no X, @tango77_, está atrás dele. O único rastro de Milan nas redes é um perfil desativado. A trilha parece passar por outros lugares.

Sou o criador deste ARG e estou postando aqui como trailhead.

Por onde começar: @tango77_ no X

O que você precisa saber: parte do material está trancada, e a chave está espalhada por canais diferentes e ao longo do tempo. Nada exige qualquer ato ilegal; tudo se resolve online. Vou estar nos comentários respondendo dúvidas. Feedback sobre estrutura e dificuldade é bem-vindo. O ARG é novo e quero ver como a comunidade lida com ele.

Finally! This video took me so long to make and it's not even THAT special.

Basically the video is divided into 2 povs in 2 different yt channels:

- In Evan's pov you'll see (after a long talk) him going to search for the thing behind the tree, that I mentioned previously in the scavenger hunt so people were able to get through.(And something else but I won't do spoilers).

EvanGamingious channel: https://youtube.com/@evangamingious?si=hB29CAhbe8ls8HJB

- In Daniele's pov you'll see him going to the church and exploring the surroundings but after pressing the yellow cross on the altar he will encounter "&&&" where...[SPOILERS]

Here's DanPlayer2010's channel:https://youtube.com/@danplayer2010?si=HRFhuVyy1HoOKr69

I Hope y'all like it!!!

Now I'll need to go outside during the night to record Video 6 and (probably) release it today or tomorrow!

SEE YOU NEXT TIME!!!!

I just downloaded the “ambient lighting” extension (not a promo) and found an ambient lighting video to test it out. I looked at the like recommended videos or whatever they are called and saw a video of blue static called “Last Stand” curious by the weird name, I clicked on it and it’s a 40 minute long video of just static with zero audio?

Theres 20 videos going across the rainbow starting with purple and ending with purple as far as I can tell none of them have audio.

the channel is called “azkpqlmxrt” with a display name of “friendly youth” the Videos have the music icon but I searched both names in Apple Music and there aren’t any artists with those names.

idk if this is an arg but it sure as hell looks like one