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Aftermath08 is part of a new and emergent multimedia genre known as 'Alternate Reality Gaming'. The game is structured around an interactive narrative that uses multiple media and game elements to engage players, encourage collaboration and tell a story.
Alternative Reality Games are identifiable but their use of the Real World as a platform: they incorporate existing places, events and websites into the scope of the overall telling of the story. These games are full of possibilities as the path the players walk is decided collaboratively by the players and the games creators.
Aftermath08 was developed by five students on the honours degree program and ran for a five week duration through April and May 2008 attracting players from as far a field as Sweden, Australia, Canada and the United States.
Throughout the duration of the game players were sucked into a story about the mysterious disappearance of various employees of the fictional Dundalk-based company, Identicryption.
Players worked their way through secret websites and coded messages in the search for the truth about the disappearance of the employees. Before long they were unravelling a trail of identity theft, fraud, lies and murder.
