''Jamie Kane'' is an
alternative reality game
An alternate reality game (ARG) is an interactive networked narrative that uses the real world as a platform and employs transmedia storytelling to deliver a story that may be altered by players' ideas or actions.
The form is defined by inten ...
created by the
BBC #REDIRECT BBC #REDIRECT BBC #REDIRECT BBC
Here i going to introduce about the best teacher of my life b BALAJI sir. He is the precious gift that I got befor 2yrs . How has helped and thought all the concept and made my success in the 10th board ex ...
(British Broadcasting Corporation), aimed primarily at teens, aged 14 years to 18 years, appealing to both sexes due to its mix of mystery and drama. The game is named after the main character in it, a fictional
pop star
A pop icon is a celebrity, character, or object whose exposure in popular culture is regarded as constituting a defining characteristic of a given society or era. The usage of the term is largely subjective since there are no definitively object ...
. In addition to a primary web site, the game is noted for involving interspersing fictional content related to the game in many of the BBC's web sites, including fictional interviews between
BBC Radio 1
BBC Radio 1 is a British national radio station owned and operated by the BBC. It specialises in modern popular music and current chart hits throughout the day. The station provides alternative genres at night, including electronica, dance, ...
presenters and Jamie Kane, fake ''
Top of the Pops
''Top of the Pops'' (''TOTP'') is a British Record chart, music chart television programme, made by the BBC and originally broadcast weekly between 1January 1964 and 30 July 2006. The programme was the world's longest-running weekly music show ...
'' appearances by the character, and fake
BBC News
BBC News is an operational business division of the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) responsible for the gathering and broadcasting of news and current affairs in the UK and around the world. The department is the world's largest broadca ...
reports of the character's death. The aim of the game was for players to unravel the mystery of that death, solving online puzzles and following clues that were available from a variety of sources.
Unusually for BBC content, the game involved no links to any broadcast series or other BBC characters. This, along with the fact that the game launched two months behind schedule, caused speculation that this venture by the BBC into alternate reality gaming might prove to be unsuccessful. Sophie Walpole, head of interactive drama and entertainment at the BBC, however, was publicly confident about the game's prospects at its launch, expressing her hope that the game would "
go viral
Viral phenomena or viral sensation are objects or pattern
A pattern is a regularity in the world, in human-made design, or in abstract ideas. As such, the elements of a pattern repeat in a predictable manner. A geometric pattern is a kind of ...
", adding that "More than 1 million teenagers visit BBC Online a month, and I'm aiming for in excess of 100,000 players in the first year. It could be just the start of new interactive fiction by the BBC."
History
The BBC commissioned development of the game in February 2004, shortly before the publication of the independent report by
Philip Graf
Philip, also Phillip, is a male given name, derived from the Greek (''Philippos'', lit. "horse-loving" or "fond of horses"), from a compound of (''philos'', "dear", "loved", "loving") and (''hippos'', "horse"). Prominent Philips who popularize ...
on the BBC's practice in May 2010, which saw the BBC cease its involvement in online fantasy football and surfing stories. The game was initially scheduled for release in early 2005.
For 10 months the BBC worked with outside contractors ''Preloaded'', creator of the various mini-games and puzzles in the game, and ''Creative Virtual'', a specialist in
artificial intelligence
Artificial intelligence (AI) is intelligence—perceiving, synthesizing, and inferring information—demonstrated by machines, as opposed to intelligence displayed by animals and humans. Example tasks in which this is done include speech re ...
on-line chat
robot
A robot is a machine—especially one programmable by a computer—capable of carrying out a complex series of actions automatically. A robot can be guided by an external control device, or the control may be embedded within. Robots may be c ...
technology, to create the game, at a cost of more than £250,000.
On 11 May 2005 the BBC publicly announced that it was calling for
beta test
A software release life cycle is the sum of the stages of development and maturity for a piece of computer software ranging from its initial development to its eventual release, and including updated versions of the released version to help impro ...
ers, a move that some alternate reality game commentators considered to be unusually straightforward and open for the world of alternate reality gaming. According to a Preloaded spokesman, this call for testers engendered a response and the game was "tested on hundreds of teenagers".
The game was finally launched on 5 August 2005. The launch incurred some teething troubles, with reports from players that they could not sign into the web site. Other players commented on the quality of the chat robots, and their inability to respond meaningfully to comments made by players that addressed the central theme of the game.
On 13 August 2005 the game incurred further controversy when the original entry about "Jamie Kane" in
English Wikipedia
The English Wikipedia is, along with the Simple English Wikipedia, one of two English-language editions of Wikipedia, an online encyclopedia. It was founded on January 15, 2001, as Wikipedia's first edition, and, as of
, has the most arti ...
reported the fictional biography of the game's central character as if it were fact. Questions were asked about the possibility that the article had been written by someone within the BBC itself with the intention of promoting the game. Rob Cooper responded for the BBC saying that "the BBC would never use Wikipedia as a marketing tool."
The new television series of
Doctor Who
''Doctor Who'' is a British science fiction television series broadcast by the BBC since 1963. The series depicts the adventures of a Time Lord called the Doctor, an extraterrestrial being who appears to be human. The Doctor explores the u ...
features a series of interlinked websites which are tied into the official Jamie Kane Website. The site can be accessed by following a series of links set out from the page of Deffry Vale High School which launched on 29 April 2006 to coincide with the broadcast of
School Reunion.
Credits
The game's storyline was written by
Matt Beaumont __NOTOC__
Matthew Beaumont is a British novelist and former copywriter.
Beaumont made his debut in 2000 with the comic novel, '' e. The Novel of Liars, Lunch and Lost Knickers'', which consists entirely of e-mails composed by the staff of one adv ...
, author of ''
e'', a
novel
A novel is a relatively long work of narrative fiction, typically written in prose and published as a book. The present English word for a long work of prose fiction derives from the for "new", "news", or "short story of something new", itsel ...
written in the form of a succession of purported electronic mail messages. The "Jamie Kane" character within the various video clips and stills is played by
Simon Bailey, an actor who has also worked in productions of ''
Joseph and the Amazing Technicolour Dreamcoat
''Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat'' (often colloquially known as ''Joseph'') is a sung-through musical with lyrics by Tim Rice and music by Andrew Lloyd Webber, based on the character of Joseph from the Bible's Book of Genesis. Th ...
'' and ''
We Will Rock You
"We Will Rock You" is a song written by Brian May and recorded by British rock band Queen for their 1977 album ''News of the World''. ''Rolling Stone'' ranked it number 330 of "The 500 Greatest Songs of All Time" in 2004, and it placed at numbe ...
'' in the
West End of London
The West End of London (commonly referred to as the West End) is a district of Central London, west of the City of London and north of the River Thames, in which many of the city's major tourist attractions, shops, businesses, government buil ...
and is currently appearing in the West End production of ''
Les Misérables
''Les Misérables'' ( , ) is a French historical novel by Victor Hugo, first published in 1862, that is considered one of the greatest novels of the 19th century.
In the English-speaking world, the novel is usually referred to by its original ...
''. Real-life ''Top of the Pops'' presenter
Fearne Cotton
Fearne Wood ( Cotton; born 3 September 1981) is an English broadcaster and author''.'' She began her career in the late 1990s presenting various children's television shows for GMTV, CITV and CBBC. In 2007, she presented '' The Xtra Factor'', ...
also features in the video clips. Jamie's ex-band members Fran and Jedd are played by Chris Grierson and
Justin McDonald
Justin McDonald (born 21 March 1983) is a British actor of film, television and theatre.
Early life
Justin Mark McDonald was born in Gateshead, Tyne and Wear in North East England. His keen interest in Art and Literature led him into acting ...
.
Elements of the game borrow heavily from the failed Electronic Arts subscription game 'Majestic', which was shut down early in 2002 after failing to reach the required number of paying players.
Playing the game
The game involves both web content and interaction via
text messaging
Text messaging, or texting, is the act of composing and sending electronic messages, typically consisting of alphabetic and numeric characters, between two or more users of mobile devices, desktops/laptops, or another type of compatible compute ...
, phone calls (accessible within the
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Europe, off the north-western coast of the continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotland, Wales and North ...
only),
electronic mail
Electronic mail (email or e-mail) is a method of exchanging messages ("mail") between people using electronic devices. Email was thus conceived as the electronics, electronic (digital media, digital) version of, or counterpart to, mail, ...
, and with a
chatbot
A chatbot or chatterbot is a Software agent, software application used to conduct an on-line chat conversation via text or Speech synthesis, text-to-speech, in lieu of providing direct contact with a live human agent. Designed to convincingly si ...
on a proprietary
Macromedia Flash Macromedia Flash may refer to:
*Adobe Animate, a multimedia authoring and computer animation program formerly known as ''Macromedia Flash''
*Adobe Flash
Adobe Flash (formerly Macromedia Flash and FutureSplash) is a multimedia software platform ...
interface designed to resemble an
instant messaging
Instant messaging (IM) technology is a type of online chat allowing real-time text transmission over the Internet or another computer network. Messages are typically transmitted between two or more parties, when each user inputs text and trigge ...
system. Rob Cooper, producer with the BBC's interactive drama and entertainment department, stated, "You play for around 20 minutes a day and it makes use of AI chats to feed you info. Typically, it will take around 15 days to solve, a clue at a time."
Player reaction to the game has varied. Players have described the Flash animation instant messaging system as "odd" and unlike actual instant messaging systems in nature.
During the beta testing,
Christy Dena
Christy Dena is an Australian writer, game designer, and scholar. Her scholarship and design practice in transmedia storytelling has been widely cited, especially for promoting the term "cross-media storytelling". She is also known for defining t ...
, in a lengthy and detailed analysis on the gameplay, complimented the immediacy of reaction of the chat robots, and the "smooth" integration between the various interactions with the game (specifically between electronic mail and chat). Dena also pointed out that, unlike many alternate reality games, players can join game play at any time, and the game is not played in real time.
Storyline and characters
This is a brief summary of the characters in the game and its storyline.
Jamie Kenton Kane (played by Simon Bailey) is a pop star and former member of
boy band
A boy band is loosely defined as a vocal group consisting of young male singers, usually in their teenage years or in their twenties at the time of formation. Generally, boy bands perform Love song, love songs marketed towards girls and young ...
Boy*d Upp. He died in a
helicopter
A helicopter is a type of rotorcraft in which lift and thrust are supplied by horizontally spinning rotors. This allows the helicopter to take off and land vertically, to hover, and to fly forward, backward and laterally. These attributes ...
crash. The other members of the band were songwriter Fran Barker (Chris Grierson) and model turned dancer Jedd Nicholson (
Justin McDonald
Justin McDonald (born 21 March 1983) is a British actor of film, television and theatre.
Early life
Justin Mark McDonald was born in Gateshead, Tyne and Wear in North East England. His keen interest in Art and Literature led him into acting ...
). The band has had two
UK top ten singles and several
Europe
Europe is a large peninsula conventionally considered a continent in its own right because of its great physical size and the weight of its history and traditions. Europe is also considered a Continent#Subcontinents, subcontinent of Eurasia ...
an Music Awards. Jamie has released two solo albums since the band split up.
Jessica "Jess" Hillier (Beth Garrod) runs her own unofficial Jamie Kane web site, populated by several other Jamie Kane fans, who communicate via
forum
Forum or The Forum (plural forums or fora) may refer to:
Common uses
* Forum (legal), designated space for public expression in the United States
*Forum (Roman), open public space within a Roman city
**Roman Forum, most famous example
*Internet ...
s and
instant messenger
Instant messaging (IM) technology is a type of online chat allowing real-time text transmission over the Internet or another computer network. Messages are typically transmitted between two or more parties, when each user inputs text and trigge ...
. Jess is 19 years old, from
Reading, Berkshire
Reading ( ) is a town and borough in Berkshire, Southeast England, southeast England. Located in the Thames Valley at the confluence of the rivers River Thames, Thames and River Kennet, Kennet, the Great Western Main Line railway and the M4 mot ...
and works in
HMV
Sunrise Records and Entertainment, trading as HMV (for His Master's Voice), is a British music and entertainment retailer, currently operating exclusively in the United Kingdom.
The first HMV-branded store was opened by the Gramophone Company ...
. She met Jamie backstage at ''
Top of the Pops
''Top of the Pops'' (''TOTP'') is a British Record chart, music chart television programme, made by the BBC and originally broadcast weekly between 1January 1964 and 30 July 2006. The programme was the world's longest-running weekly music show ...
'' after winning a competition.
Greta Joseph (Hayley Richards) is the blue haired member of the board. Greta is 18, from
Leeds
Leeds () is a city and the administrative centre of the City of Leeds district in West Yorkshire, England. It is built around the River Aire and is in the eastern foothills of the Pennines. It is also the third-largest settlement (by populati ...
. She is in her first year at University, studying Computing. She is good at hacking, which has got her into trouble at times. From her appearance you would not think her to be a Jamie Fan but looks can be deceiving. She and other member Cochrane don't get on, which is obvious from the message forums. She was the first to suspect that there is something dodgy about Jamie's death.
Cochrane Chambers (Philip Clayton Smith) is a 29-year-old from
Doncaster
Doncaster (, ) is a city in South Yorkshire, England. Named after the River Don, it is the administrative centre of the larger City of Doncaster. It is the second largest settlement in South Yorkshire after Sheffield. Doncaster is situated in ...
. He is the hot-headed member of the ''JamieRules'' messageboard. He reckons his destiny is to be a
flight attendant
A flight attendant, also known as steward/stewardess or air host/air hostess, is a member of the aircrew aboard commercial flights, many business jets and some government aircraft. Collectively called cabin crew, flight attendants are prima ...
. Cochrane likes his voice to be heard and does not mind giving people an unwanted opinion on any topic. He is always one to say "I told you so". Cochrane opened the very first Boy*d Upp fansite which he closed because of issues with members, one being Greta.
Kal Garvey (Toby Strange) is 22 from
Dundee
Dundee (; sco, Dundee; gd, Dùn Dè or ) is Scotland's fourth-largest city and the 51st-most-populous built-up area in the United Kingdom. The mid-year population estimate for 2016 was , giving Dundee a population density of 2,478/km2 or ...
,
Scotland
Scotland (, ) is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Covering the northern third of the island of Great Britain, mainland Scotland has a border with England to the southeast and is otherwise surrounded by the Atlantic Ocean to the ...
. He is a journalist for the Dundee Courier & Advertiser. Could Kal be tempted to betray the board members for a big scoop?
Shaz Brahmachari (Imogen Ware) is 13 years old, making her the youngest member of the board. She comes from the West Midlands and rarely understands what Cochrane is talking about.
Fay Urban (Tabitha Fielding) is Jamie's Manager and founder of Rock Trust, an indie record label.
Lana Terry (Emma Allen) is Jamie's girlfriend. Beautiful and glamorous, she is devastated by Jamie's death, but finds enough time to get over it within a matter of weeks. She hooks up with Jamie's former bandmate, Fran Barker, who both grace the pages of
OK!.
Nick Hillier is Jess's brother who is backpacking around
Thailand
Thailand ( ), historically known as Siam () and officially the Kingdom of Thailand, is a country in Southeast Asia, located at the centre of the Indochinese Peninsula, spanning , with a population of almost 70 million. The country is bo ...
when he gets caught up in the Jamie situation.
Duncan and Penny Kane are Jamie's parents. His father left when Jamie was seven and Jamie was raised by his mother along with sisters Sara and Alexia.
David Glenny is Jamie Kane's lookalike.
Secret game
At the bottom of the Team Jamie page is garbled small print. The full stop links to a deciphering game that appears elsewhere in the full game. Deciphering the text reveals the following message:
''still want more? there's a hidden game in the phone simulator (day 7). go back to greta's blog, scroll down to the entry called 'simulator' and launch the simulator. click on the data window and press 'p' on your keyboard to paste the code in automatically, then type '8672' to unlock the phone. now use the keypad on the screen to type #snake and you'll launch the hidden game. see if you can beat our top score of 240''
The SIMulator game will only be available to people who have reached the point in the game for it to have appeared in Greta's blog.
Tie-in websites
This is a list of tie-in websites for ''Jamie Kane''.
Jamie-related
* The "official web site for Jamie Kane" (www.jamiekane.co.uk) in the game. This website is presented in a formal manner, and contains many clues in the lines of the text. It contains a number of songs supposedly sung by Jamie Kane and his former
boy band
A boy band is loosely defined as a vocal group consisting of young male singers, usually in their teenage years or in their twenties at the time of formation. Generally, boy bands perform Love song, love songs marketed towards girls and young ...
Boyd Upp. They are a number of clues in these songs as to what happens to Jamie, most notably the last song he recorded, "Torn".
* Jamie Rules (www.jamierules.co.uk)
archive, the "fan-run web site for Jamie Kane" in the game. This is the main website used in the game. If you have not registered to take part in the game, then you cannot see much of what happens here. It contains Screenshots of
BBC News 24
BBC News (also known as the BBC News Channel) is a British free-to-air public broadcast television news channel for BBC News. It was launched as BBC News 24 on 9 November 1997 at 5:30 pm as part of the BBC's foray into digital domestic telev ...
. It contains a
discussion forum
An Internet forum, or message board, is an online discussion site where people can hold conversations in the form of posted messages. They differ from chat rooms in that messages are often longer than one line of text, and are at least temporar ...
for members who have signed up and also contains
Instant messaging
Instant messaging (IM) technology is a type of online chat allowing real-time text transmission over the Internet or another computer network. Messages are typically transmitted between two or more parties, when each user inputs text and trigge ...
-type programmes as
popups. These are actually
chatbots
A chatbot or chatterbot is a software application used to conduct an on-line chat conversation via text or text-to-speech, in lieu of providing direct contact with a live human agent. Designed to convincingly simulate the way a human would beha ...
which have been designed to respond in particular ways.
Blogs
* Greta Joseph
archive. Greta's blog is primarily used in the game as a location for linking to other games. Greta, who is dyslexic, has poor spelling and some players have found it difficult to understand what she is writing. The techminx website, which according to
whois
WHOIS (pronounced as the phrase "who is") is a query and response protocol that is widely used for querying databases that store the registered users or assignees of an Internet resource, such as a domain name, an IP address block or an autonomou ...
records is registered to the BBC, hosts many of the front games (see below). There are also other audio
MP3
MP3 (formally MPEG-1 Audio Layer III or MPEG-2 Audio Layer III) is a coding format for digital audio developed largely by the Fraunhofer Society in Germany, with support from other digital scientists in the United States and elsewhere. Origin ...
and
Macromedia Flash Macromedia Flash may refer to:
*Adobe Animate, a multimedia authoring and computer animation program formerly known as ''Macromedia Flash''
*Adobe Flash
Adobe Flash (formerly Macromedia Flash and FutureSplash) is a multimedia software platform ...
files on this site. You cannot see all of the site if you do not play the game.
* Kal Garvey
archive. Kal Garvey is training to be a news reporter, so his blog is mostly concerned by the news stories related to the events. There are many newspaper links on this site, such as to the controversial Sun newspaper release about the story. This site, cheapserve, is used to host some
Doctor Who tie-in websites
Doctor or The Doctor may refer to:
Personal titles
* Doctor (title), the holder of an accredited academic degree
* A medical practitioner, including:
** Physician
** Surgeon
** Dentist
** Veterinary physician
** Optometrist
*Other roles ...
. (see.
* Jess Hillier
archive. This is hosted on the fansite (see above). It is the blog of the main character, Jess Hillier, who runs the website Jamie Rules. She describes herself very detailedly and is the main character concerned with the welfare of other characters.
Greta's apps
* Mobile Phone Simulator . This is a game which uses an emulator of a mobile telephone. One must use a game like
Mastermind
Mastermind, Master Mind or The Mastermind may refer to:
Fictional characters
* Mastermind (Jason Wyngarde), a fictional supervillain in Marvel Comics, a title also held by his daughters:
** Martinique Jason, the first daughter and successor of the ...
to work out the
PIN
A pin is a device used for fastening objects or material together.
Pin or PIN may also refer to:
Computers and technology
* Personal identification number (PIN), to access a secured system
** PIN pad, a PIN entry device
* PIN, a former Dutch de ...
for the owner of the phone. Then, one must find evidence to the original owner of the phone. This requires info from.
[http://www.denhelderbergingsbedrijf.com/bestanden/persoonlijke_bezittingen/overigen/informatie_van_de_sim_kaart.shtml] Later in the game, you can discover the hidden game of Snake in this.
* Decryptor . This is a game related to decrypting a message hidden by a secret finance.
* Caesar Cypher program
* Audio Enhancer
* Photoenhancer
* Email
* Laptop
Companies
* Asia Retreat travel agency (www.asiaretreat.com), a fake travel agency in the game, Username Jamie Kane, password gibson
* Royal Accord hotel (www.royalaccord.com), the fake hotel used in the game, Username openarchive02, password enable
* Mobile Phone (www.mobiletechnetworks.co.uk) Username ahlund47840, password templogin
* Rock Trust (rocktrust.co.uk), the fake record label used in the game
* Fenton Ruckingham (www.fentonruckingham.co.uk), fictional accountants of
Shepherd's Bush
Shepherd's Bush is a district of West London, England, within the London Borough of Hammersmith and Fulham west of Charing Cross, and identified as a major metropolitan centre in the London Plan.
Although primarily residential in character, i ...
* Den Helder Duik - en Bergingsbedrijff (www.denhelderbergingsbedrijf.com), a fake Dutch diving company in the game
See also
*
ELIZA
ELIZA is an early natural language processing computer program created from 1964 to 1966 at the MIT Artificial Intelligence Laboratory by Joseph Weizenbaum. Created to demonstrate the superficiality of communication between humans and machines, E ...
References
Further reading
* — discussion of Jamie Kane in the 2005/2006 BBC Annual Report and Accounts by the BBC Governors
External links
Official website of Philip Clayton Smithwho plays Cochrane
* {{IMDb name, id=0165798, name=Philip Clayton Smith
Songs by Jamie Kane & Boy*d Upppreserved at the Internet Archive
Alternate reality games
Kane, Jamie