whatisbrg? - A Postmortem
"What is BRG?" is an Alternative Realtiy Game (ARG) created for Game Developers Conference 2026. We wanted to create a game that allowed
fellow GDC attendees to connect and bring people together for solving a host of puzzles throughout the week!
We wanted there to be an ARG that let everyone have a new shared goal during the conference: to solve a host of puzzles and problems regarding a peculiar company. With an ARG, we felt it would be a fun and engaging way to cultivate community connection. By giving opportunities for new and returning attendees to explore what GDC has to offer, it could give more reasons for people to talk and connect with one another. People would come for GDC, but stay for BRG!
Return to the Beginning
At the start, the first idea that came to mind was "pyramid scheme with badge ribbons". That gave us a simple narrative and physical ground to work with.
BRG was done within a 2 month timeframe as we were a bit late to contact Informa, the ones running the GDC show. With the idea of using badge ribbons as a core
part of the ARG, we needed to complete ribbon designs as soon as possible as Informa needed time to prepare mass bulks of them for GDC.
Badge ribbons are a fun way to show off what you've visited during the conference. Who wouldn't want to collect lots of ribbons? Ribbons are a great way for people to
begin a conversation; "How do you have so many ribbons?" "Where did you get those ribbons?" "Impressive ribbon collection!" Ribbons can become conversation ice breakers
that make it easier to connect with others, with some stories told by ARG players near the end of GDC that ribbons were ways of networking with people!
Ribbons were the highest priority to us as Informa needed to prepared them for GDC. Thus, we needed to design the ribbons first before any puzzle designs, meaning
puzzles had to be designed around the created ribbons. We began to work on ARG preparation January 2026.
The narrative thread was there early on in the development. A pyramid scheme by an evil corporation was the initial idea. However, we had to ensure it was distinct
enough away from conference itself as not to insinuate that GDC is a pyramid scheme or an evil corporation. We focused on having two core factions within the narrative:
> The ORG, an evil multilevel marketing coporation that "cultishly" focuses on work productivity, disliking anything considered unproductive.
> The HOG, a counter-group that works to be against the ORG.
Inside the ARG game had a game called "BRG" that helped players solve the ORG's impossible application form. But what is BRG? Who made the BRG? What is the purpose of it? For that, the phrase "whatisbrg" was secretly plastered throughout the conference, incentivizing those who are curious to learn more what is going on with the odd messaging going on with official GDC resources (ex./ GDC website, discord, presentations).
We wanted BRG to be a GDC ARG with many things, such as websites and ribbons galore, real-life NPCs to interact with at the conference, and a physical booth of retro items.
Something we kept in mind regarding the ARG was the publicity and availability it would have with attendees. How would people know about it? What if someone got into it late?
How do people get involved? How accessible is it to all? We had to design puzzles around a few restrictions:
> They were solvable through phones, meaning no steganography, audio processiong, or coding type of puzzles.
> Conference space might have limited internet connectivity, meaning ways of cultivating ad-hoc groups for solving puzzles together.
> Multiple paths to one answer. Not everyone would know the full lore of what has transipred or went through the work linerally. Some might stumble into the ARG later in the week or might not be available all the time for puzzles.
One concern we had during puzzle design development was difficulty adjustment. We weren't sure how difficult to make all these puzzles considering the time length of GDC, how much progress people would make over time, and when people would be able to reach certain milestones. It was difficult to us on how it would come out because of our development time until GDC; only having about a month to design ribbons and another month to design puzzles gives us little time to playtest them with others properly. Additionally, we didn't want to spoil the surprise of the ARG, making it challenging to gauge how far people would get.
One way of trying to resolve these restrictions and make it clear to all in the team was do a weekend jam! We used this time to prepare a bunch of things:
figuring out the physical booth design, puzzle runthroughs, website designs, and the entire scope of the ARG. We used a giant Miro board to try and
capture everything as a timeline breakdown for GDC where we could reference to and see how the game flow was during the event.
Speaking of websites, there were so many! Here's a list of all the pages we made:
> GDC Website - Central hub of the ARG puzzle on the GDC page!
> whatisbrg?.com - Central page to input in two sets of three-letter acronyms found around the conference,
giving out clues and fun easter eggs to find!
> whatisbrg.xyz - A map containing a layout of the conference and a schedule of events, with a secret message hidden on the page!
> buytheorg.com - The ORG company page where you can learn more about the ORG and their products!
> noreasontolookfurtheryouhavefoundthe.org - Bod Ted's secret message to someone!
> yournetworkisyournetworthinthe.org - Confidential document from a founder not being Bob Ted...?
> digforwhybigbadbobtedhidthedog.art - A dungeon crawler browser game that gives out a clue for the cipher!
This ARG would not have been possible without the help of Jordan Stillman from Informa. Jordan has been our support for seeing what could be possible with the ARG. Asking questions on whether certain things were possible like being on the front page of GDC's website and being in the awards show let us explore our ideas on what more could we do with the ARG. We greatly appreciate Jordan and Informa's help!
Another group of people who helped make the ARG possible! All those 40 people who volunteered to be NPCs (names in the credits) out of their own time made the experience. Recruiters, CEOs, CAs, and people at major studios sacraficed times out of their day to be NPCs in our ARG, making it a fun experience for both players and themselves to talk amongst each other!
Ribbons were a huge hit with people! We really wanted to be sure that even if no one cared about the ARG and passed it off, ribbons would still be fun to check out, collect, and wear. Every single time we put ribbons over at a table near the main conference hall, they would all be gone in 5-10 minutes. We had so many ribbons to give out and tried to constantly stock the table as often as we can. Many people kept coming back to the table to see new ribbons to grab and find some they didn't have before. It also got people to be interested in what the ribbons are connected to, with some asking what their purpose is and how to get more of them.
It was a lot of fun to do some improv for reacting to things going on in the ARG. Being able to use some NPCs and names used within the ARG helped in tweening the current progress. We were able to stop some people trying to read into the floppy discs because they had nothing in them. We did that by saying we fired the IT guy at the ORG company for not doing their job properly and it got the message around! Being able to react to things going on in the ARG and it aligning with the ARG narrative helped in controlling the flow of the ARG. Also, the NPC volunteers added in their own lore as well, such as a triangle-shaped arm signal to show if you're in the ORG! It helped in making new context and flavor as the ARG played out.
We felt good in our early clues for the ARG helped get the ball rolling for people who found it! Having it at the Awards Show, GDC 101, and the official website helped in sneaking in snippets of information to players so they would create ad-hoc communities amongst themselves for solving puzzles together.
Our physical booth at Oracle Park went very well with the amount of traffic that came by! We had a good mix of people who came by, ranging from people who were curious what the booth was and what it was tied to and people who were already participating in the ARG. We even had some players who recrited more people to join the ARG (moreso doing it to try and get a floppy disc from the booth) and got people to come by and collect some ribbons. It was a fun time overall and were happy with seeing how some players were trying to get involved and solve the ARG puzzle.
We were so happy with how GDC provided us a space for people to talk about the ARG in the public discord. It helped a lot, internally, for viewing how traffic was going in the ARG (along with seeing players in person). We had to be able to see our solvers solving for the ARG to work well in the case for a pivot or change based on what's going on. People inside were friendly and helpful to each other, even from those who weren't able to be physically there for the conference. There was even a player-made document containing a a list of all the found clues, answers, ribbons, and materials being updated live by fellow ARG players. We were surprised at how supportive the space was for those interested in participating in the ARG.
Having a QR code on ribbons make adjusting puzzles and clues a lot easier. Being able to change clues on the fly based on seeing the traffic of players lets us adapt the ARG with the players. Being able to pivot and improve upon what's happening is what lets an ARG exciting and engaging.
Similar to the QR codes, having a space such as the websites and the BlueSky lets us respond back to the players at the moment. We used it as a way of guiding players in the right direction (an example is with the "Catherine always lies" and the "floppy disc incident") and we would say it worked out pretty well in making sure the ARG went well.
Return to the Beginning
The trivia questions definitely needed more playtests and runthroughs to catch mistakes that happened during the ARG. We had a few typos on our end, some being either too easy or too hard. Hurting us the most was certain trivia questions revolving around old game references, which many did not get. We hoped people would be able to get them right away and have a joy, but they were, unfortunately, not recognizable enough. There was even a moment where we had conflicting information to the right answer, where a correct phrase "William Smith" was considered wrong to an NPC; that was because our internal sheets said that was a wrong answer, but it actually was. We tried to fix that mistake with a QR code saying that the NPC named Catherine always tells lies.
We wanted to be prepared for anything that might happen with the whatisbrg website as it contained many clues and hints towards the main cipher. As such, we wanted to make sure it was as secure as possible; we were against gamers and developers at the Game Developers Conference after all. We stress tested with 100k requests and different devices, alongside limiting chances that it could be broken into. What we didn't account for was the Firebase service itself breaking down on us, making it a panic the morning of Tuesday seeing a flock of team messages and public discord concerns about it. It had to be down for a few hours until troubleshooting was resolved, ending off with making a backup version of the project in case it happened again.
We wanted to place NPCs around the Expo floor as having them around the main puzzle made it easier to engage with the game. A big problem was placing them in reasonable places that makes them noticeable to players. We could not get to the Expo Floor before opening time and the main stage on Tuesday night was so packed, making it difficult for NPCs to be seen even with signs. What made NPC locations the biggest problem was our outdoor multi-NPC puzzle, focusing on each NPC triangulating off each other to give players the next clue. The Wandering Festival Hall during that day was very crowded, making it hard for both players and NPCs to find each other and communicate through hand motions and colored pattles.
We wanted the booth to look as retro as possible regarding a work environment, which included floppy discs that we thought would be fun to show people. We had them more as a prop that conveniently had clues stickered on top. What we didn't anticipate was how dedicated players were to finding game clues, even to the point of buying a floppy disc reader to try and find any clues hidden inside. The issue with that was we had no idea what kind of information people would find inside the discs; we never checked ourselves! We didn't expect for people to hyperfocus on something we considered a prop and try to read inside for game clues. We had to step in and secretly tell players that reading the discs did not contain any clues, saying a "previous worker" never cleared the data properly and has useless information regarding training manuals.
Having lots of rabbit holes around the concept makes it easier to introduce players into the ARG. What we found out is making rabbit holes are hard! Our whatisbrg.com page was not a good rabbit hole, similar to our public QR codes posted around the conference. They didn't seem to help much on drawing people in. The buytheorg.com page only worked after live edits and the gdconf.com/whatisbrg page on the GDC website was hidden all the way at the bottom. We didn't have a good consistent way of driving traffic into the ARG, making it hard for potential newcomers to even be aware of an ARG going on.
Our pencil sketch puzzle was not working as we wanted it to. The message was too hard to get out after multiple attempts by players, even to the point where they thought the puzzle was another red herring. The impression was just too hard to get the message out, even after testing it out ourselves and making new pages to replace them. We unfortunately did not playtest the puzzle enough for making sure the pencil and paper worked properly the days of. We had to make the clue more obvious for people to find it and continue on with the puzzle.
Another prop we messed up was a journal in the physical booth. Props help make the booth immersive, with a retro-looking journal adding to that. We missed a page in the journal that had a random message saying "Meet with Brian Keith". This didn't help, funny enough, as we gave NPCs random names; people thought to say this name to them as a hidden answer for getting more clues and ribbons.
Our biggest concern with the ARG was it being Monday of the conference and the whole ARG is solved the next day. Once the event started, however, puzzles getting harder showed that it doesn't really scale well. It's hard to gauge how how long a group of players will take to solve certain puzzles. The "Skill Issue" ribbon puzzle was pretty easy for people to solve; the "Y and Z are both ⬆" ribbon was way harder for people to figure out. People were trying to figure if the arrow was for either letters, but it was for both.
Our NPC guides were too convolted and made NPCs make mistakes and have trouble with their puzzles. Each NPC had general and personalized guides for their specific character role. One of our guides was 5 pages long, trying to explain what their role is and how to participate. There were a handful of ribbons and key words to keep track of, alongside having to be somewhat oblivious to the ARG itself since they were only given 15 minutes of debriefing without meeting the team; all separate from them being a general participant in the conference and doing what they normally do. It was definitely a lot to place on them and could have either been shortened or summarized with proper prep time. It was very much not their fault, they did amazing jobs for what we gave them!
There were so many TLAs! With 6 spaces that allow for A-Z letters, there were over 300 million answers possible for people to try and guess. We were only able to do so many, making only ~300 solutions for the whatisbrg page. It might not seem a lot, but needing to find the right answer out of THAT many possibilities is a lot. Especially since a good chunk were solutions and clues to the ARG, where others are more fun references to games and GDC. We could have had more ways and routes for people to find most, if not all, of the TLAs.
Return to the Beginning
