Temporary Hiatus

If you've been paying attention, you may have noticed that there haven't been any new posts on either blog for several days. We apologize for this, and ask patience: we're having to put the Game temporarily on hold. Don't worry, we'll be back soon, and you can return to tormenting these two poor innocent souls shortly enough.

New Posts/Commenting Update

We’ve got the second posts up now.  Comments will close Friday, though we still need to find out what time, exactly.  Also, we’re probably not going to be updating the main blog every time we update or close from now on, simply because it’s inefficient and ends up making the archives look messy.  We might get a Twitter or something, or just might not say anything from now on.

Also, I received this comment on the Hermes blog.  Now, since we never really provided a place to make these sorts of comments, I’ll post it below:

Just a note: we will not be approving comments like this on the game blogs.  You get one comment, and trying to merge multiple subjects or commands into said comment runs the risk of us not approving it anyway.

If you are looking to get in contact with your teammates to set up something like a Skype or an IRP chat, e-mail or comments on the main blog (though not the application page) are the best place to do so.  We may end up creating a temporary page for this purpose, but we’d prefer that most of the commenting be off-site to keep spam off of it.

Commenting Closed

Comments for the current posts on both team's blogs have been closed. Expect the new posts to be up soon.

Updates/Connections to the Slender Man or Fears

First things first before I launch into this: a few important or interesting updates.  Everyone who has joined has been assigned to a team and you should have your team assignments in the e-mails you’ve given us.  If you’d prefer to get updates and information from a different e-mail, please, let us know that one instead.  Also, the team lists on the blog have been updated, so you should know everyone who’s on your team.  They’re lopsided now, yes, but they’ll never exceed more than a one-person advantage.

We’re planning on closing comments on the first posts on Friday (though we haven’t decided what time yet), so be sure to get your comments in before then!  We’ll be sure all comments get approved and considered as long as they’re made by a member of the blog’s Team.  We’ll try to update sometime during the weekend, hopefully Monday night at the very latest.

I’ve heard whispers of plans to start up some sort of Team contact, though I haven’t heard that any of those plans have come to fruition yet.  Let me take this moment to remind you that Team contact is neither prohibited nor required.  The choice is up to you.  You do, however, have at least most of your teammate’s e-mails available through the application page, though, just in case you do wish to contact them.

Finally, we now have 31 Players, almost double what we had the last time we announced the numbers.  Wow.  I’ve been overwhelmed with the response so far, especially considering that we haven’t even put out the second update yet!  Thank you all for playing.  It’s meant so much to both of us.  We’ve only been able to hit our own circles, though, so if you really think what we’re doing is worth participating in, feel free to advertise it to your own circles or blog about it or hashtag it on Twitter or something.

Now for the reason I posted in the first place: some of you might be wondering what our connection to the Slender Man Mythos or the Fear Mythos is.  I’d like to clarify this now: it’s not.  If you have no clue what the Slender Man or Fear Mythos are, you don’t even need to read any further. 

While we have both written for one or both ‘Verses and while our contacts in said ‘Verses are probably the largest audience we’ve advertised to (and consequently makes up a large portion of the Players), the Game of the Gods has no connection to either.  During a conceptual phase, we considered the possibility of a connection, but we ultimately decided against it for several reasons. 

For one, there’s really no reason to do so.  We set out to provide something somewhere between chaotic fiction, interactive fiction, and an ARG where the audience writes the story and controls what happens.  We didn’t set out to create a story about the Slender Man or the Cold Boy or the Wooden Girl or something.  It wasn’t our original purpose, and it wouldn’t really add anything to what we’re trying to do apart from being a gimmick.

Secondly, we didn’t want to risk the communities derailing our plans (the Slenderverse in particular tends to jump on new blogs and inadvertently drag them into the community) and we didn’t want our game to ruin their immersion.  The way we’re running things almost requires us to use this blog to update you, and consequently makes it hard to remain completely in-game.  We don’t want Players having their immersion ruined just because they assumed that this was part of the Slenderverse or Fearverse.

Third, we wanted to make this accessible to anyone.  You don’t need to know who the Slender Man or the Rake is to read or participate.  The work is original and independent, and we don’t want our readers or Players to need any backstory to participate.

Finally, we’d both like to distance ourselves a bit from the Slenderverse and Fearverse, as neither of us want our online work to be defined by them.  We’d like a chance to do something experimental like this without the attachment to those communities.  To branch out a bit, if you will.  We both appreciate the communities, the work they’ve done, the work we’ve done for the communities, and what the communities have done for us.  However, neither of us plan on writing in the two ‘Verses forever, and we don’t want to take on another project related to either.

So tl;dr: are we in any way related to the Slender Man or any of the Fears?  No, and we never will be.

Applications

All these questions asking if there’s still room for new players. Of course there is still room. We are eager for more to participate in the Game of the Gods. More participants will only increase the fun which we expect to be drawing out of the lives of these individuals we control. In fact, we have no intention of closing off applications for the foreseeable future. I am always looking forward to seeing more join Team Mercury.

Team Lists, Small Updates, and Update Schedules

The game now officially has sixteen Players divided into two teams of eight.  A team list has been put up so you know whose on which team.  Almost all of you have already provided e-mail addresses, so you should be able to find each other easily.  You can use these lists to find out who’s on what team and find each other to discuss and work together—or just continue to work alone.

Oh, and just as a side note, congratulations to all of you on Team Hermes.  I look forward to working with you all personally.

In addition, the team lists and the application thread are now right in the sidebar under “Tools of the Gods,” so that you don’t have to go through the “Rules” page every time you want to check out the application thread.  It was stupid not to make the application thread accessible from the front page from the start, and that’s been fixed now.

Finally, we’re trying to figure out an update schedule, and we’re going to have to play by ear a bit.  For every update, the comments will be open until a certain point.  That point may vary depending on how crucial or insignificant the next actions are (or maybe how cruel we want to be—“reach a crucial decision within a day!”), but we’d like to keep a reasonable timeframe and try to update fairly shortly afterwards.  This is where we’d love your feedback.  Does a week sound fair?  Just to let you know, we’re thinking of closing comments for this update sometime between next Thursday and Saturday.  On one hand, it’d be great to get as many of you as possible to participate, and since we’re all still learning the ropes, it’d be nice to give you all a generous timeframe.  At the same time, we don’t want to go too long before updating, since it’s probably a largely inconsequential update and it’s most advantageous to get going and not drag things out.

Anyway, any opinions would be greatly appreciated!  And of course, if you’ve got a friend you think would be interested, recommend it to them!  The more, the merrier!

Welcome!

Hello, Players!  Glad you’ve decided to visit our site.  I’m Avatar Hermes, one of the two writers in Game of the Gods, and my updates on the main blog will always be in blue.  Anyway, I’m here to welcome you to the main blog and explain what we’re using it for.  Apart from application, nothing on this blog is actually “part of” the game.  We’ll be using it to keep you updated on production (if, for example, an update will run late due to complications on my or Mercury’s end) and changes (like a change to the rules because something was overlooked).  Basically, it can be thought of as the “News” blog.  Be sure to pay attention if you’re a Player in order to stay up to date on what’s going on.

We’re very proud to announce that the Game is now officially open!  Please check out the rules and make sure to apply to be a Player if you plan on playing.