On this date, September 25, in the Homestuck Fandom
2012: The mysterious tumblr blog SBARG appeared with the image of the Sburb logo surrounded by horrorterrors and text only reading “24 hours.” After those hours were up, the blog posted the link “==> Begin" leading to another mysterious page showing only a newspaper clip featuring news on oncoming meteors. As more and more people became curious and watched the blog to see what would happen, a few took the "ARG" as a clue and looked into the pages’ code source to find the message: Find a server player. Then we all knew a real game had begun.
SBARG was one of the most memorable tumblr events of fall 2012 and was a collaborative effort of many people led by Alistar, or twistedCaliber. It was in its truest sense an Augmented Reality Game based in the Homestuck lore and called for it’s participants to find clues in actual geographical locations so that all players could enter Sburb and avoid destruction. Once in, everyone was rushed to achive God Tier as fast as possible to avoid and find a way to defeat a mysterious enemy who was stronger than the game code itself.
The game promoted collaborative effort between all players to gain resources by performing good acts for each other or giving to charity, and sparked many artists and writers to enhance everyone’s story to illustrate and elaborate on every player’s personal experience and path and goals throughout the game session. Even battles were only surmountable by hundreds of players hopping on Omegle in search of obstacles hosted by the SBARG team to attack. You were given the choice to attack alone for little damage, or provide a bonus to the next person to find, and everyone’s bonus stacked progressively. Those who encountered each other would break the conversation off with a good luck or role-played their interaction and search with gusto.
For those who remember and experienced the game, no matter how late they arrived, none can forget the excitement and teamwork that sparked many new friendships in the fandom.
It looks like I'm a little late in reblogging this, but it's an excellent summary of what happened one year ago. It's been an incredible journey with you all. I hope that you've all been moved and changed by SBARG in the same ways that we have here at the HQ. This fandom has been brought so much closer by this wildly successful ARG, though I do miss the art and storytelling.
Alistar, if you're reading this, I'd just like to thank you for causing me to meet my best friend and greatest rival, Ambrose. I really can't imagine where I'd be without having met him, and I'm certain that many of the players in that session feel the same way about their experiences.
--Davesprite, SbargHQ
