X
Second instalment of Smoking Gun's graphic novel series released.
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
VANCOUVER, CA (November 10th, 2009) – Smoking Gun Interactive launched the second installment of its graphic novel series “X” and unleashed a new, global dimension to the conflict in their conspiracy and underground-driven gaming universe at eXoriare.com.
Last week, the community found something hidden within page thirteen of the online graphic novel - a portal to a Resistance “Darknet”” that itself serves as a window into the gaming universe that Smoking Gun Interactive is currently developing. To join this “underground” network, visitors take a few steps through an old-school text adventure, then ”patch” their genetic records in order to disable surveillance systems tracking them. It is only once they are inside the Darknet that the “X” universe really begins to reveal itself. As NASA scientists are being rounded up, the online community has responded by hacking into government computers and surveillance networks. In doing so, they have begun unraveling a story in which obelisks, ancient temples and the Knights of Malta all play a role in a “one step from reality” web of conspiracies.
With this new release, a military test creates chaos and confusion in LA as the community finds itself confronted with a greater challenge – to build the Darknet into a global powerhouse, a home for their newly resurgent “Resistance”. Using a stolen military network-warfare technology called “FORAGER”, their ultimate goal is to seize control of government satellites, and learn what a missing NASA scientist was trying to reveal to them.
All of this plays out through a unique and simple strategy game where each individual’s victories contribute to the global effort to build the Darknet. With the world divided into twelve regions, each player contributes to bringing their own “home” region online. After this, they can help out in other regions, until the entire planet has been “liberated”, at which point the Resistance is expected to seize control of the satellites.
About the Graphic Novel - This is the first installment of a graphic novel series titled “X”. Written by controversial, award-winning author and social critic Douglas Rushkoff, the series is illustrated by Smoking Gun’s lead concept artist Cheoljoo Lee and Younger Yang. “X” is the first graphic novel of its kind embedded with an interactive experience that builds a community around the story.
For those few brave enough to resist, reckless enough to see, and foolish enough to fight history itself, the war has never been over. For those few, the struggle will not be complete until the old prophecy has been fulfilled:
“FROM OUR BONES WILL ARISE AN AVENGER
FROM OUR WAR WILL ARISE THE TRUTH”
eXoriare.com
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About Smoking Gun Interactive
Smoking Gun Interactive was formed in 2007 by former developers from Relic Entertainment. Led by CEO and Creative Director John Johnson, and founders Angie Pytlewski and Drew Dunlop, the executive team has worked together for over 9 years building and leading passionate teams. Smoking Gun’s core team of leads and senior staff are some of the best the industry has to offer, and will help position the studio into becoming a leader in innovative interactive entertainment.
Smoking Gun’s founders have developed multiple platinum titles including the critically acclaimed and award-winning RTS Company of Heroes™, that garnered over 45 industry awards and is the highest rated strategy game of all time*.
For updated news and additional company information, please visit the official Smoking Gun Interactive site www.smokingguninc.com
*According to www.gamerankings.com
For enquiries please contact info@smokingguninc.com
About Douglas Rushkoff
Winner of the first Neil Postman award for Career Achievement in Public Intellectual Activity, Douglas Rushkoff is an author, teacher, and documentarian who focuses on the ways people, cultures, and institutions create, share, and influence each other’s values. He sees “media” as the landscape where this interaction takes place, and “literacy” as the ability to participate consciously in it.
His ten best-selling books on new media and popular culture have been translated to over thirty languages. They include Cyberia, Media Virus, Playing the Future, Nothing Sacred: The Truth about Judaism, andCoercion, winner of the Marshall Mcluhan Award for best media book. Rushkoff also wrote the acclaimed novels Ecstasy Club and Exit Strategy and graphic novel, Club Zero-G. He has just finished a book for Harper Business, applying renaissance principles to today’s complex economic landscape, Get Back in the Box: Innovation from the Inside Out. He wrote a series of graphic novels for Vertigo called Testament, and is now finishing a book on the corporate spectacle called “Life Incorporated” for RandomHouse, to be released in June 2009.
He has written and hosted two award-winning Frontline documentaries - The Merchants of Cool looked at the influence of corporations on youth culture, and The Persuaders, about the cluttered landscape of marketing, and new efforts to overcome consumer resistance.
Rushkoff writes a column for the music and culture magazine. His commentaries have aired on CBS Sunday Morning and NPR’s All Things Considered, and have appeared in publications from The New York Times to Time magazine. He wrote the first syndicated column on cyberculture for The New York Times and Guardian of London, as well as regular columns for Discover Magazine and The Feature.
Rushkoff is a PhD candidate at Utrecht University’s New Media Program. He teaches regularly for the MaybeLogic Academy, NYU’s Interactive Telecommunications Program, and the Esalen Institute. He also lectures about media, art, society, and change at conferences and universities around the world.
He serves on the Board of Directors of the Media Ecology Association, The Center for Cognitive Liberty and Ethics, and as a founding member of Technorealism, as well as the Advisory Board of The National Association for Media Literacy Education, MeetUp.com and HyperWords . He has been awarded Senior Fellowships by the Markle Foundation, the Center for Global Communications, and the International University of Japan. He served as an Advisor to the United Nations Commission on World Culture and regularly appears on TV shows from NBC Nightly News to Larry King and Bill Maher. He developed the Electronic Oracle software series for HarperCollins Interactive.
Rushkoff is on the board of several new media non-profits and companies, and regularly consults on new media arts and ethics to museums, governments, synagogues, churches, and universities, as well as Sony, TCI, advertising agencies, and other Fortune 500 companies.
Rushkoff graduated magna cum laude from Princeton University, received an MFA in Directing from California Institute of the Arts, a post-graduate fellowship (MFA) from The American Film Institute, and a Director’s Grant from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. He’s finishing his dissertation on media literacy and gaming for University Utrecht. He has worked as a certified stage fight choreographer, an SAT tutor, and as keyboardist for the industrial band PsychicTV.
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