The Brandford Rant Institute of Cosmic Kinesis was founded in 1984 by inter-dimensional theorist Bradford Rant to study the possibility of intersecting alternate universes, and they may have finally hit pay dirt. They’ve been tracking mysterious LEGO pods that have been falling to Earth from origins unknown, apparently drawn to locations that contain a significant number of LEGO bricks and large amounts of imagination.

The scientists who maintain the Institute have set up a website to track the progress of their discoveries, having already posted a video documenting the discovery of the first pod, found in LEGOLAND Park in Denmark. That discovery only led to more questions. What are the mysterious words on the side of the pod? Why are the pilots so damn cheery? What does it all mean?

The next Pod is somewhere in North America. Can you help them find it?

This is obviously some sort of alternate reality game for some sort of LEGO product, and we’ve got a hunch that it could be for LEGO Universe, Net Devil’s upcoming MMO. When you start talking LEGO and parallel universes, it’s the logical conclusion to come to.

Visit the Bradford Rant Institute website yourself to see if you can help solve the mystery of the LEGO pod people.

After a couple of months worth of teases and mini-games, Xi is finally winding down. Now anyone, regardless of how much they’ve participated in the ARG, may enter the final door and experience… something. I don’t want to spoil it for anyone. I’ll just say that you should be expecting anything grand and glorious, and leave it at that.

Sony will be leaving Xi open for a few more weeks to allow players still interested in completing the game on their own to catch up. Just be warned… once you pass through the final door, the game is over, and there’s no going back.

Xi: The Secret is Out! [PlayStation.Blog]

In the adventure title, gamers will use the DSi as a portal to the astral plane to find and collect ghosts that exist all around them. The game will also use the DSi’s built in microphone. Once you find the ghosts you will have to figure out why they are haunting your world so you can help them find peace.

“The Nintendo DSi platform is perfect for this game” says Anders Bergman, lead game designer of Ghostwire. “This allows us to enhance the integrated real-world experience with the combination of camera, microphone and touch screen.”

Little is known about Veilcorp other than the fact that they claim ownership of anything having to do with Xi, suggesting that anyone hunting for it is in violation of their corporate rights. At the Veilcorp website, visitors can fill out an aptitude test that measures their suitability for a position with the company, after which those that are available for an “interview” in the New York City and Los Angeles areas are then asked to fill out a form. My aptitude test suggested I was executive material, however since I am nowhere near those two locations I had to pass on step two.

According to the official rules, 10 applicants in each city will score an all-expenses paid limo ride to an undisclosed location, where they will be filmed for inclusion in the Xi ARG.

Those interested can head on over to Veilcorp.com, select their country, and then select the more info link to access the aptitude test. Those not interested should probably have stopped reading by now.

Who is Veilcorp? [PlayStation.Blog]

The alternate reality game Xi, which has made PlayStation Home a much more interesting place over the past week and a half is now leaking into the real world.

So far clues to the Xi puzzle have either appeared in PlayStation Home or on select websites, but now clues are starting to appear on billboards across the world. This video features Jess, the character at the heart of the whole Xi mystery. Supposedly one of the original testers of PlayStation Home, Jess has disappeared while working on a secret project, codenamed Xi. It shows a billboard with a link to the XIJess.com website, and then flashes a series of coordinates, the Videogamer.com website, what looks like a rail map, and various other things I am just too lazy to single out. I’m sure you folks are more than capable of extracting information from this video like bees taking pollen from flowers, spreading the love in the comments section while I enjoy a suspense-free sandwich.

Xi Has Moved into the Real World [PlayStation Blog]

There’s much more to do in PlayStation Home than the Running Man today, as Sony launches the first console-based Alternate Reality Game, Xi.

Mysterious graffiti has shown up in the main square area of PlayStation Home, and looking at it gives you access to The Hub, where this whole new Alternate Reality Game pans out. I’ve only had a brief moment to look around, but so far there’s a narrator who guides you around the hidden location, giving you tasks and slowly revealing more information as you explore.

I really wish they hadn’t kicked this whole thing off at the beginning of Game Developers Conference week, because for the first time in months, I really, really want to be in PlayStation Home.

XI HAS BEGUN! [PlayStation.blog]

Ghostwire is a ‘casual collection’ game that uses your phone’s camera to create a kind of Augmented Reality effect. You roam around the real world and use your phone to ’see’ ghosts that you can then collect in a sort of Ghostbusters-meets-Pokémon affair. Some ghosts will set riddles, others will provide clues and have elaborate back stories that must be unraveled.

Swedish developer A Different Game receives €40,000 in prize money. The runners up were Rhythm/Action game Jadestone and conspiracy ARG Eclipse.

Scary ghost game wins Nokia innovation award [The Guardian]

“We’ve pulled out all the stops to create an experience where players will feel they are really interacting with Joseph’s world – by communicating directly with Joseph, players find themselves caught up in a hunt across the internet to reunite him with his mother,” said Dorothea Arndt, British Red Cross, New Media Manager.

One slightly unfortunate side-effect of the game’s quest realism became apparent when I realised I had missed four of the email messages from Joseph because I wasn’t expectng them and they they triggered my mental Spam/Scam filter. Top tip guys, starting a seemingly unsolicited email with either “Hello! It is me Joseph… I am near Hopetown, Uganda!” or “Thanks for your email the other day” is going to set off alarm bells…

My idiocy aside, Traces Of Hope is worth a look. The Red Cross are a great cause and they are genuinely trying something new here.

[Traces Of Hope]

You may remember World Without Oil, which invited people to visit a website to share fictional stories that imagined their lives in the event of a severe oil shortage. Player ideas were incorporated as part of the ongoing narrative on the site, and players could add photos or mail letters to the game operators. It’s considered groundbreaking, because it was one of the first ARGs that attempted to address a real world issue.

So how much does it cost to make a game like that? Sounds easy, right?

According to World Without Oil writer Ken Eklund, the cost of developing the game was $US 88,000. That’s a lot for a game that ran on user-generated content!

It was funded by ITVS, who normally works with documentary filmmakers who produce PBS specials. They wanted to move into the interactive and online space, and had allotted $US 100,000 for the internet game proposal they liked best — and that was Eklund’s.

Incidentally, World Without Oil’s began only a year ago today – and the first stage of its fictional fuel crisis scenario was gas prices over $US 4 a gallon, a number many analysts have suggested we might see as soon as this summer. Yikes.