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.

The latest trailer and screens for Net Devil’s massively mutiplayer online space combat extravaganza Jumpgate Evolution wants to know which side you’ll be on when darkness falls.

I believe that once people hear about F:AotC and the new Free to Play business model, we’ll start building up the player numbers and revenues that will make the game successful.

While this appears to be true – at least for now – when I originally read this it reminded me of something NetDevil’s Hermann Peterscheck said in his MMO talk at the most recent Game Connect:

Success is not incremental … Think about WoW, [with] 9.5 million [subscribers], then Lord of the Rings [with] 200,000 … There’s very few games with 3 million or 650,000. They tend to fit in defined categories of success, depending on the size of the audience that they reach.

It’s very dangerous to think “Well, we’re going to get some number in between because we’re almost as good”. “Almost as good” also means that you’re the next category down.

Fascinating, indeed. But it’s what Peterscheck had to say next that made me think of Fury:

Slowing dying is a very painful thing, I can tell you that.

There are exceptions to these rules, but not a lot. I don’t like planning that I’m going to be the exception.

Now Peterscheck was not speaking specifically about Fury – not at all – but I feel his comments are very relevant to its current situation.

While I wish Auran and Fury all the best, I find myself agreeing with Peterscheck. It’s hard to reverse the damage word of mouth and negative reviews can cause. Auran could transform the game into something entirely different and innovative, but as long as it’s called “Fury“, the bad memories will linger.