The Lost Experience was an alternate reality game that was part of the American television drama Lost . The game was developed by ABC in the United States, Channel 4 in the UK, and Channel 7 in Australia. It was written by Jordan Rosenberg and created by the agency Hi-ReS!. The experience played out during Lost 's second season in the United Kingdom and during the summer break in the United States until the launch of season 3. The Lost Experience , which was announced by the United Kingdom's Channel 4, Australia's Seven Network and the United States' ABC on April 24 , 2006 and began in May 2006, used websites, voice mail, television and newspaper ads and a novel to give players clues to the game. The Lost Experience ended on September 24 , 2006 . Damon Lindelof has verified the canonical status of The Lost Experience and the information provided therein.
ABC Entertainment's senior vice president of marketing, Mike Benson, described the game as a hybrid between content and marketing. This type of marketing was previously used by ABC for Lost' s premiere in 2004. ABC created a website for the fictional Oceanic Airlines, the airline of the plane that crashed in the show's pilot episode.
Premise
The game is divided into five phases. The first began on May 2, 2006 in the United Kingdom, May 3, 2006 in the United States and Australia, with a television commercial that aired during an episode of Lost for the fictional Hanso Foundation, a corporation mentioned on the television show. The advertisement listed a telephone number which brought up fictional voice mail lines for employees at the Hanso Foundation Some of these messages provided clues to be used in the Hanso Foundation's website. Commercials for the Hanso Foundation in subsequent weeks directed players to other in-game websites, some of which are tied to specific sponsors, as detailed below.
Several different websites for fictional organizations or individuals mentioned on the show or in part of the Lost Experience were introduced. The websites, particularly the Hanso Foundation website, contain background information into the mythology of Lost. The character Rachel Blake, also known as Persephone, is introduced to guide players through the game. Most clues on the Hanso Foundation website are revealed by clicking on faintly marked anomalies in the web page design or by entering specific codes into webpages. Some require passwords found elsewhere, such as in the voicemail service. The clue revelations are designed as minigames, though with little challenge as they are completely linear. A notable exception is the coded messages on persephone.thehansofoundation.org involving simple encryption schemes such as ROT13 and base64.
Also in May Hyperion published the novel Bad Twin , a book written by Laurence Shames and credited to fictional author Gary Troup, who was on the plane that crashed on Lost . Bad Twin is a mystery novel that contains references to the show and mentions the Hanso Foundation occasionally. On May 9, various newspapers ran quarter-page ads from the Hanso Foundation which condemned the novel for giving misinformation about the Hanso Foundation. Of note is the fact that "Gary Troup" is in fact an anagram of the word "purgatory" itself, indicating that the book may itself be a red herring as the purgatory theory has been refuted.
On June 19, Rachel Blake's blog is revealed in the source code of the Hanso foundation site, which comes to play a major part of the second phase of the game. Rogue investigator Blake posts videos of her traveling around the world (mostly Europe) to uncover the secret agenda of the Hanso foundation.
hansoexposed.com is launched through a stunt at Comic-Con on July 22 2006, marking the start of the Lost Experience phase three. The website (which was identified earlier as sharing IP address with thehansofoundation.org ) features open-registration accounts to a video sequence editor. By entering alphanumeric codes new video segments can be added. New codes are expected to be released regularly — entering an invalid code yields a statement that the code in question does not work at this particular time .
In late August 2006 Apollo chocolate bars (the Apollo bar is a part of the Lost mythology and has been featured onscreen) begin distribution through Forbidden Planet stores in the UK, and visits by an Apollo truck in the US. On August 24 the web site was launched. Site users may upload pictures of themselves and Apollo chocolate bars they have been issued. The uploaded pictures now form the word "UNITE". A certain number of Apollo bars are designated "golden oracle", and contain special codes that can also be submitted to the site. A message from Rachel Blake promises that further instructions will be given "once enough of the world is watching". Now the site has told that D.J. Dan will tell the full truth and finally shut down the whole thing on his radio show on September 24 at 8pm PST.
Fans of Lost have been looking over the clues and discussing them on internet forums, and several websites have been set up which give detailed information on all parts of the game. Since the focus has been on the World Wide Web (as opposed to broadcast), the intentionally low-fi nature of some Lost Experience material and its use of consumer-oriented distribution channels such as Blogger, Flickr, and YouTube, it has been particularly difficult separating fan-made material from the official canon.
The Hanso Foundation
Main article: Hanso FoundationUntil June 20, 2006, when the Hanso Foundation website closed, the Lost Experience centered mainly around The Hanso Foundation website, with other tie-in websites being linked from hidden clues in the main site. The Hanso Foundation website includes many easter eggs, and reveals mysteries behind the Hanso Foundation, its employees, the Dharma Initiative and the island, without spoiling the plot of Lost . In fact, within the alternate reality of the game itself, "Lost" is considered to be a fictional TV show based on real events and organizations. Now, since the site's closing, most new clues are related to Rachel Blake's website.
Viral marketing sites
In addition to the specially created sites mentioned below, numerous videos and other bits of information have been intermixed with sponsors' official web sites. For instance, one Rachel Blake video was buried in a Jeep Compass product presentation page.
Sprite
The Hanso Foundation commercial shown during the Lost episode on May 10 , 2006 contained the on-screen text "Paid for by Sprite" and directed viewers to http://sublymonal.com/. The word "lymon" (a portmanteau of the words "lemon" and "lime") has previously been used in Sprite advertisements during the 1980s, and the website itself contains references to Sprite. Other clues in the game have prominently contained the word "obey" (part of Sprite's slogan, "obey your thirst").
As of 10 May 2006 , the clock on the Hanso Foundation's site occasionally changes to display OB:EY for one minute. The changes are marked by an audible blip of static. The minutes of the day at which these changes occur correspond to the Lost numbers (4, 8, 15, 16, 23, 42), though not every occurrence of these times results in the link. When the clock does change, it becomes a clickable link to the sublymonal website.
Later a Sprite commercial appeared on the air that promoted the sublymonal website, which had changed to a completely Sprite-based subliminal ad site. One commercial showed a person blind folded with a lemon and lime slice, getting small drops of Sprite in his mouth and eye. A second commercial showed the clashing of a green Sumo wrestler, and a yellow Sumo wrestler into a young gentleman. These commercials both contained hidden passwords that flashed briefly onscreen. The passwords, such as bentley , scan , listen , tongue , chill , belly , spray , pulse , embedded , and duh could be entered into the text box on the sublymonal website for hidden videos and websites.
The sublymonal website now redirects to http://www.sprite.com
Jeep
The Hanso commercial shown during the episode on May 17 , 2006 contained a Jeep copyright message and directed players to the website www.letyourcompassguideyou.com. Users had to spin their mouse cursor around a compass and click on "108". A figure could be seen in the compass, which looked a lot like the woman in the opening graphic on the Hanso website. A box then appeared that asked the user if they were "one of the good ones". Typing "Y" took users to a page that looked like a directory listing of the site. Typing "N" redirected users to the Hanso Foundation site. The question later changed and asked if the users did believe or not. Exploration of this site led players to a Jeep commercial hosted on YouTube, which contained game clues at the end. On May 26 access to the directories of /usr/hmcintyr/ and /usr/pthompso/ was granted, created to appear as personal mail folders for Hugh McIntyre and Peter Thompson. Their email folders contain scans of DaimlerChrysler Jeep fleet contracts for the Hanso Foundation, a link to a Jeep co
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