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Oh my goodness. I've been waiting a whole year for this to happen, and it happened.

The world of Alternate-Reality Games--the Internet-spawned genre where readers get to play out a fictional story in the real world--has finally found a private detective story!

I just discovered a fictional, New York-based murder mystery that uses real world pay phones and subway platforms to tell the story. Players call a number from the Canal Street subway station, and find themselves wrapped up in riddle maze and scavenger hunt inside the tunnel.

I can't wait to play this game, created by artist Ryan Holsopple. I think more writers need to be working on this kind of project--using the Internet, social networking, and other digital doo-dads to make your story come to life. Dig it:

"Set in the maze of tiles that make up the station, the Canal Street Station game puts participants in the shoes of a private investigator, as he searches the depths of Canal Street Station for a young French woman that may have committed a murder, or may be a figment of his own imagination.

"The game uses a Trixbox server, a phone application platform based on Asterisk™, to collect caller ID from payphones in the Canal Street Subway, and pinpoint where the player is located."

Thanks to Steve Bryant for the link... 

(Photograph by Christina Latimer)