1. 1. Who is this guide made for?

The guide is partly written locally and will be made available as I correct / verify it. It is made public only in "guide event" context so other participant may avoid writings same topics (or not). Please don't feel offended by the fact guide isn't completed yet, don't “downvote” it, really soon it will be filled with many infos.


Do comment below if you have any specific request. I'll do my best to sastify those.

So who is this guide made for?

• Cloud Chamber beginners / not used to such form of collaboration
  
• You feel like you miss words to express what you want to say (non native en. speaker)
  
• You have the impression that you're using always same expressions (synonyms)
  
• Vous êtes francophone et avez besoin de plus de vocabulaire pour profiter de Cloud Chamber.

1. 2. Stating the obivous

Before you read this guide further let's state what's Cloud Chamber experience. Cloud Chamber (let's abreviate it Cl.Ch, like the molecule) is a Danish indie game which belongs to the ARG game genre. The game is being developed by North Investigation, note that it had no Early Acess nor did it have crowfunding campaign, nor closed/open beta step which is quite unusal those times. ARG stands for Alternate Reality Game, which was, among others, very used by Funcom for their game The Secret World (a great MMO though). As sub-category, Cl.Ch has a nowadays si-fy backgroud, with point'n click elements, as well as a self-driven investigation parts. I would say that Cl.Ch tranforms you as someone browsing an interactive database. The database contains various material: Thomas' documentary, ESA short promotional films, transcript, screenshot, photograph and many others. Data is splited across 10 chapters. Once in-game each database element is linked to community's comments feed. Everyone is free to tell about their interogations, theory, etc. regarding the cryptic story.




A cloud chamber is a device used to to track a particle's trajectory.

Let's not re-invente the wheel, here's an excerpt from Wickipedia EN[en.wikipedia.org]:
When a charged particle [...] interacts with the mixture, the fluid is ionized. The resulting ions act as condensation nuclei, around which a mist will form (because the mixture is on the point of condensation). The high energies of alpha and beta particles mean that a trail is left, due to many ions being produced along the path of the charged particle. These tracks have distinctive shapes (for example, an alpha particle's track is broad and shows more evidence of deflection by collisions, while an electron's is thinner and straight). When any uniform magnetic field is applied across the cloud chamber, positively and negatively charged particles will curve in opposite directions [...]



This is not the regular location for a table of contents still it's here due to Steam styling limitations.

1. Introduction
1. — 1. Who is this guide made for?
1. — 2. Stating the obvious
1. — 3. What is an actual cloud chamber IRL?
1. — 4. Table of contents
2. Your first comment. Where to start with communication.
2. — 1. “Dude I have no idea what to say, why should I talk?”
2. — 1. — a) Still here's why you might want to talk
2. — 1. — b) Here's where to start you don't have a clue
2. — 2. Regarding the rules of conduct
2. — 2. — a) Let me quiclky recap orginal rules given by Investigate North
2. — 2. — b) Additionnal advices
2. — 2. — c) That being said let's go on with some question to ask yourself before you press 'enter' key.

There you are, worried about what you should say or not. Here are a few pieces of advice to guide you with in-game special communication's mechanisms.

2. 1. “Dude I have no idea what to say, why should I talk?”

Of course you don't have to if you don't want to.

• enhance your gaming experience;
  
• (practice your english :) );
  
• you probably haven't got all clues or subtily in past nodes, others' point of view will give you those information you missed;
  
• read the feed, isn't there a statement that stiches you, that you wan't to "deconstruct" to show everyone it's the wrong trail?
  
• to honour developpers' work by taking an active part in it, start by pretending you care, see what happen then.

• infer. Build your own theory, connect previous informations together to reach the big picture;
  
• confirm someone's theory, show your support, show the community this might the answer we were looking for;
  
• infirm someone's theory;
  
• ask question: you're not sure what you've seen in last video, you wonder what means a specific piece of sentence? Probably someone else already figured it out, ask the community!

The following has for main purpose to help those of you who may feel unconfortable with the idea of talking — in such new context (AR Game experience). You may also find tips so you always write the proper / useful comment. The following might be obvious to some of you, but not as obivous for roleplay / ARG "not used" people.

• Treat people with respect
  
• No sexism
  
• No capitals letters/yelling (be blessed for that)
  
• No personal attacks
  
  
• don't spoil (yeah obviously);
  
• don't tell about what's happening in next nodes or chapters.

Those are really opened rules, Investigate North don't want you to feel limited in what you can express and it's a good thing. Still here are a few more tips to ease your in-game journey.

• don't be off topic you'd probably get moderated, in such case post on Steam Forums for specific concerns or any other matter; (remember being moderated is not a personnal offence)
  
• this is not the common social network you're used to know. Don't think rules that apply for those networks can immediatly be transposed in-game;
  
• ARG experience requires a minimum of what gamers would call "roleplay", you're supposed to act as if what you see in-game is the actual reality. Saying something that breaks that rule might affect in a wrong way everyone's journey in-game;
  
• think to the final appearence or you comment, extra space-line could be useful to stress an idea or the capital point of your thinking.

While browsing nodes, user's thoughts, etc. keep in mind that comment feeds are closely managed by Developer. Those nodes live, each day comment rise then sink, whatever their content quality. When opening a node's feed do know that comments you haven't been their for very long and won't last forever either.
Therefore sentences like “I can't understand a word of what you're saying, you'r opinion is total sh** [don'te say that in-game!] are totally missplaced and useless, say you disagree or ask further exlpainantion is a best move.

About swear words, in my opinion, you should think of the feeds as a proper place for children to read. Imagine each lines will be read by a child. Even though action and events might be beyond children's understanding, you should probably keep yourself from swearing if you couldn't say that directly to your (hypothetic) own child.

• am I useful?
  
• am I spoiling?
  
• did I express myself briefly enough? (so people want to read)
  
• did I took into consideration previous observations to infer ?
  
• did I read some other post in this thread so I know someone didn't got same idea as mine past 30"?

________________________________________________

I think I'm done with rules, adivces and conversation starters. In following chapter I intend to gather words, synonyms for those who feel they lack of english vocabulary or those of you who feel like they are always using the same words.