The Agency: Secret Agent ARG

Alternate Name options:

The Kairos Initiative, Section 11, The Laundry, Paranoia, [DFSR], [Redacted], ... ?

Top level:

A phone app ARG where players act as secret agents performing covert missions and solving puzzles around their city.

The entirety of the experience will be conveyed via missions given to the player at semi-random intervals.

Anatomy of a mission:

A mission is procedurally generated.

These are discussed in detail in the next section but in brief; each is a generated by combining a mission type, a nearby dead drop geocache or public meetup location not currently in use by another mission, and a deadline.

A suitable player is notified that the new mission has become available for them.

Each mission is assigned to players based on a few factors: Their reputation level, how recently they've already competed a mission (wouldn't want to be pestering), their geographic proximity to a currently available dead drop/another player flagged as an active courier/mission meeting place, etc.
Each potential mission will only be available to that player for a limited amount of time to accept or decline (20 min?) after which it times out and is offered to another suitable player.

A mission description is given, including a little thematic fluff, a general map pin for the location of the relevant dead drop geocache or public meeting area, along with a deadline.

If a player declines, the mission is offered to another suitable player, and the first player gets some points for at least paying attention and declining in a timely fashion instead of waiting for the request to time out.
If a player accepts, the mission goes live. More specific details regarding the description of the dead drop geocache or contact's call sign and meeting location are given to the player. (See "Types of Missions")

Mission details remain available for reference in the app until the mission is considered complete.

If the player is successfully able find and interact with a dead drop geocache or successfully meet another player at a public location and receive the intel, they may mark the mission a success on their own app and receive points.
If a player arrives at a dead drop geocache and finds it missing, or broken, there will be an in-app option to report it as such (see tech support missions below.) Same goes for if players attempt to meet at a location that they feel is unsafe, under construction, etc.

Once the mission is complete, has been reported problematic, or has been submitted as incomplete, points are awarded.

Technical stuff: If two players are assigned to meet and one marks the mission a success but the other does not, a couple things can happen: If one player's GPS shows that they were at the location and the other one's was not, the one who was there will get half credit and the one who was not receives a penalty. If they were both there but one handed the intel to a member of an opposing team, they both receive half credit and the opposing team member gets full credit for intercepting them (more on that in counter espionage). Otherwise If they were both there and something went wrong, support should follow up to see what the disagreement was about.

Types of missions:

Players can be assigned a variety of different types of missions, from standard difficulty to complex tasks depending on player level. These missions can be chained together to create a greater puzzle and narrative. Completing these missions will give points towards leveling up their account. The higher the level, more complex the missions become.

Pick up and Deliver

Players will be given instructions to meet with another player and hand off intel, or deliver intel to/retrieve intel from a dead drop geocache.
No packages (safety concerns), just a code word or combo lock number or cipher key given orally or by writing it down. A piece of a greater puzzle.
This can be the most common kind of mission. It encourages player interaction, acts as connective tissue for other missions, and can be daisy chained indefinitely.

Find part of a puzzle at drop point X -> meet a player in a park who communicates a missing cypher -> translate the code and write it down -> drop it off at dead drop Y for a another player to find in the course of their missions.

If a code is not delivered successfully the player receives a penalty. This can be reported by the next player who was supposed to receive it at a dead drop or meetup.
Meetups with other players should be done in free public areas (similar to Ninantic locations for Poke-go or Ingress), and Dead drops will make use of Geocaches with numeric locks the app will give the pass-code for.
Pick up and deliver can be a cross-team exercise for team missions. (see event missions)

Each team’s alliances shift over time. This week Red is allied with blue and enemies with yellow. Next week... (See Counter Intel.)

Break the Code

Retrieve a package from a dead drop geocache, or a meetup, and use the cypher given to you by mission to break the code.
Confirm successful code solution with the app.
Return package to the geocache, deliver it to a new dead drop, or hand it off at a meetup as per mission requirement, in its new translated form.
Pick up and Deliver and Break the Code missions can be strung together endlessly, progressing a narrative across multiple players and teams.

One player conveys a cypher to another who translates a code they picked up from a dead drop into a new code, then meets third player to give them the code to a fourth player who then translates it to a new form before delivering it to a fifth and so on. As long as the app keeps iterating the cipher for that document, all is well.

Ciphers can use all sorts of techniques, from math puzzles to logic patterns, to just straight up WWII codes.

Tech-Support Missions

If, during play, a player is not able to complete a mission due to a technical issue such as someone having damaged a geocache or misplaced an encoded document, they can can report the mission invalid in the app.
A new mission is then created for a nearby, unaffiliated player to check in on the geocache, document, or now-unsafe location and confirm that it has indeed been rendered unusable or problematic. In lore, this is a mission to confirm reported sabotage to HQ, in reality this is just asking a third party player to verify that a mission could not be completed, and a fix is needed on a particular document or space.
If the secondary agent reports that the location is fine, the dead drop lock responds to the correct password, or the document is serviceable, then the player who originally reported the mission is considered to have failed the mission and is penalized as per normal.

If it is found that the padlock indeed needs to have been replaced, or the location is not currently usable, then the original reporting player is not penalized for being unable to complete the mission. They are not rewarded for identifying the issue however. (Don't want to encourage people to break things and then report them.)

Tech support missions can also cover asking players to pick up packages from HQ and deliver to a dead drop/location items like new code documents, combo locks, etc.

Why have a street support team when we can build maintaining the game INTO the game?

Counter Intel (Maybe)

Catch a member of another team in the act of accessing a dead drop or passing a package.
When you receive a Counter Intel mission, you will be told where and when another player of the opposing team will be accessing a Dead Drop geocache or meeting to pass info. Your job is to intercept it without being noticed.

There are three different teams, Poke-go style. If, while in the normal course of passing info along or picking up a package you are seen and tagged by an enemy agent, your points are halved, and they get points for reporting you to their command. (Not sure about this idea, will iterate.)
Need to find a safe, non-threatening way this can be done.

Perhaps two kinds of counter intel mission:

First mission is to learn the enemy team's current call and response phrases by being nearby and over hearing it, or catching the other player's callsign, and submitting it to the app later, or finding the Dead Drop location and submitting it to the app.
Second type of mission has the Counter Intel player actually intercept your package or information by pretending to be your meetup contact or finding your package after learning your team's call and response for the week.

The idea is to get counter intel agents to try and blend in, trying to know the other team's current (shifts every week) call and response, or watching for the dead drop and following up afterwards sneakily. You know, being a suave spy. (This could lead to problematic player behavior. Need a way to keep this safe.)
Also, to give normal players on a mission the feeling of paranoia that anyone around them could be a spy, and the walls have ears to be careful. Don't even trust the person you're talking to.
Might accidentally encourage people to attack other players and grab their package/intimidate them for their info etc. Perhaps if going after a dead drop, must replace it at the dead drop after seeing what's inside as if nothing happened... and if receiving a package from another player must have that player confirm on their own app that the mission was a success, meaning you actually convinced them you were their contact and all went well.

Story Missions

As players level up and show that they are both engaged with the game and credible, they may encounter mission strings of Pick up and Deliver, Break the code, and Counter Intel missions that aren't standard procedurally generated ciphers and drop offs, but rather more thoughtfully written missions that create an intentional campaign and story arc with unique packages and codes that make sense in context. (Think Exit meets Ingress)

Ex. Instead of a typical code break mission that has you translate one string of gibberish into another and pass it on, you have one where you actually decode the end message which gives a riddle that points at a dead drop location and furthers an ongoing plotline supported by the other missions so far.
If other players are required for handoffs, translations, or story specific things, meeting locations and times are still procedurally generated as normal. Just the content is scripted.

Event Missions

Once a month, or couple of months a big event can take place that involves both teams, where each team's collective efforts are competitive with each other

Ex. Perhaps a race to solve a series of ARG clues, GPS coordinates, planned story meetings, etc.
Ex. A Ingress or Poke-go like competition between teams to control the most specific gps locations in the in-app universe by a deadline

Generally large overarching goals and story lines where players can work together to accomplish some big story beat or mission to engage the community beyond individual missions.

Each team would have a discord they can use to discuss and mobilize with.

App:

The entirety of the experience will be conveyed via missions given to the player at semi-random intervals. Outside of offering contextual alerts, missions, and mission-specific functions, the phone app is purely administrative.

Profile:

When a player signs up for an account, they will receive a randomly generated personal call sign (goldfish theta delta) to identify themselves to other players. No personal details, photos or social media are stored or used. On the profile tab, players will be able to see a record of completed or failed missions, their team's progress in general for the month, and their personal Reputation Score.

Reputation Points are awarded for successfully (or less for unsuccessfully attempting) to complete missions. It serves both as a credibility rating for a player's track record for showing up to missions and participating, and as a general XP system for leveling up to receive more complex future missions or event passes. Accepting a mission and then failing it by not showing up to it will penalize a player.

A payment tab will be needed for players to be able to edit their payment details.

Monetization - this won't work as an ad supported endeavor. Perhaps monthly subscription fee, or sponsored team missions?

GPS:

The app will require access to the phone's GPS. If the game notices a player is near a possible mission location, it may generate a mission for them.

The app is mostly passive, doing nothing on the phone until a mission is created that can apply to the player based on GPS location and time, at which point a notification is sent to the user asking if they'd like to accept.