Oh hell no. In fact, a lot of it won’t make sense without being there. If you’re coming in fresh, read the STORY on this site to catch up on the important things. As long as you get a grasp of the characters involved you can jump in at any time. Unlike most ARGs this one evolves a lot.

The puzzles break down into a few categories.

1. Short Term Puzzles – used to progress the story, gather lore, and just involve the players and give them things to do. Most of these are one time only, and not worth your time tracking down after the fact.
2. Long Term Puzzles – These puzzles are designed to progress towards major story beats and events. These are seeded in throughout the current Phase and can include information gathered in previous Phases.
3. Event Puzzles – These are one-time use for the events.

TYPES OF PUZZLES

Nothing is off-limits. There are a handful of puzzles and encryption I lean towards but I often create my own kinds that require thinking outside of the box. 99.5% of all puzzles are completely fair and solvable. (the 0.5% is set for things out of the norm. Such as if Nico decides he wants to be a dick.)

I also include multi-level puzzles such as triple encryption with a steganography key. However, I save very difficult puzzles for events. 80% of all puzzles found in normal storylines follow one rule: Keep It Simple. I find the hardest puzzles for players to solve are the ones where the solution is staring at them in the face. It brings me a lot of joy.

Two main reasons:

1. To bring in new eyes to the series.
2. Because Valora is a gamer, and she likes to play games.  Duh.

Yes, but Valora has no part in it.

It’s the one used for the main group of Watchers, and the one I base story-related things around.

https://discord.gg/bRqHcg

It was started by the awesome TikkiToxin, and is run by RemixRave.

Awesome group of people.

I have a place in there where I pop in every now and then for minor OOG moments or updates – beyond that I’m not involved in it.

In order to control potential ‘gamejackers’ and people trying to throw wrenches into the mix just to be a dick, I use the members there as a way of ‘managing the flow’ of things.

It’s a tight rope to maintain the story integrity – but I have good handle on it.

Valora [DiOS] is an ongoing web series focused on an Artificial Intelligence unit named ‘Valora’. After 15 years of being inactive, she is brought back online to continue her objective of helping humanity in every way she can.

This is a modern sci-fi based ARG, where the ongoing story is building towards a few indie games. The players (Called ‘Watchers’) are important in crafting the storylines. Characters live or die based on if the events can be completed by the Watchers in time, certain events happen or don’t happen all on the interactions with the characters.

The series is designed for anyone to be able to jump in at any point. As long as you get an idea of the active characters, the story itself is linear. The majority of puzzles and hidden things are self-contained lore reveals, or actively building towards the next big event. Anything that has happened, you can quickly catch up on using this website and for more detailed lore items are documents on www.dolasltd.com

Quick guide:

Step 1: Skim the character timelines on this site.

Step 2: Watch the latest video on Youtube

Step 3: Read the latest tweets on twitter.

Step 4: You’re done.

Optional Step 5: Join the fan-made Discord for any decoded puzzles or things hidden in the videos.

Events are used to branch the storyline and where the players are involved the most. It can vary between group decisions, or solving all the puzzles, even how they interact with the characters during these events can cause the story to shift. There is no set timeframe as to when the events happen, but there is always a lead-up and hints towards one coming.

It’s important for those who want to know more about the world. It can help understand character motivations, and why they choose to do certain things. It does not affect any of the current storylines, so don’t worry about having to read up on every little thing. It’s a vast universe. Not everything is important for the characters at the moment.

During the start of the ARG, Valora asked for suggestions on a name for her unit, as DiOS is the general system unit name.

Suggestions from the players were: [V]eda, [A]lice, [L]ibera, R[o]drigo, Pando[r]a – Along with her friend [A]mber gave the letters V-A-L-O-R-A

When Valora separated herself from the Dolas Servers, she took the name as a sign of independence.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3rILrLWSczo

During the first event, the players made a choice of saving the character Amber, or saving the data cache on Dolas Ltd. They voted to save Amber (it was a really tight vote, mostly based on the fact that Valora considered her a friend, and would have been devastated if she died.) – When that choice was made, the story branched to focus on a character-based line opposed to a player vs. evil corporation line. So the majority of Dolas information was lost at that point and probably won’t show up again in this game.

That was because of the Watchers. When Adrian first appeared in-game, he made a habit of trolling the players, and taunting them with ciphers, puzzles and had a huge hatred for Amber. Being such a dick, and not knowing his name, the players started calling him ‘Diablos’ as an opposite to DiOS. Fred was an inside joke they had going on that kinda stuck. Adrian took a shine to the names and started using them. It wasn’t until closer to the second event that anyone learned his actual name.

it was a short little thing included that was originally designed to be littered throughout showing her path to getting revenge on those responsible for killing her fiancé. The end result would be a short 2D side scroller game that you’d play as Amber. Get more lore stuff and find out why she has the sword.

Due to the current circumstances, I don’t know if I’m still going to do that or not. Her being kept by Nico was not the original plan.

Yes, but it’s not mandatory and it’s not something I will spend much time promoting at all. Never within storylines unless it serves a purpose.

Again, I’m one guy doing all of this. Paying additional voice actors, artists and other things is not cheap and it’s all out of my pocket. The whole game is free for everyone. If you feel like you can help support and wish to do so, I will accept it. If not, hey all good.

At no point will being a ‘paying supporter’ give you an added benefit or advantage in the game, you can just get some cool shit and get more of a peek behind the curtain.

Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/Valora

Merch: https://shop.spreadshirt.com/valora

Music:

For now, I’ll list them here, as I solidify things, it’ll be more robust and pretty like.

MODELS:

VALORA (PHYSICAL): Nocturnal Virus: https://www.instagram.com/nocturnal.virus/ (She is amazing, she did such a great job. Go and follow her!!)

VOICE OVER:

AMBER BENNETT: K Millions https://www.fiverr.com/kmillions

ADRIAN JOHNS: Some random dude

LYSSA JOHNS: Imabigailblythe https://www.fiverr.com/imabigailblythe

ENGINEER #1: Another asshole

ERIC HAWNTHORNE: Who knows?

ARTISTS:

Fanart used for backgrounds and covers: TIKKITOXIN

Cartoon Valora Version 1.1: That guy

Cartoon Valora Version (Video game – unseen yet): @twentyseightt

All logos/banners/graphics: Another dickhead

Well, I got outed at the start of the game. I wasn’t prepared for the depth people went to, so I came forward and joined the community. It’s unusual I know but I think it’s different and adds a new layer to the game. Think of me as the Dungeon Master of a D&D session.

A couple of reasons.

1. The amount of player involvement in determining the story – The amount of control the players have really change it from an ARG to an interactive series.
2. It’s easier for me to explain the concept to others as an Interactive series than an ARG. Saves me like 10 explanations.
3. My involvement – Being directly involved (with this website) changes the immersion. Instead of ‘What is this crazy possibly real story?’ now becomes ‘here is my universe, come play.’

Just me. One person. I do all the graphics, videos, websites. I do have voice actors I pay for their parts. Same with artists for specific things (such as the artwork in the tie-in games.) Everything else is me. That’s why the quality is not AAA by any means, and things can seem limited if you too close. Bare with me, I do what I can.