Tag: perplex city (Page 1 of 9)

Satoshi Found: Perplex City Just Got A Little Less Perplexing

December 30, 2020 / Michael Andersen

It’s been almost fifteen years since Andy Darley entered Wakerley Great Wood in Northamptonshire with his trusty trowel in hand and dug up the Receda Cube, ending the first season of Mind Candy’s alternate reality game Perplex City and claiming the game’s Â£100,000 prize. While the game’s main narrative was solved with the discovery of the cube, some of the game’s most ardent fans continued to chip away at the game’s unsolved puzzles, designed to be nigh impossible. And on December 30th, the final puzzle was solved when players got in contact with a man based on nothing more than a single photo, and a first name: Satoshi. After over a decade, the puzzle Billion to One has been solved.

A Brief Perplex City Primer
Perplex City was an alternate reality game that launched in 2005, whose story unfolded through a series of collectible puzzle cards. According to the game’s lore, Violet Kiteway stole an object known as the Receda Cube from the Perplex City Academy Museum. After being teleported to our world, she buried the Cube and posted cryptic messages hinting at its location under the name “Combed Thunderclap”.

Not knowing his own daughter was the thief, Perplex City Academy Master Sente Kiteway partnered with Mind Candy to release a game: Perplex City. The game was designed to let people of Earth learn about their world and the theft, with the hopes that Earth’s puzzle-solvers could figure out what their Perplexian counterparts could not. And so, 256 puzzle cards were released into the world in four separate waves.

Clues on the cards might lead players to websites, blogs, emails, and telephone numbers, and a San Francisco live event even had one character escape the scene in a black helicopter…but for many, the heart of the game were puzzle cards themselves: every card had a silver scratch panel hiding a unique code that players could use to track their solves, powering a live leaderboard. Three puzzles were particularly notorious for being unsolved.

How Was Your Weekend?

October 29, 2007 / Jonathan Waite

While the weekend represents quiet and solitude for many of you, alternate reality gaming does not stop for days of the week that begin with an S. We received a plethora of ARG tips, tidbits and updates through the past few days, and here are the highlights:

Lance Weiler, a recent guest on the ARG Netcast series, has written about Hope is Missing, the ARG that was created to promote the DVD release of his film Head Trauma. His article at The Workbook Project is chock full of details and statistics about the campaign, and is an excellent read for people finding themselves on either side of the Puppetmaster curtain.
This year marks the second time that the Trinity University’s Coates Library in San Antonio has run Blood on the Stacks, an alternate reality game that helps new students to get familiar with the school’s library. According to this entry at the SHU – Blogcause07 blog, “anecdotally the library and support staff reported feedback from students of feeling more familiar, less alien in the environment, the library was associated with fun and the staff were more approachable.” This appears to be yet another neat way that people are using ARGs to assist in a social environment.
Thanks to a press release we received, we know how survivors of a zombie-apocalypse will find each other — Last Day’s Journal. This is a project that began in 2005 at the hands of Superfreako Productions, a two-brother team that had the idea for a television show dedicated to the concept of a post-apocalyptic zombie-infested world.

What do Education, iPhones, and LG15 Have in Common?

September 30, 2007 / Jonathan Waite

After cleaning out my inbox (1300+ messages!), I found a few stories from the past month or so that I found interesting, and I hope you will too:

Over at Cross-Media Entertainment, Christy Dena is reporting on a new educational ARG called Help Me Solve a Mystery. Quoting from the Research Quest blog , Dena notes that the ARG will be “designed to teach critical thinking and information literacy skill. The game will be targeted to college students, yet will be freely open and promoted in order to attract a broad range of participants.” Our very own Michael Andersen started up a discussion thread at the Unfiction forums earlier this week. Gayla Keesee, who blogs at Ed Tech Lady, has written an article asking for assistance from people currently playing this game, so if you can help her out, be a good samaritan!

Also on the educational front comes this article by Ian Bogost at Water Cooler Games. It tells of an instructional counter-terrorism ARG called the Never Rest Game and links to a discussion thread at the Unfiction forums.

Just as the news of two instructional ARGs comes to our attention Jeremy Vernon blogs about using ARGs as an educational tool. We hope Jeremy is watching the same blogs and web sites as we are.

The last of the education-themed story alerts pointed us in the direction of Dr. Scott J. Warren, a professor at the University of North Texas. Dr. Warren is teaching his students about alternate reality gaming through a course called CECS 1000, describing the course as a “hybrid course.” Warren is extending his classroom environment to Second Life, but exactly what kind of ARG this will turn out to be is unknown, as it is closed to outside access. However, you can read Warren’s own blog at doorarg.wordpress.com.

Shifting gears now, Wagner James Au and Jane Pinckard at GigaOm have pontificated about the most-wanted games for the iPhone, and #7 on the list is Perplex City, or another top ARG. Their argument is that an ARG would showcase the multi-funcionality of the iPhone, and they are calling for Jane McGonigal to be hired for the project.

Elan Lee of 42 Entertainment was recently a speaker at one of the IGNITE discussion nights in Seattle. Video of his talk can be seen at YouTube.

And finally, another ARG set in the universe of Lonelygirl15 has launched. Mission Anchor Cove is being run by TheLadyLazarus, according to this post at LG15 Today.

Alice is Lost — We Hear Rumors She Fell Down Some Sort Of Hole, Made By A Rabbit Or Something

June 16, 2007 / Geoff May

As if the ARG world just can’t get enough of Alice in Wonderland lingo (rabbit holes, curtains, puppet masters), a teaser was made public on June 1st for an upcoming project from Eric Harshbarger of Perplex City fame, called Alice Is Lost. Eric first made it known at Perplexorum that he had opened the website www.aliceislost.com.

Eric released news of the project hot on the heels of the abrupt and unexpected end of Perplex City, knowing that the countless dedicated fans and followers of PXC would be pining for puzzles and mysteries to solve. Eric makes it clear, however, that this is not PXC II: “This is a side project of mine. While I am still at Mind Candy as a Puzzle Designer, this is not a Mind Candy affiliated project.” He expects to launch “the search,” which he’s been working on for nearly a year, to begin this fall.

Fans have already jumped in excitedly, and even created a Facebook group to rally people and keep everyone updated. The group attracted Eric, who decided to come out from behind the curtain and share a bit about his project in the group’s discussion. He described it as having “some ARG elements to it; there will be a story to some extent, but mainly it will be about PUZZLES. Lots of puzzles.” There will be puzzle cards, he says, but they will not be physical. Instead, they’ll be distributed via the website, and only ‘registered’ users will be able to submit solutions and gain points. That raises another significant point: the registration fee. He continues, “There will be a registration fee, yes; but it will be a one-time thing (not a subscription), and it will be pretty small (not more than the cost of a typical boardgame probably.” He estimates the fee will be around $25USD, but is open to suggestions. Registration will most likely also include additional privileges for the player.

“The best way I can think to describe this,” Eric states, “is a massive ‘Puzzle Party‘ like I’ve hosted in the past, but it will be available to everyone on the web.” He also expects the project to run for over a year, although he doubts it will extend as long as two years. That’s nearly a potential twenty-four months filled to the brim with puzzles galore, but the main mystery ultimately will still be How do I find Alice?

So mark Fall 2007 on your calendar. Also, keep an eye on the unfiction thread, or the perplexorum topic, or even the facebook group. But, most importantly, visit aliceislost.com and sign up to receive updates.

Breaking News: Perplex City Season 2 Delayed Indefinitely

June 1, 2007 / Jonathan Waite

Earlier today it was revealed on the Perplex City game site that the expected June relaunch of the popular alternate reality game would “no longer be possible.” Season two was scheduled to be released this month, but the statement on the site makes reference to the quality of the experience, and how Mind Candy believes in holding off on releases until “they’re ready and… [they’re] entirely happy with them.”

The landscape of Mind Candy itself has also undergone major changes, as Story Team members Adrian Hon, Andrea Phillips, David Varela and Naomi Alderman, as well as COO Dan Hon, have all left the company within the last 48 hours. In blog posts, Dan Hon notes that he wants “to try something new,” while his brother Adrian remarks that “it’s time… to move on.” Phillips and Alderman echoed sentiments of celebration, sadness and thankfulness for the players of PXC, and Varela chose the Unfiction forums to sum up his thoughts on the turn of events.

Details are still emerging, so watch ARGNet for further details. The story will be part of the discussion on the upcoming 26th episode of the ARG Netcast as well.

Thanks to Brian Enigma at Netninja for the summary post and links.

Paul Denchfield + Violet Kiteway = Fun

May 26, 2007 / Jonathan Waite

Three weeks ago, we reported on the Frozen Indigo Angel game promoting BBC Radio 1’s Big Weekend music festival. On the same day, we also found out about a season two preview for Perplex City. As it turns out, the two were fated to be reported together, as they were officially connected on May 12th in a blog post on Violet Underground, with a puzzle found in one of Paul Denchfield’s videos leading to a new PXC game web site.

Within a day of finding the puzzle, players of the Frozen Indigo Angel (FIA) game had solved it (see this thread at unofficialmills.co.uk) and discovered the tie-in with Perplex City. On the 14th, Denchfield posted on his blog about the recent activity and the new PXC web site, and Violet blogged about receiving emails which put her in touch with Denchfield himself. At this point, the story revolved around Cyrus Quinton, a member of the myserious Third Power who had set up a secret web page at the newly discoverd Silburn-Griggs Mining web site. Cyrus, according to Violet, is a “sound-engineer-slash-mass-murdering-psychopath,” and Denchfield warns about a “subliminal messaging scheme” Cyrus has planned for the Big Weekend concert — just as Cyrus warns his agents about Denchfield.

From the 15th to the 18th, Cyrus created “ticket challenges” for people to take part in during real world events. These challenges were noted by both Violet and Denchfield in separate blog entries, and players quick to solve the puzzles were awarded with tickets for the concert event. However, not everything is as it seemed, as a timetable was discovered at the same time, revealing that Cyrus was planning on using Perplex City technology during the weekend to send subliminal commands to listeners of Radio 1 who attended the Big Weekend concert. Alas, even as players, led by Denchfield, were told to do whatever they could to stop Cyrus from broadcasting a “primer” over the airwaves, the signal ended up going out on the 17th, “drowning out Beyonce and Shakira.”