Perplex City Stories
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Perplex City (
wordplay Word play or wordplay (also: play-on-words) is a literary technique and a form of wit in which words used become the main subject of the work, primarily for the purpose of intended effect or amusement. Examples of word play include puns, phone ...
on the term "
perplexity In information theory, perplexity is a measure of uncertainty in the value of a sample from a discrete probability distribution. The larger the perplexity, the less likely it is that an observer can guess the value which will be drawn from the ...
") was an
alternate reality game An alternate reality game (ARG) is an interactive networked narrative that uses the real world as a platform and employs transmedia storytelling to deliver a story that may be altered by players' ideas or actions. The form is defined by int ...
(ARG) created by Mind Candy, a
London London is the Capital city, capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of both England and the United Kingdom, with a population of in . London metropolitan area, Its wider metropolitan area is the largest in Wester ...
-based developer in 2005.
Adrian Hon Adrian Hon (born August 1982) is an English writer and game designer specializing in alternate reality games and transmedia storytelling. He is the CEO and founder of Six to Start, creator of the fitness game ''Zombies, Run!'', and a non-fiction ...
was the producer, designer and director of the game's first and only completed season, in which players searched for "The Receda Cube" (also known as "The Cube"), an artifact of spiritual significance to the inhabitants of a fictional
metropolis A metropolis () is a large city or conurbation which is a significant economic, political, and cultural area for a country or region, and an important hub for regional or international connections, commerce, and communications. A big city b ...
known as "Perplex City" which had great scientific value. In the game, "The Cube" had been stolen and buried somewhere on Earth. The game offered a cash prize of £100,000 (then approximately USD $200,000) to the person who found The Cube. Andy Darley discovered it in a wooded area located in
Northamptonshire Northamptonshire ( ; abbreviated Northants.) is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in the East Midlands of England. It is bordered by Leicestershire, Rutland and Lincolnshire to the north, Cambridgeshire to the east, Bedfordshi ...
, UK, on February 2, 2007.Digital Treasure Hunt gets Winner
a
BBC The British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) is a British public service broadcaster headquartered at Broadcasting House in London, England. Originally established in 1922 as the British Broadcasting Company, it evolved into its current sta ...
story.
Clues were hidden in foil puzzle cards sold by Mind Candy. Each card presented a diverse puzzle, and even though they supplied extra story background, it was feasible to join the ARG without obtaining them. Mind Candy announced that the first set of cards for the new game season, called Perplex City Stories, would be released on 1 March 2007. In June 2007, Mind Candy announced that the release of the second season would indefinitely be put on hold.


Gameplay

''Perplex City'' is an alternative reality game whose story unfolds through a series of collectible puzzle cards. Eventually, 256 cards total were released in four waves. The main objective of the game is to search for a cube named "The Receda Cube", a cube that is physically buried somewhere on Earth, whose location is hinted at through the collectible cards. Every collectible card had a scratch panel that hid a unique code that players can use to track their progress in solving the game. Additionally, each card has an individual puzzle that can be solved outside the main objective of the game. Clues in the card may lead players to websites, blogs, emails, telephone numbers in the real world, and characters in the game "communicated" with players using blogs, such as in the case of Violet and Scarlett Kiteway, daughters of the Master of the Academy, the organization responsible for maintaining the cube. Players are also encouraged to contribute to the in-universe, online newspaper, The Sentinel, where players can communicate with each other and characters in the game to solve the puzzles.


Puzzle cards

Mind Candy marketed a range of puzzle cards as collectibles, which they sold in foil packs. Each foil pack contained six random cards which were selected from a pool of 256 cards. The cards were categorized into sets and further into subsets based on their rarity and difficulty levels. Unlike
collectible card game A collectible card game (CCG), also called a trading card game (TCG) among other names, is a type of card game that mixes strategy game, strategic deck building elements with features of trading cards. The genre was introduced with ''Magic: The G ...
s such as Magic: The Gathering or
Pokémon is a Japanese media franchise consisting of List of Pokémon video games, video games, Pokémon (TV series), animated series and List of Pokémon films, films, Pokémon Trading Card Game, a trading card game, and other related media. The fran ...
, the cards are not designed for competitive player-versus-player "combat." Instead, each card depicts a different puzzle, with the rarer cards also featuring more complex riddles. Cards were marked with unique identifiers, which could then be entered onto the Perplex City website, earning points and a place on a leaderboard. Many cards contained hidden features, such as ultraviolet or heat-sensitive inks, and they covered a broad range of themes, from pop-culture trivia to
cryptography Cryptography, or cryptology (from "hidden, secret"; and ''graphein'', "to write", or ''-logy, -logia'', "study", respectively), is the practice and study of techniques for secure communication in the presence of Adversary (cryptography), ...
and logic brainteasers. Each card was a member of a four-card set. If all four cards were solved by a player, they received double points for each card in the set.


Notable cards

* Riemann (S1, Card #238) asks players to prove the
Riemann hypothesis In mathematics, the Riemann hypothesis is the conjecture that the Riemann zeta function has its zeros only at the negative even integers and complex numbers with real part . Many consider it to be the most important unsolved problem in pure ...
. As the solution to Riemann hypothesis is currently unknown, this card is currently unsolved and is the only remaining unsolved card. The Scientific Advisory Board of the
Clay Mathematics Institute The Clay Mathematics Institute (CMI) is a private, non-profit foundation dedicated to increasing and disseminating mathematical knowledge. Formerly based in Peterborough, New Hampshire, the corporate address is now in Denver, Colorado. CMI's sc ...
offers a USD 1 million prize for solving this problem along with others in the
Millennium Prize Problems The Millennium Prize Problems are seven well-known complex mathematics, mathematical problems selected by the Clay Mathematics Institute in 2000. The Clay Institute has pledged a US $1 million prize for the first correct solution to each problem ...
. * The Thirteenth Labour (S1, Card #251) asks players to solve a 352 character
cipher In cryptography, a cipher (or cypher) is an algorithm for performing encryption or decryption—a series of well-defined steps that can be followed as a procedure. An alternative, less common term is ''encipherment''. To encipher or encode i ...
encrypted with a RC5.64 cipher that was expected to take 30,000 computers working simultaneously for several months to solve at the time of its release. The cipher was cracked by a user Paraboloid13 in February 2010. While the solution was verified as correct, the user declined to share both the answer and the method they used to solve the puzzle. * Billion to One (S1, Card #256) features the face of a man with a caption in Japanese that reads 私を見つけなさい, which translates to "Find Me." A hint line for the game gave the further clue, "My name is Satoshi." His image was spread via social networking sites in an attempt to locate and make contact with this person as an experiment in exploring the concept of
six degrees of separation Six degrees of separation is the idea that all people are six or fewer social connections away from each other. As a result, a chain of "friend of a friend" statements can be made to connect any two people in a maximum of six steps. It is al ...
. The card was solved in December 2020 when the man in question was found by Tom-Lucas Säger and reported to Laura E. Hall, who ran the website tracking information about the hunt. In an email, Satoshi explained that the original concept had been for him to ask a question of whoever found him. Since he had forgotten the question, the puzzle author Jey Biddulph posted a recording of the spoken question on SoundCloud. It was "Who died after giving birth to flames?" with the answer "Izanami."


Out of print cards

Two cards are no longer in circulation. The cards were excluded from wave-three print runs because they did not fit on the print layout. While these problems have been rectified, Mind Candy has no plans to replace or reprint these cards in the future. They are: *Riemann (S1, Card #238) was chosen to be excluded due to the complete inability of the card to be solved for the foreseeable future. *Relativity (S1, Card #245) was chosen to be excluded more or less at random, but the decision was likely influenced by the fact that the problem and solution are quite complex.


Plot

Perplex City is a fictional extensive imaginary hub, with an unspecified number of ties to Earth and futuristic attributes that include state-of-the-art mobile technology, neuroenhancing drugs, and kilometer-high skyscrapers. City life in Perplex City possesses a slightly more utopian feature than what is usually found on Earth. Puzzles and intellectual endeavors are distinctive characteristics of Perplex City's culture, which are deeply ingrained. The Academy Games, their foremost competitive occasion, is principally a contest of intellectual capabilities rather than physical strength. Almost, almost every aspect of their culture encompasses both the cryptic and mental dimensions. According to the game, Perplex City's religion is centered around a
mythology Myth is a genre of folklore consisting primarily of narratives that play a fundamental role in a society. For scholars, this is very different from the vernacular usage of the term "myth" that refers to a belief that is not true. Instead, the ...
of buildings, constructions, and technology, none of which is explicitly theistic. In the plot of the game, The Receda Cube artifact (pronounced eh-kay-duh, which the players are made to find, is a revered and consecrated object. It possesses several extraordinary qualities that many people in this fictional world believe to be of supernatural origin. At the beginning of the game, the cube is stolen from the Perplex City Academy Museum by Violet Kiteway, the daughter of Perplex City Academy Master Sente Kiteway, and taken to Earth. Until the cube is found, she posts cryptic messages hinting at its location under the name "Combed Thunderclap". The Cube Retrieval Team (CRT) is formed to find the artifact. Due to the unavailability of travel to Earth for the Perplex City citizens, Sente Kiteway requests Earth citizens' aid to locate the artifact and offers to share leads or hints he or the CRT may gather. It has been discovered that another organization known as the Third Power, and a cult that worships a cube, named the Reconstructionists, are also in search of the cube. Whilst the residents of Earth are searching for the Cube on Earth, a group of individuals in Perplex City, specifically Kurt McAllister, as well as Scarlett and Violet, Sente's two daughters, are attempting to uncover more clues within the city and reveal the identity of Combed Thunderclap. The latter three eventually find the laboratory where the cube was created. It is discovered that Sente constructed the Cube, which can be used as both a weapon and a teleporter. The Cube is finally discovered in
Northamptonshire Northamptonshire ( ; abbreviated Northants.) is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in the East Midlands of England. It is bordered by Leicestershire, Rutland and Lincolnshire to the north, Cambridgeshire to the east, Bedfordshi ...
,
England England is a Countries of the United Kingdom, country that is part of the United Kingdom. It is located on the island of Great Britain, of which it covers about 62%, and List of islands of England, more than 100 smaller adjacent islands. It ...
; by the people of Earth. They also establish that Violet stole the Cube and concealed it on Earth to prevent the Third Power from acquiring it.


ARG features

The puzzle cards are intended as an introduction to the characters and story of Perplex City itself and the deeper mysteries of the cube theft. Clues found on the cards direct players to various
websites A website (also written as a web site) is any web page whose content is identified by a common domain name and is published on at least one web server. Websites are typically dedicated to a particular topic or purpose, such as news, education ...
,
blogs A blog (a Clipping (morphology), truncation of "weblog") is an informational website consisting of discrete, often informal diary-style text entries also known as posts. Posts are typically displayed in Reverse chronology, reverse chronologic ...
,
emails Electronic mail (usually shortened to email; alternatively hyphenated e-mail) is a method of transmitting and receiving digital messages using electronic devices over a computer network. It was conceived in the late–20th century as the ...
,
phone calls A telephone call, phone call, voice call, or simply a call, is the effective use of a connection over a telephone network between the calling party and the called party. Telephone calls are the form of human communication that was first enabl ...
, and SMS messages originating from Perplex City. These often feature puzzles of their own, whose solutions lead to further puzzles. Frequently, these puzzles require players to cooperate in reaching various goals. Perplex City ran from late 2004 to early 2007, much longer than the traditional ARG, which typically runs for around 2 months. Some examples of items that were achieved due to its longevity include: * Players wrote a book to enable a character to become a "published author" and gain access to relevant archives.Seaside Press
, in-game website with a real-life link to purchase the book online.
* A full-length CD of cryptic techno music was released by a Perplexian musician. * A banner plane flew across Manchester with a keyword that enabled access to a new area of the game. * Sixty players attended an in-game event in search of clues on
Clapham Common Clapham Common is a large triangular urban park in Clapham, south London, England. Originally common land for the parishes of Battersea and Clapham, it was converted to parkland under the terms of the Metropolitan Commons Act 1878. It is of gr ...
, only for one of their own to be revealed as a mole and escape in a black helicopter. * 220 people participated in the first Perplex City Academy Games in London, a high-tech scavenger hunt across the capital. A month later, a similar event was held in
New York New York most commonly refers to: * New York (state), a state in the northeastern United States * New York City, the most populous city in the United States, located in the state of New York New York may also refer to: Places United Kingdom * ...
.


Board Game

In late 2006, Mind Candy released Perplex City: The Board Game. Players solve anagrams, logic problems, visual puzzles, and trivia questions to collect a set of colored stones. Players can also challenge one another for their collected stones. To win, the last stone must be collected by challenging another player. The rules insert maintains an in-universe approach to Perplex City, giving background about its puzzle-loving citizens and a fictional history of the board game.


Mind Candy

The Mind Candy cards were first released in select outlets around the world but are increasingly readily available from retailers both online and offline. On September 7, 2006, Mind Candy announced that
GameStop GameStop Corp. is an American video game, consumer electronics, and gaming merchandise retailer, headquartered in Grapevine, Texas (a suburb of Dallas). The brand is the largest video game retailer worldwide. , the company operated 3,203 stor ...
was to begin carrying Perplex City cards in 700 stores in the United States. some 682,425 cards have been marked as solved on the Perplex City leaderboard, with 45,215 players registered. Mind Candy received a round of venture capital worth $3 million from
Index Ventures Index Ventures is a European venture capital firm with headquarters in both San Francisco and London. It invests primarily in tech companies. History Index Ventures has its origins in a Switzerland, Swiss bond (finance), bond-trading firm cal ...
, an
investor An investor is a person who allocates financial capital with the expectation of a future Return on capital, return (profit) or to gain an advantage (interest). Through this allocated capital the investor usually purchases some species of pr ...
in
Skype Skype () was a proprietary telecommunications application operated by Skype Technologies, a division of Microsoft, best known for IP-based videotelephony, videoconferencing and voice calls. It also had instant messaging, file transfer, ...
and other technology companies. In June 2007, Mind Candy announced that it would be putting Season 2 of its ARG on hold indefinitely. Mind Candy's focus later moved to the
Moshi Monsters ''Moshi Monsters'' is a British children's web browser massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG) aimed at children aged 6–12, with over 80 million registered users in 150 territories worldwide. Users could choose from one of si ...
franchise, and the Perplex City project was abandoned.


Reception

A reviewer from the online second volume of the gaming magazine ''
Pyramid A pyramid () is a structure whose visible surfaces are triangular in broad outline and converge toward the top, making the appearance roughly a pyramid in the geometric sense. The base of a pyramid can be of any polygon shape, such as trian ...
'' stated that "the object of the game is, well, that depends. The whole game is incremental. At its simplest, the idea is to solve the puzzle on a card. If you want to become 200,000 very real dollars richer (apparently they can do bank transfers across the dimensional gulf), you need to suck as much information as you can out of as many sources as you can, including the cards, some scattered websites, and even real people (or their cell phones), to unlock where on Earth the Cube has been hidden."


Reviews

*''
Pyramid A pyramid () is a structure whose visible surfaces are triangular in broad outline and converge toward the top, making the appearance roughly a pyramid in the geometric sense. The base of a pyramid can be of any polygon shape, such as trian ...
'' - Season 2


See also

*
Alternate reality game An alternate reality game (ARG) is an interactive networked narrative that uses the real world as a platform and employs transmedia storytelling to deliver a story that may be altered by players' ideas or actions. The form is defined by int ...
*
Masquerade (book) ''Masquerade'' is a picture book, written and illustrated by Kit Williams and published in August 1979, that sparked a Treasure hunt (game), treasure hunt by including concealed clues to the location of a jewelled golden hare that had been crea ...
*
Eric Harshbarger Eric Harshbarger (born 1971) is an Alabama-based builder of large-scale Lego brick mosaics and sculptures. From around 2000 to 2006 he was commissioned to build for television shows and magazines for promotional purposes. Harshbarger is also we ...
, Perplex City puzzle designer *
Andrea Phillips Andrea Phillips (born 20 July 1974) is an American transmedia game designer and writer. She has been active in the genres of transmedia storytelling and alternate reality games (ARGs), in a variety of roles, since 2001. She has written for, desig ...
, Perplex City writer & designer *
Naomi Alderman Naomi Alderman (born 1974) is an English novelist, Game design, game writer, and television executive producer. She is best known for her speculative science fiction novel ''The Power (Alderman novel), The Power'', which won the Women's Prize f ...
, Perplex City writer


References

{{reflist


External links


User-run catalog of all available puzzle cardsWiki Project
Alternate reality games Puzzles