How He Found The Cube

Via GameSetWatch an in-depth article on the Alternate Reality Game Network site explaining how Andy Darley found the cube, and completed the first season of the Perplex City game. Written by Darley himself it's an engaging account of what it's like to actually play one of these games, and the process by which the cube's location was discovered. "It was then that I realised I was practically standing on a spot where the topsoil was the colour of the clay that ought to be hidden underneath it. It wasn't 10m from the post, it was slightly further - practically a continuation of the line I'd just investigated, exactly where you'd end up burying something if you walked 10m, stopped, and leaned forward to start digging. Seeing sub-surface clay with just a very thin covering of the material that was several inches thick elsewhere was deeply suspicious." GSW also links to an exhaustive look at an older ARG-in-a-children's-book, the game Masquerade, which is well worth reading up on.

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Re:Like an episode of Twin Peaks

[192939495969798999]

Treasure hunt based on alternate-reality RPG (i.e. trading cards with real-world tie-ins to an actual object you had to find to win a large cash prize).

Re:Like an episode of Twin Peaks

[ShaggyIan]

It took me a bit of reading (www.perplexcity.com, apparently down right now) and googling to get the gist.

As the previous poster pointed out, it is a card game/Alternate Reality Game. Solve puzzles on cards you buy, read blogs, call phone numbers, send emails (and get responses), and occasionally show up for an "event" in Britain. The more I read, the more I thought it sounded like good natured cult.

Given the press coverage on this, I can't quite figure out how I had never heard of it. Perhaps because I don't hang out in gaming shops?

Re:

[Anonymous Coward]

Sounds like recruitment tactics... of TERR0R!!!

Re:

[Archibald Buttle]

The events run for the first season of Perplex City were not exclusively run in Britain. They had a fairly large live event in San Francisco not too long ago. There were also hints and clues run fairly early in the game as previews in cinemas in Toronto. I believe they're planning other events around the world.

The perplexcity.com web site had been down for upgrades in advance of Season Two of Perplex City. It's back up now. The new season officially starts at the beginning of March - although many susp

Re:

[Jeff DeMaagd]

It sure was annoying. There hasn't been a story on this on Slashdot that I remember, and somehow we're thrown in the middle or end of the story without a quick recap? It's a good way to make people think you're just being weird or excluding.

Re:

[Calmiche]

Err.. There was a story on the 8th of February about this.. http://games.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/02/09 / 0429250 [slashdot.org] and I know I saw a news spot on CNN about it. It's just a real-life roleplaying game, similar to the "I Love Bees" campaign from Halo 2.

Why didn't you hear about this earlier? Maybe because it's based in England?

There are a lot of people saying that this is the direction where some games and ad campaigns are headed. It sounds like a lot of fun to me.

Re:

[Tomcat666]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perplex_City [wikipedia.org]

Re:

[Kuvter]

I have a Game Cube, it wasn't hard to find. It's just a last generation game system now.

Re:

[Lectrik]

I've read through the article twice now, and I have absolutely no idea what this all is about. Is the Cube some kind of treasure hunt, a fountain of youth, a cult?

Singularity "education"
inflicts a dog brain upon
Students - ability to be
taught servitude - but
an inability to ever think
opposite of brainwashing
and indoctrination - very
unlikely to ever recover
to acknowledge Nature's
Harmonic Simultaneous
Rotating 4 Corner 24 Hr.
Days in 1 Earth Rotation.

Real players

[Timesprout]

Beat spheres into cubes.

Wrong Adjective

[Jah-Wren Ryel]

Seeing sub-surface clay with just a very thin covering of the material that was several inches thick elsewhere was deeply suspicious."

Since the topsoil was thinner, not thicker, shouldn't that be "shallow-ly suspicious?"

Alternate Reality = Real Life

[neltana]

I'm waiting for the PS3 version, though. Think of how much better the graphics will be once they start using the Cell processor!

I guess I'm a bit slow today, but it took me a while to figure out that this wasn't a computer game. I guess Alternate Reality games are computer games that you don't use computers for...you know, what we used to call games, but now we have a high tech sounding term for them.

It sounds like this was a game in England where people buy puzzle cards that gave them clues on how to f

Re:

[bmin]

You do realize Pounds are the monetary unit in the UK right? If they wanted the unit of measuremeant in weight they would have used kilograms.

Re:

[Anonymous Coward]

===JOKE===>

  o
  \|/
  | == you
  / \

WOOOOSH!

(always wanted to do that)

Re:

[dannycim]

You do realize Pounds are the monetary unit in the UK right? If they wanted the unit of measuremeant in weight they would have used kilograms.

Actually, kilograms are a measure of mass, not weight. A six kilograms of matter is still six kilos on the moon, whereas a six pound one is only one pound on the moon.

Re:

[neltana]

Wait, I thought that depended on the exchange rate.

Re:

[bmin]

http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/weight [reference.com] the amount or quantity of heaviness or mass; amount a thing weighs.

Re:

[DrWho520]

The weight of an object is based upon the amount of matter it has and the acceleration due to a local gravity field upong the object. The mass of an object is just the amount of matter it has, a fundemental quantity. Objects weigh less on the moon because the moon's gravitation pull is less than the earth. You can think of gravity as the interaction of two masses, with the medium that transmits the interaction being space-time. The moon has less gravity than Earth because it has less mass than Earth, so

Re:

[neltana]

No, when I said "really, really heavy" I meant "deeply profound," because I personally can't think of anything more personally meaningful than money.

So that's where it was!

[Rachel Lucid]

As a perplexcity player, I'll fill in the rest:

Perplexcity involved a series of puzzle cards, which somehow lead to a cube buried somewhere in the damned ground, and a big cash prize to whoever could find it. This also involved some online puzzling and drama, in the usual fashion of these types of games.

From the looks of things (and the whole Cube 2/3 bit), there's multiple cubes buried so that potentially an American player could win without traveling to England. This guy just happened to pull it off first.

Kudos.

Re:

[GodaiYuhsaku]

Well there's also the fact that they are starting up Season 2 next month. Plus you can still solve the cards for thier own puzzle sake. Some are fun. Some are frustrating. And earning the points will get you rewards. (when you earn X amount of points you earn a Leitmark. And they actually send you a pin/badge in the mail.) Its a small reward vs cost but its something. :)

Re:

[pelrun]

Seems like the only reason to get involved, to me, is the process, not the end result. Which seems kinda odd in some respects.

Really? Isn't that true of every game? If I put down my money for a Monopoly set or a copy of Half-Life 2 or a WoW subscription, am I really only doing it for the "end result", or am I interested in spending time playing the game?

Putting money into something to get a guaranteed end result is called investment...

Re:

[pelrun]

It's a pay-to-play game, not a pay-to-win game. It's not even very unusual - nobody buys a board game, or a computer game, or pumps their cash into WoW just to win a "big prize"; they do it to enjoy the gameplay and social interaction with other players. The same goes for the puzzle cards in Perplex City.

New NIN ARG

[cliveholloway]

There's a new Nine Inch Nails ARG [echoingthesound.org] based around the new concept albums (Year Zero and (possibly?) Year One). It's driving us crazy and the server's are periodically crashing under the load, so I thought I'd try and slashdot the ARG site to see if that helps :)

Cube

[darkshadow]

There is only one cube.
http://timecube.com/ [timecube.com]

Re:

[falcon8080]

Actually, the only true cube worth using is http://www.miniaturecube.com/ [miniaturecube.com]

Re:

[the dark hero]

the post about the timecube is weird and very creepy. this miniature cube however is amazing :)

Re:

[n1ckml007]

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0123755/ [imdb.com] Cube or http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0093177/ [imdb.com]