Perplex City opens its gates to the quest for the cube

 

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By Matt Whipp

Posted on 2 Dec 2005 at 17:33

It could be dubbed the intellectual heroin of alternative reality gaming, but Perplex City has opened its gates to the quest for the cube, and once you've started on that road there's no going back.

The game is set in both the real and 'cyber' world of Perplex City, where those that successfully locate the lost Receda cube stand to win a very tangible £100,000.

How? Purchasing a pack of puzzle cards is the first step. Each pack contains six cards, and they are available in packs of four from firebox.com for £9.95. Card packs are released in 'Waves' - they're currently shipping Wave 2 - presumably each wave contains more information on the location of the Receda cube.

Solve a puzzle card, visit the Perplex City website, register, enter the code on the solved puzzle card and enter your answer. If you're correct you get points, and clues.

It sounds trivial, but is dangerously addictive. Not just the puzzles themselves, but the tantalising glimpses they give of the bigger puzzle: Perplex City. Take the card entitled Bar None, for example. To solve this you need to correctly deduce a phone number. Log on to the site, sign in, enter your answer and, if you're lucky, bingo, another seven points.

But what if you phoned that number? We did, and got through to the answer phone of one of the characters in Perplex City, which clued us up to a blog she was writing, which contains further clues.

And so with the information you learn it is possible to 'interact' with both the real and alternate aspects to the game and eventually run away with the big prize.

There's just one thing: there are an awful lot of cards to get through - 260 at the last count - and with presumably further waves to come, that's an awful lot of money to pay, especially considering firstly that they are just pieces of card and that secondly there's no guarantee of which cards you'll end up with - so you'll quickly find yourself laden with doubles.

It's a great game - but it should be quite a lot easier on your wallet.