Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

How He Found The Cube

Posted by Zonk on from the think-think-think dept.

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.

4 of 45 comments (clear)

  1. Like an episode of Twin Peaks by CRCulver · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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?

    1. Re:Like an episode of Twin Peaks by 192939495969798999 · · Score: 4, Informative

      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).

      --
      stuff |
    2. Re:Like an episode of Twin Peaks by ShaggyIan · · Score: 5, Informative

      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?

      --

      This sig was generated randomly by one million monkeys with Speak 'n Spells. . .
  2. So that's where it was! by Rachel+Lucid · · Score: 4, Informative

    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.