Virtual online gaming isn’t all about fully-immersive 3D environments and avatars you know. This month we look at a phenomenon that draws on mixedmedia elements to create a rich world of puzzles, intrigue and mystery. Welcome friends, to Perplex City…

Fans of our Bulletin section will know that last month we featured a story about a unique gaming network that had announced an overwhelming response to its first season. Mind Candy’s Perplex City had just handed out a whopping £100k prize to the intrepid winner who had managed to decipher a series of cryptic clues delivered via printed puzzle cards and bizarre websites.
For those not in the know, the project represents one of the largest examples of Alternate Reality Gaming (ARG) since the ground-breaking The Beast that was launched around the movie A.I. Artificial Intelligence. This promotional behemoth used clues written into the film credits, codes printed on posters, fictional answer phone messages and loads of other creative ways to weave a whole new narrative structure that engrossed thousands. This idea was unheard of before and Spielberg’s film set a precedent for a new form of entertainment.
Similarly, Perplex City has managed to bring together like-minded audiences via specially set up blogs and community forums in a way that has caught the imagination of the whole web industry. With technology giant Sony recently launching what it’s dubbing ‘Game 3.0’ on the PSP, a revolution of gaming is definitely the order of the day. But it’s Perplex Citycreators’ commitment to quality and breathtaking attention to producing beautifully designed mixedmedia materials that’s got us all in a spin however, so we thought a more in-depth chat with the guys at Mind Candy would be just the ticket.

AH: Adrian Hon, Director of play
DH: Dan Hon, COO
JB: Jey Biddulph, Game developer

WD: Okay, we’ll kick off with the simple stuff, how would you guys define Alternate Reality Games (ARGs) and the product that Mind Candy produces within this genre?
AH: Alternate Reality Games tell stories to thousands of people, over as many platforms as they can get their hands on. Players participating in these games can look for clues using Google, contact characters via email and IM, receive updates by text message and physically walk outside to see a plane spelling out a clue in the sky. The great thing about ARGs is that you don’t need to learn any new controls to play them – there are no joysticks, no gamepads – you just use the tools and services that you use every day.
Our ARG is independent, in other words, we write our own story and we own it. This isn’t the case for ARGs that exist solely as a means to promote products like a movie or a car for example.

WD: How did Mind Candy get into this business and does your apparent specialisation in this area inhibit you from working in associated new-media markets?
DH: Mind Candy got into the ARG business quite purposefully – Michael, our CEO, had been struck by the Masquerade phenomenon when he was growing up and even now when we talk to people about the genre’s treasure-hunting aspect, the golden hare does crop up quite a lot. So anyway, Michael (who’s really a super-human ideas generator) had this idea for a more persistent kind of treasure hunt, one where the kind of world that Kit Williams created for Masquerade would continue. In today’s modern world, you’d be hardpressed to find a company that would be happy expending that kind of effort and then not trying to see what other opportunities would come into being off the back of such world building. So this idea for a next-generation treasure hunt was kicking around for a while when The Beast – the canonical example of an ARG – exploded onto the scene courtesy of the guys at Microsoft. Adrian and I were both really involved in The Beast – both as players and also as moderators of the amazing community that sprang up around it. We were sitting there – I was doing my finals at university, Adrian was in his first year – and we were thinking, this is really something that could change the world. For a lot of people who were involved at that time, there was a great sense that something new was happening. It was incredibly exciting.
So The Beast was something that stuck with both Adrian and I – we both did some work in the field, nothing too serious – but it had kick-started something inside of us and we were both writing furiously about it on our blogs. It wasn’t hard for Michael to find us after that and we got together and he told us about his idea for a new kind of treasure hunt and we were pretty much sold right there and then.
I don’t really think we’re inhibited by our specialisation – if anything, all our specialisation really is is the desire to experiment with new ways of telling stories. If that means that there’s some new technology or new technique out there that looks exciting and looks like it can work, then that’s definitely something we feel we can try. That has failed once or twice, when we’ve been trying out technologies that aren’t quite up to scratch – for example, we’re really interested in location-based gaming, but the technology really isn’t there yet.

WD: So we know where the loose idea came from, but where did the actual Perplex City project or concept come from and how long has it been up and running?
IC: Perplex City in its current form has been running for around two and a half years now. It has been an incredible learning process for us – there are so many elements in a project like this that, what other people might have done before, they certainly haven’t done in concept and they definitely haven’t done them on the kind of timescale that we’ve imposed. Some things we know definitely haven’t been done before – we’ve enjoyed pushing the boundaries with our printers for our puzzle cards, for instance. What we did was launch a sort of pre-game campaign. I guess it’s easiest to compare the launch of the game to something like Google Mail – there was a phase when it was a kind of beta, in that we were still rolling out services – but something was there.
The reception issue is kind of tricky. We’re conscious that there are some in the ARG community who’re not yet convinced about what we’re trying to do – which is bring ARGs to a much wider audience – so they’re taking a back seat or an on-the-fence stance with us. On the other hand, the reception that we’ve had with the press, blog reaction and with our players has been absolutely phenomenal. There have definitely been some tremendous moments.

WD: How does the design/development of this kind of product work in terms of bringing all the elements together? Bearing in mind that you’re not just building websites etc, but a whole virtual network and a narrative structure that binds everything together?
AH: It’s very tricky and I’m confident in saying that no one has done anything quite like this before. You have to spend a lot of time before a game launches, planning out the timeline and content and puzzles. What’s more, the players of ARGs can influence their course. Since ARGs unfold in real time, this means that you often have to do a lot of writing and production in real time – and it has to be good. That sort of pressure is hard to operate under, but it’s also exhilarating, like improv comedy or jazz.

WD: In many ways Perplex City, by its very nature, puts more emphasis on complex content design than it does on technical development. Perhaps meaning the real innovations behind the websites for example are in the relationships between them and the puzzles they represent, rather than the sophistication of the sites. How tough is it to devise such intricate online content in this way?
JR: It’s really tough! Often, companies will look at ARGs and think “Well, they’re just a bunch of websites connected to each other. We know how to make websites, we have a copywriter, so how hard can it be?” When they realise that they’ve only made enough content to last two days, the puzzles are broken and the writers don’t know how the story is going to end, they discover that it’s not as easy as it looks.
You need a good understanding of game design and world-building to make everything fit together – it borrows skills from TV writing, live event co-ordination, project management, community management and more besides!

WD: You’ve done a nice thing by marrying a web experience with real elements such as game cards, stickers, even music etc. Where did that idea originate and do you see similar mix-media channels entering the internet community for other online applications?
DH: The mixed-media thing really originated from mine and Adrian’s experience with The Beast. It was really a kind of mind-expanding experience – as if someone had just cracked your head open with a chisel and let all of this stuff flood in. When we explain it to some people, the mixed-media possibilities really take a while to sink in. The end result is around half and half in terms of those people who get it and those who don’t. It’s a really new thing. We don’t really see it as mixed media either. It’s more of a way for the virtual – or the imaginary – to impact and touch what’s real. In our case what we’re doing is taking a kind of literary creation – a world that we’ve built and is described through the way people interact with it – and have that poke through into the real world.
Sometimes that means puzzle cards that the Perplex City Academy have created, sometimes it means bank websites that you can hack in to, other times it means gig posters and leitmotifs and so on. But for other online applications I think we’ll see much more of this happening, especially with 3D printers – we’re already at the stage now where you can create an object in Second Life and, if you know the right people, have it pop out of a 3D printer the same day. That kind of stuff is just amazing and very exciting!

WD: Above all, this has to be a viable business project for you guys, so where do your revenue streams come from with Perplex City and do you think the commercial market for ARGs is set to explode?
DH: The most obvious revenue stream is the puzzle cards. We’ve got a number of ideas that we’re trying out and are in conversations with other companies in the arena about. Adrian and I are on really great terms with 42 Entertainment – we all agree that we’re in such an early stage of what we’re doing that we’re all just kicking ideas around and seeing what works. What we’re sure about though, is that there really is this need for a different kind of entertainment experience – one that isn’t as passive and one that’s much more immersive, but not too daunting at the same time.

WD: As purely a technical interest question, what kinds of development technology does the team use to create the web content and how is it all served up?
JB: Creating this type of live game requires fast thinking, fast development time and flexibility. To keep the game interesting we had to keep pushing the boundaries with each new event and this diversity meant that much of what we created was bespoke and one-time use. We had a system for managing and versioning the dozens of websites and blogs we created throughout the game and for more interactive areas we extensively used PHP and MySQL on the backend, with the frontend often done in Flash. This ranged from creating simple puzzle games and ticket booking systems for trains to real-time, live game events with simultaneous participation and collaboration by hundreds of players. As well as using this for our online events, we put the technology to good use in our offline live events. For example in a 300-player mobile SMS and MMS-based treasure hunt in London with live scoring and also an event in San Francisco using RFID technology to create highly immersive and interactive games.

WD: With Season One concluded and work well under way on the next, what are you looking to top or do better in this next release?
AH: We want to tell even more compelling stories to even more people. Whenever people heard about Perplex City, they thought it sounded marvellous, but at the same time, they also found it very difficult to get into. When you have a story that lasts for two years, with almost no breaks, it’s not surprising, so we’re definitely not going to do that again. Instead, we’re moving to an episodic model, which will make it easier to get into. We’re also making the episodes replayable by individuals, so that whenever you visit our site, you’ll always be able to play something, even if there isn’t a live game on. It’s not about dumbing-down – it’s about making the game easier to play.

WD: Where’s Perplex City headed in the longer-term future? Go on… tell us!
AH: I don’t know! Well, that’s not entirely true, but my point is that the ARG genre is only six years old. With our episodic model, we can experiment an awful lot in Season 2 – we have an episode with a romance story that’s all about live events for example, or we can have a political story that’s all about mobile phones. There’s a huge amount of scope that we can explore and the great thing is that we’re pioneering the future of ARGs every day. We have plans for Season 2, Season 3, Season 4, a book, a movie… anything.

WD: What aspects of the project have brought Mind Candy the most pride and joy throughout all the hard work you’ve clearly put into it?
AH: For me, the thing that stands out above anything else is seeing the appreciation of the community. I’ve lost count of how many times people have come up to me at events and parties and said, “Perplex City has changed my life.” And they really mean it. They’ve learnt new facts and skills, they’ve made friends from around the world, in some cases they’ve really grown and matured as individuals. To me, this shows that we’ve told a good story in a new way. It’s not just for a hardcore of people either. When I was in San Francisco for our live event there, I saw a family of children, parents and grandparents, all working together. There isn’t much nowadays that will bring a family together like that, let alone a game, so I’m really proud to see that we’re the cause of that.

DH: I’d have to say that for me, it ranges from the partner pitches that I’ve prepared (and that I really can’t talk about) to moments when you realise that a website that you created on your off time (I designed the site for Cognivia, our drug company) has actually truly fooled people! In particular when the manufacturer of M&Ms said that it can’t make us M&Ms stamped with Cognivia’s name because it had Googled it and Cognivia turned out to be a “real company.” Then there are the moments when we get out there, we meet our players and can just see exactly how much excitement and joy this has brought into people’s lives. The one thing I also must mention is the brilliant team that we’ve put together. Mind Candy, right from the start, has been privileged to have some incredibly smart, incredibly hard-working people involved who have given the project their all – and I think it really shows. There’s some serious passion in there and I’m probably most proud of the way the entire team has pulled together to create something brilliant.

JB: Throughout the course of the game there have been so many moments where the players have caused us to be immensely happy and more excitingly, astonished at what they’ve managed. It’s wonderful to see how small aspects of the game we have seeded have been taken by the players and run with. It seems wrong to mention just a few, but those that come to mind include the Perplex City Wiki, (www.perplexcitywiki.com) which is an encyclopedia of every person and event in the game, constantly updated and refined. It’s indeed a work of art and a mammoth task! We have also seen the players write and publish a book of over 50,000 words, fold 333 paper cranes and deliver them to us to mourn the death of a character and have an interview on national television to solve one of our puzzles (www.findsatoshi. com). The latest appears to be one player attempting to translate the entirety of the game into French – good luck, that’s a lot of text!


www.perplexcity.com