New York Times Sequential Puzzle

The New York Times occasionally runs a series of interconnected puzzles that lead to a final answer—sort of a paper-based puzzle hunt. The latest celebrates Earth Day with seven puzzles.

Two Chinese Boys Have a Website

I enjoyed reading this Slate article about lip-syncing. My favorite tidbit from the piece? The Two Chinese Boys have a website. If you haven't run across these YouTube stars, start with I Want It That Way, which made them famous, and then move to bu de bu ai.

Perplex City

I've been "playing" Perplex City for a couple months, ever since I heard about it on boing boing. It's a treasure hunt, where puzzles and clues lead you to some physical object (in this case a cube) entombed somewhere on the planet. If you've got the cube, you can turn it in for $200,000. There's a story associated with the cube, one you have to know to make much progress with the treasure hunt. Such games aren't new (the mythology of pirate treasure maps comes to mind), but this one has some intriguing novelties that made me want to explore it.

The main way to gather information is through a card-collecting game. You buy packs of Perplex City cards, some of which will inevitably be duplicates of cards you already own. You trade with other players to get more cards. Each card has a puzzle on it, but it often has some information you'll need to solve the larger treasure hunt. Most, for instance, have a piece of a map of the fictitious "Perplex City" where the story takes place. The cards provide the clues, but they also provide the cash to help fund the reward.

The curious thing is that, on the surface at least, the card puzzles don't have anything to do with the overall hunt. When you enter solutions on the Perplex City website, you earn points. Maybe this gets you bragging rights, but there's an implication that the higher you get in the ranks, the more likely you'll get additional clues. This makes sense since otherwise there'd be no incentive to report your solutions; other players can see how far along you are, and that might affect their trading strategy. The puzzles range from easy chestnuts to web searches to nasty tasks (see this boing boing entry about a distributed solving effort on one of the hardest cards).

Another intriguing aspect of the game is the "alternate reality" elements. Alternate reality games feature a game world that encroaches into the real world. The most famous alternate reality game was probably Electronic Arts' Majestic, in which emails, pages, and cell phone calls would come from game characters. I haven't found any of these elements yet (except for a website set up for Whip Smart ice cream), but it's an interesting idea.

Finally, the treasure hunt seems to demand cooperative effort. The RC5 decryption I mentioned earlier is one example, but I remember another story where a team got together to gain access to a restricted research library. In theory, there's no harm in doing this, since it's only the metapuzzle.

I doubt I'll be the one to find the cube, but I find the whole game fascinating.

Google Da Vinci Code Puzzle Hunt

Google will be running a promotial tie-in to the upcoming film adaptation of The Da Vinci Code. "The Quest", which starts Monday, April 17, runs as a widget on your personalized Google home page (so you'll need an account). Josh at puzzlinks.com has a theory about the structure of the puzzle hunt, thanks to an image he spotted on another blog.

I have little interest in the book or movie, but I know the puzzle lead on this project, and I'm sure he's going to bring us some challenging ideas. I think he still holds the record for most number of individual 1st place awards at the World Puzzle Championship. Oh, and many of his Google cohorts participate in "The Game," a sporadic weekend-long puzzle hunt. Expect some baffling ideas.

Heckles and Ripostes

Spotted on a Wired blog: A collection of anecdotes about great heckles and comebacks. Warning: Lots and lots of vulgar language.