Perplex City, Season 2

Though the grand prize has been claimed for the Perplex City card-collecting/alternate reality game, the creators at Mind Candy have created a new series of puzzle cards. I found a store selling packs today and bought some. The cards are similar to the originals: a puzzle on the front (of different levels of difficulty and rarity, just like the original), and a story on the back. Some of these, probably all, are pieces of a metapuzzle. They seem to be smaller stories of the citizens of Perplex City.

From the "Here's what this is" card that comes in every pack—a non-scoring card, grr—it looks as if Mind Candy is focusing more on the puzzle community, allowing forum members to create their own puzzles and put them out for people to solve. Plus, a global leaderboard allows players to gauge their progress relative to their friends, and there's the promise of prizes along the way, though I doubt a $200,000 prize will reappear.

At a casual glance, the puzzles on the cards seem more challenging than their equivalents on the originals, and this is a good thing. (Though one of the difficult purple puzzles in my packs is a simple twist on one of my favorites of the interview brainteasers we gave at my work.)

Visit your local games store for "The World of Puzzles" packs, and visit Perplexcity.com to keep up with the community.