unforum

[duckiemonster]

[ChalcoDoror]

[Gibbet]

[cassandra]

Just want to keep this getting noticed.

More details, in case you haven't already strolled over to pxc.com and read them:

[Ifurita]

I'll be at Endgame. If you're flying into OAK let me know. The airport is very close to the store.

[GasparLewis]

If I can scrape the time and funds, you'll be seeing me.
But it's verrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrry 50-50 at this point.

So, I haven't registered yet, since I don't know whether it's going to be a run-and-sweat or sit-and-ponder experience for me...

[isca]

ChalcoDoror wrote:

[cassandra]

More information on the upcoming games from the Sentinel's interview with Adrian Hon

"In order to celebrate the occasion, Mind Candy is putting on a celebration of some sort. What light can Hon shed on this event and what will happen there?

"The event is a big thank-you from the Perplex City Academy and Mind Candy to everyone who's searching for the Cube," Hon says. "It's also a celebration of the activation of the new link, and in typical Perplex City-style, it'll involve an awful lot of puzzles and games."

As for specifics, Hon spills the first concrete details regarding the day: "It'll all start on the morning of Saturday August 12th with a presentation at the Palace of Fine Arts Theatre, where everything will be explained. I can tell you now that it's basically a huge high-tech treasure hunt, but with a twist -- unlike the PCAG tournament in London, this treasure hunt will be collaborative, not competitive." Even through the medium of email, one can feel the pride Hon has in this undertaking. "There'll be hundreds of puzzles scattered across San Francisco, involving traveling to landmarks, looking for hidden objects, cracking codes and translating languages. Players will work together to figure out the answers. The answers serve as activation codes for special RFID tags back at the Palace of Fine Arts."

For those of us not informed regarding the latest Earth tech, he explains a bit more: "RFID tags are essentially objects whose location can be tracked in real time by a computer. We'll have 100 of these RFID tags, and when they're activated, they become 'ready for play' in a series of puzzles and games there. You see, we're setting up a gaming arena there where up to 100 people will be able to move around and control the games collectively. You'll just have to wait until the event itself before finding out what the games are, but I gather that they're very fun, and very devious.

"I'm pretty sure that no-one has run a treasure hunt and RFID game like this ever before, so it's a real step forward for us. We're expecting up to 1000 players, and anyone can sign up at Perplexcity.com."

And what of people who can't make it to San Francisco? Earth is a large place, and surely not every Cube hunter would be able to make it.

Hon acknowledges this is a difficulty. "There'll also be an opportunity for people to help out online, by tackling puzzles scattered over the internet. The answers to these puzzles will also help activate RFID tags," he says.

Interested in how work is shared between Mind Candy and the CRT, I ask who came up with the idea of the event, but Hon is coy. "I can't remember who exactly," he says. "They obviously have a romantic streak in them, since it's by winning at the games that the players will directly activate the new link."

I persist in trying to untangle the division of labour between the two groups and ask how did Hon and his colleagues worked with the CRT to develop this event. A few surprising truths emerge.

"The RFID puzzles and games are being created by scribes from the Academy Cube Retrieval Team -- there are rumours that even Sente might be involved in one of the games," Hon says. No surprise there. Then comes this morsel: "The Academy have hired a private group to devise the puzzles, since Mind Candy don't have much knowledge of San Francisco. This means that Mind Candy is basically just providing logistical support."

So Mind Candy isn't actually even running the event? His answer only puts more fuel on the fire. "We've had an enormous amount of help from two companies in the UK - Someth;ng Labs and Wavetrends -- to set up the RFID technology behind the event. They immediately clicked with the guys at the Academy and we wouldn't have been able to run the event without them," he says.

At this point, I am too astonished at Hon's nonchalance over the fact that his colleagues have admitted themselves incompetent to run the event on their own, and I fail to press the point; aghast, I inquire as to how Mind Candy's lack of involvement is likely to affect the event as a whole.

Hon seems, however, to see no problem. "Because Mind Candy isn't creating any of the puzzles or games, and we don't know the answers, an interesting consequence of this is that we get to take part in the event," he says. Then he strikes out into the realm of fantasy. "Actually, I have a sneaking suspicion that the Academy arranged it this way on purpose so they can see how good we are at solving puzzles."

And what happens if the players can't solve the games? Does that mean this important link simply won't be activated? Hon indicates that the problem has already been considered: "Well, we have a lot of confidence that our players are smart enough to tackle them. Of course, if we run into any problems, people from the Academy will be on hand to provide hints and tips, so the link will certainly go up one way or another."



So it lokos like there will be two on-ground groups, am I right? Those who will search for the answers in the city to activate the tags, and those at the theatre to play there?

[poozle]

Sounds like it, also sounds like there'll be an online team that gets puzzles to solve