unforum

[Sasuntsi Davit]

Perplex City puzzle cards packaging

[Atrophied]

Perfect for those following the Atkins Diet then

[Leeravitz]

'*Key* to solving the mystery?' Stop changing your mind, MC!!

[MarcB]

Also, to the left of the diagram of the card in *tiny* writing is the following text...
Small print. Terms and Conditions apply. No more clues here. Honestly. Stop reading now. Haven't you got a cube to find?

[lotusflower]

Yeah, saying they're *key* to solving the mystery is fecking annoying. So is that official now they've paid their pennies to print it up?

[arieh]

It was always fairly clear that the information on the cards would be key to solving the mystery of the location of the Cube. We'd not have found several sites without them, for example.

What MC said, as I understood it, is that nobody needs to personally buy any cards or make any card solves to find the cube. In other words, every unFiction reader could have the same chance of finding the cube, because we share solves, information and speculation. So it's possible to personally participate in the game fully without forking out money.

[rose]

adrian hon's interview

[Leeravitz]

At the moment, I don't really buy Adrian's early claims to the effect that 'working things out will be more difficult without having purchased the card packs'. This seems to be protesting too much. Other than the possibility that the map pieces will help us navigate, say, potential drop - off points, Cube theft routes etc. much better, I'm yet to really feel that anything greatly revelatory about the characters and/or the Cube has come to us by way of the Cards. Hence, nothing very revelatory about the theft mystery as a whole.

This isn't meant to be a nay - saying argument. As I am fascinated by the mystery elements of the game to the exclusion of the puzzles per se (in many ways), I really, really wanted the cards to be giving us vital new information that we couldn't have got elsewhere. But so far, we seem to be getting only the most cautious of hints, and even these might not be strictly relevant.

Interesting, yes, that we know nothing about Sente's wife (i.e. Violet's and Scarlett's mother) and that we have been led to ponder that on the basis of a yellow card; interesting that Kurt seems to be Violet's unofficial boyfriend (at the least, he goes on hiking holidays with the Kiteways); that Scarlett *may* be smitten with Von; that, if Anna Heath was behind the 'florentines' card, *she* may have a secret romance going on; that Garnet Reed used to patronise the Five of Cups, and was strongly connected to the drive to unearth the authors of the Djinn virus etc.

This is all striking stuff, certainly, but whether any of it is remotely useful to know is another question. Additionally, I can't help but feel that information that exists separate to the cards has provided us with much more insight into the actual pattern of criminal events - the 'Tower of Hanoi' card told us a bit more about the Brotherhood, but not nearly so much as their website appeared to; unearthing the mysteries of the Salk Logs seems to promise far more than all but a few of the cards so far (although I, for one, would really like to know who was behind the Djinn virus).

There are plenty of cards that seem to have no in - game value beyond giving us some basic impressions of Perplexian inter - relationships and practices, and others that look like they promise a lot, but leave you wondering what the relevance could possibly be. I was rather taken with the knowledge that the 'Sinister/Dexter' puzzle related to the night of the Ball, for instance, but I can't see how knowing the solution to the puzzle actually helps us - unless we're working totally laterally and assuming that this relates to an actual meeting with Sente that took place at a certain Gatehouse at a certain time that day.

And I'm not sure that the puzzles are meant to relate to the main game in *that* specific a way.

[Daffy889]

The map pieces on the back of the cards are giving us more information relevant to the story than the actual puzzles are. The map itself is giving us insight into the layout of the City, and the information boxes scattered across it are full of potentially useful facts, details, and dates (I've added about 6 to my timeline so far from the maps).

[WolverineFan]

[doublecross]

Of the meagre three packs I have bought, they had two different designs on the other side of the pack. They are just adverts like you get on the front page of www.perplexcity.com, but I wonder how many variations there are.

[BrianEnigma]

[JebJoya]

Just WRT Leeravitz's post, bear in mind, once more that these are just the first wave of cards - they may not be representative of the amount of story we are likely to see in the later cards...

Jeb

[RobPal]

Has there been any clues as to when the next wave of cards will be released. It's been a struggle to keep interested this long to be completely honest. Hopefully solving all my phase one cards will keep me occupied until phase two, but I do feel my insterest is ebbing fast.

[cornflake]

I think the cards give away far more than you lot think. If you step back a bit from looking at really diverse things that are probably nothing, then I think they would help more.

I just read that back and it sounded really bad. I'm not having a go or anything, I have to constantly stop myself going off on mad tangents!