unforum

[poozle]

[sloth007]

I'm very sorry to hear this news (that is if its not all a trick).

I just hope there is some silver lining somewhere about.

[jb1172]

Cynic

[Catherine]

 Disappointment

[Mikeyj]

I don't think it makes business sense to piss off your fan base and then try and sell more cards. Therefore I think that there is some other reason than Perplex City not making money. What that is I'm convinced we will find out. I am gutted, but I don't think that the cynicism is rationally justified.

Writing something like Perplex City for this length of time is an enormous and exhausting undertaking. People move on and it is unfortunate that people have moved on at the same time, but there you go. Mind Candy have achieved extraordinary things, and I don't doubt that indivisually and collectively they'll continue to do so. Whether it's Perplex City and we can play it is another matter.

[Agent Lex]

I admit, I haven't been around for a while. I'd be honestly surprised if many of you recognised me. Nonetheless, I had been keeping vaguely up to date on PXC developments, in case the mood ever struck me to come back.

All I can do is agree with what others have said - the death (or, at least, coma) of Perplex City is disappointing. After Season 1, which I'm sure all of us enjoyed, there was so much excitement and potential for Season 2. I have my own theories on why it went wrong, but I think right now it's neither the time nor the place to be saying them. Instead, I'll say that for a while I've seen the quality slowly dropping, probably since the WLP site opened, but I never imagined that this would happen.

Even if Perplex City were to return at some point, without the same team with their ideas, creativity and most importantly characters, the game wouldn't be the same. I'm not saying it doesn't have the potential to be great, but the experience will be different for many of us. We've invested so much time, energy and money in this story and these characters, and even the slightest change will be noticed at some level. It's sad to think that Kurt, Violet and everyone else may not be returning, and somewhat sadder to think that if they do, they won't be the same.

I wish the best of luck to Adrian, Naomi, Jey, Andrea, Dan and David, wherever you go next. Your experience with Mind Candy will certainly be an impressive note on your CVs, and I'm sure you will do well in the future. I also wish the best of luck to Michael Smith and Mind Candy, whichever direction you choose to go next. Merchandise aimed at the younger market will obviously not appeal to us, but there may be a market for it which will work for you.

RIP Perplex City. You will be remembered. Thanks for the good times.

[Sylocat]

Whether they intend to continue the game or not, they're definitely leaving a back door open. Check out Kurt's little fable, "The man who saved the city" or whatever it's called. Tell me that's not a plot development.

This doesn't mean, of course, that it will be continued, but it does means that they're leaving themselves a reentry point "just in case" they do.

[Shinji16]

[PuzzledPineapple]

Erm...

Pants.

It's been wonderful and great and amazing and I salute all those who have done so much, in MC and out. But, for now, pants.

[Datango]

This has eerie echoes of Paul Denchfield being dismissed from the BBC for no apparent reason....

[Scott]

I'd like to clarify: Jey is NOT laid off, and will continue to work at Mind Candy, but in a new department. (source)

and i've said a fFew words over at the wiki, on the main_page, which i only cross-mention here as a way of saying "I'm with you in sadness, and the wiki will be up a long time, doing what it's always done." I imagine at some point I'll fFind a new project to blitzingly obsess over. But fFor now, I'll busy moping around my house fFor the next month or two.

[Albedo]

Urgle.

I found Perplexcity just after the end of Season 1 because I was looking for something to fill the void left by the demise of 'Tough Puzzles' magazine, and now it looks as though the void is back.

I think the most important consideration here is that PXC players are a niche market. I don't know how many players there are, but I'm presuming we only number in the thousands - a global market with the population of a small town. It's been us - and only us - that generate the money that pay the makers of this game. No wonder thet've never made a profit.

If Mind Candy are exploring other projects, good for them. If their products for kids turns into the next Pokémon/Yu-Gi-Oh!/(insert craze from your childhood here) good for them and us, because once the money is coming in they can return to the less profitable projects again.

Perhaps because I haven't yet spent a great deal of time or a lot of money (16 packs of S2W1, plus a few singles - enough to get me all of Red through Purple; ~£50) on PXC it's easier for me to accept the hiatus. I know I'll be buying Wave 2. I'll be disappointed that there'll be nothing more to them than meets the eye, but there's still nothing quite like a PXC puzzle.

[Passing thought: If MC put all of Season 1 in a book or on a CD-ROM (timeline, website transcripts, event logs, repro's of all the cards, solutions to _all_ puzzles, fold-out PXC map) I'd hand over £20-£30 for that, although that's got to be an even smaller niche market, as most Season 1 players would have no need of it.]

As someone who's already lost one niche-interest fix this year, I say to those of you who are upset or angry don't give up hope for some kind of return, and don't turn your back on Mind Candy. A few weeks ago 'Puzzler', the publishers of 'Tough Puzzles', started selling back issues as downloadable PDFs. Hopefully they'll sell enough of those to make it worthwhile, and maybe, just maybe, they'll re-consider the cancellation.

Mind Candy did something amazing over the last few years that I missed out on, and maybe I'll never get the experience the S1 players had, but that doesn't diminish my respect for what MC acheived.

Albedo (slightly garbled)

[Geist]

Wow I'm shocked at reading whats happened. I'm not surprised people dont want to believe that this is the end.

If you look at the big scale projects Perpelxcity was by far the longest running. Its doubtful we will get a full explaination but likely it comes down to financing.

The Beast and I love bees had large amount of players but they were advestising tool for AI and Halo 2 so they were use to rasie awareness and and hopfully seen as money well spent.

I can not imagine how much money it takes for a project for this but its going need backing from a busness and at best they will want it to be economical. There have been other attempts to make games like Perplexcity which have been failures and I think fiancing been the biggest stumbling block.

I doubt the puzzles cards did more than a bit better than break even. So if they did want to slimline to what they could do without the risk of having to stop mid way though it was going to be the arg.

Also there are so many challenges to overcome. With Perplexcity being so large is was not easy to jump into half way though and I think thats one reason they were to go down the replayable puzzle route. But if you have played these before you know a lot of them are spoilt by finding the post about the answers when googling. The larger puzzles where you need lots of people to help solve are not suited for this either.

However I must thank everyone involved who was part of the game as I had so much fun and it was only after season 1 finished that I found how much of time was playing it. I am sure it was a labour of love most of the time but very hard work to carry out.

One last thing I want to remind people is that both Adrian and Dan were from the Cloudmakers which was a large group of players who played The Beast.

Perplexcity and introduced ARGs to even more people and I hope that like them there are people reading this that are going to help create the future games.

[avonpaintball]

Still in denial here... All of a sudden there is nothing to do... it's depressing.

[JewWario]

An opinion form a guy States-side

Personally, I got into this game at the beginning of April, and was so excited about the cards that I bought Season 1 cards as well. I love Perplex City, but perhaps for a different reason than you lot. I love the cards.

Being in the States I have a very small chance of winning any treasure hunt. So in all honesty, the ARG was not that important. In fact, it was really just fun to watch... but the cards have always been the first factor for me.

I love having a story, I find the mini things on the backs of the cards EXTREMELY fascinating... but the ARG means nothing to me or my friends that I have gotten into the cards.

I will buy the next waves as soon as I can to support the company and I will probably buy the kids toys when they get made for my 6 yr old cousin and for me... because I love puzzles.

I hope the storyline comes back, but if the S2 hunt/ARG is lost forever... then I will still support the company. They make puzzles and that's good enough for me.

As for the last stories of Violet, Kurt, and Scarlet... they were sad indeed, but I don't think there's anything behind them. I just think they're stories. The whole Nicholas bit was just a story IMHO. Something to let you know of the tale that they always wanted to let you know... but couldn't.

For those of you who still ARG, I really hope that you find other games. For those of you like me who like the puzzle cards just for being puzzles, then see you for some trades in wave 2...

JewWario