It sounds like the back story for a cheesy Keanu Reeves vehicle: The Receda Cube has been stolen from the Perplex City Academy and secreted away from the unnamed planet to Earth.
But, on July 13, people worldwide are expected to begin searching for the mysterious missing cube and the real $200,000 prize its recovery will bring.
The hunt is at the heart of Perplex City, a new alternate-reality game, or ARG, and the first major effort in the category to launch as a stand-alone project rather than as a marketing tie-in to something like a video game or a movie.
And as such, many ARG observers think the game's success, or lack of it, will say a lot about the future of the genre.
"It's really important, I think, that this is a venture designed to show another way ARGs can work and reach mainstream players and build a fan base specifically for this kind of gaming, as opposed to another kind of intellectual property," said Jane McGonigal, creative designer at 4orty2wo Entertainment, a developer of ARGs.
Alternate-reality games have gained a lot of attention in the last year, especially with the success of I Love Bees, a tie-in to the blockbuster video game Halo 2 and The Art of the H3ist, a promotion for Audi cars. In general, ARGs are distinguished by a play-along story line involving some sort of mystery that requires players to search for clues both online and in the real world.
While thousands flock to the games, drawn by their intrigue and a collaborative nature in which players work together to find clues and solve problems, the costs associated with producing them have so far precluded anyone from making a profitable go at a global ARG that has no deep-pocketed partner.
But Michael Smith, CEO of London-based Mind Candy, the producer of Perplex City, thinks his team has found the winning formula.
They've designed the game around a series of interactive websites players will visit for clues, as well as cards players will have to buy that will lead them closer to the game's solution. And the cards, which will sell online and in nine selected shops around the world for $5 a pack, are the key to Perplex City's fortunes.
"The reason we think this works is that the game is very sociable," said Smith. "You can take the cards with you to the pub or do them at work on your lunch break."
For months, a limited number of enthusiasts who saw advertisements in an English newspaper or who found postcards planted in places like Italy, North Carolina and Cambridge, England, have been playing the game in a pre-launch format.
But it is the release of the cards around the world and the staged rollout of a series of game-related websites that will signal Perplex City's real initiation.
In any case, some ARG experts feel that if Perplex City is a hit, it will mean a huge boon for interactive media.
"When you increase (the number of) people who know how to play these games, it's good for both sides, not just the stand-alones," said McGonigal. "I'm sure a lot of people are watching very carefully."
Steve Peters, who moderates the Alternate Reality Gaming Network, agreed, but he foresees even further-reaching benefits if Perplex City does well.
"If it's successful, I think we'll see even more and better things like this in coming years," Peters said. "As far as ARGs as a genre, it's becoming less and less of a genre for itself and more like how entertainment is done as cross-media elements meld together."
