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Domestic | Feature

Feature: Perplex City: A Real-Life MMORPG

Feature by Thugpatrol | 11/14/2006 | 14:12:29 PM PST

Part card game, part 24 episode, Perplex City is a new kind of MMO. This virtual world is often blurred by its mixture with reality.

For more information and to get involved in Perplex City, head over to the official website.

What's the first question you ask when you hear about a new game? If you're anything like me, "What kind of game is it?" is probably somewhere in the top five, accompanied by other charming quandaries like, "Who's making it?" "Is it going to suck?" and "Can I totally own my friends at it?" The last spot is generally reserved for important situational stuff like, "Do these horizontal striped pants make me look fat?" or "Did I leave the oven on?" So naturally all these thoughts popped into mind some months back when I heard that I was going to go see some guys about this new game called Perplex City.

"Who's making it?" is my lead question this time around. A London-based company named Mind Candy, I'm told. Brits, eh? Now I'm thinking dry humor, bad teeth, and maybe a guest appearance by David Beckham. Moving on to the next question, I skip over inquiries about sucking and/or owning and go straight for the gold.

"What kind of game is it?" This is usually an easy question, and I'm not expecting the muddled response that I get. Well, it's kind of this puzzle game, but there's a lot of stuff online, and it's sort of like this that and the other thing. Already I'm lost. Whatever, I'll just go and see for myself. Exit, stage left.

When I arrive at my destination I'm met by Michael Smith, Mind Candy's head honcho. He starts by telling me about the inspiration for Perplex City, a book he read as a kid called Masquerade. "This guy buried a treasure in the English countryside," he explains, "and then wrote a book that was full of clues as to where it was hidden. The whole country went crazy for it-everyone was talking about it, people started treasure hunting clubs-and then three years later someone found it. It always struck me as such a cool idea, and I always wanted to create a modern day version of it."

When he starts explaining exactly what Perplex City is, however, I finally get where the difficulty to define comes in. At face value it's a puzzle game, but that's a bit like calling George W. Bush "some dumb guy from Texas"-while it may be true it isn't really sufficient. But puzzle game is a good place to start, because at its core are a set of 250 puzzles cards, sold collectible card game style, a pack of five running you around $5. About the size of an index card, each one is a standalone puzzle ranging in scope and difficulty from simple pop culture references and word plays to hieroglyphic and cryptographic brain-melters.

Then he starts to tell me about the story, which is disseminated by the game's characters through various websites. Perplex City isn't just the name of the game, it's a place in an alternate reality, a sort of a near-future version of the real world except the culture there is built around puzzles (rather than fast food and celebrity gossip). The most valued treasure in their world is a powerful artifact called The Receda Cube, and it's just been stolen. The thieves have found a way to transport the cube to our world where they've hidden it, and the Perplex City authorities have asked the people of Earth for help in retrieving it. Oh by the way there's a real cash reward for the person who finds the cube, to the tune of $200,000.