Perplex City Funded

Wow - saw this News.com article today. Seems that UK-based Mind Candy, the creators of Perplex City, has received $3M in (probably) Series A funding from Index Ventures. Nice.

For those who do not know, Perplex City is an Alternate Reality Game (ARG). Think of an Massive Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game (MMORPG - geez, what's with the acronyms) but off the Internet. Essentially, its a bunch of game cards/puzzles in different levels. What makes it different is that its built around a storyline with multiple characters, each with their own plots. You can follow the game through Perplex City blogs and websites (some of these urls are hidden in Perplex City websites and game cards; most are update daily). More than that, the answers to these puzzles are part of a larger puzzle that when solved will lead to a real location somewhere on Earth. What's in that location? $200,000 in cold, hard cash baby! Woohoo!

Obviously, this an interesting way to market a product. It also makes great PR.

I said that Perplex City is like an MMORPG; its an interactive game. Sure, you can hide in a hole somewhere and solve the riddles yourself, but part of the enjoyment is hitting the forums, going to special events, etc. to solve the clues and get to the big prize. (Oh yeah, I found Google makes a good friend who can solve the hardest puzzles....)

You should definitely give it a look. Its distribution is pretty limited but if you want to get cards (6 or so cards for $5) , Games of Berkeley in the SF Bay Area has them. As you can tell, I'm kinda hooked on Perplex City.