Perplex City

Perplex City is, by far, one of the coolest, most accessible, most profitable ($200,000!) and fun ARGs that we've yet seen. It looks deceptively easy: Buy some cards, solve the puzzles on them, visit the Perplex City website and enter the correct answer. Boost your score, piece together the map puzzle on the card backs and try to figure out where the hell that money's hidden. Sure, you get some decent Perplex City goodies for passing score milestones, but everyone's really after the big prize.


Here's the catch: these puzzles are addictive. Once you start solving these damn things, they get under your skin. Pretty soon you're carrying the ones you're having trouble with around with you - you're asking strangers for help.


The puzzles are really well-designed and if you have some patience, you'll probably be able to figure out many of the solutions without even using Google. We're admitting right now that we've used Google and it rarely (if ever) helped. Not only that, but each card is a bonafide work of art created by some of the UK's top illustrators and graphic designers.

The story's much bigger than the cards. There's numerous sites in the Perplex City universe that you'll need to explore in order to figure out just where the Receda Cube (the money!) is at. Get started at perplexcity.com.

So what do you need to play? Buy yourself a pack of cards. Once you start, you'll soon be hitting eBay to buy boxes of these things to feed your puzzle addiction. Don't say I didn't warn you.

Get the cards!