Recently I placed an order to one of my favorite online retailers, ThinkGeek, for some Christmas presents for friends and family. They have a decent reward points system, and as a freebie, I chose some PerplexCity cards. I had read a little about PerplexCity before, but now I got to try it for free. Anyway, they came in last night, and I think the game is pretty fun.

Basically PerplexCity is a trading card puzzle game based in the UK. Each card has a puzzle, riddle, trivia question, or brain bender you must solve to get points for that card. The more cards you solve the more points you get. Not only is PerplexCity made up of several small individual puzzles to solve, but there is also one central mystery to crack. You see PerplexCity is a fictional metropolis whose sacred Receda Cube has been lost in our world. This is what’s known as an alternate reality game, or ARG. Somewhere this Cube is hidden on earth, and whoever finds it gets £100,000 (roughly $200,000) reward. Cards have clues which lead to locations and websites to help you find the Cube. Obviously, given I do not live in the UK, and that I do not have infinite intelligence, I will not find this Cube, but the game is fun nonetheless. PerplexCity card packs come with 6 cards to solve. Each card varies in complexity and rarity. In fact, according to the wikipedia entry, there are 3 cards no one has solved yet, so they can get pretty hard.

I have since solved all 6 cards I received, but some of them took a bit of thought. One I was stumped on was actually dependent upon seeing real life billboards in London, so there can be an artificial handicap on Americans playing the game. When I started I was ranked somewhere around 50,000th, but have since climbed to around 11,827th. Apparently these cards are available at brick and mortar retailers like Gamespot, so I may hit them up for more.