Building Vista buzz with a puzzle

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So 42 Entertainment approached the problem by deciding to build a game that was interesting enough on its own to lure players and get bloggers and others to talk about it, Lee said.

"We had to start with the puzzles and the real-world spectacle," he said, "and had to start with the opening statement that one of you is going to fly into space."

To Marr, the space flight prize is the closest tie-in to Vista he could come up with.

"When we thought about what would be a phenomenal prize, the idea (was) taking someone to an ultimate vista," Marr said. "So we jokingly said, 'Maybe we could take someone into space.' And it ultimately turned out it was something we could do."

The story of Vanishing Point revolves around a fictional character named Loki, and tasks players with figuring out who she is. Marr said that the character "works" for Microsoft, has an office there, and reports to an executive there.

Your name on chips
The first person to solve the many puzzles and clues that lead to Loki's identity will win what Lee termed "a geek's dream:" having their name laser-etched on a production run of AMD chips.

The first clues to Loki's identity, and to the series of real-life events, started with a video available on the Vanishing Point Web site. Players who examined the video noticed many clues, including a magazine with a picture of the Bellagio fountain. Ultimately, many figured out that the first event would take place January 8 at that site.

Lee said 42 Entertainment planned to put its own video of the fountain spectacle on its site about an hour after it ended to give the 200 or so people who attended a bit of a head start in solving the puzzles.

But he said that there were so many bloggers in attendance, there was no way to keep the video from going online immediately.

"As soon as the event ended, I looked around to see people's reactions," Lee said, "and within five seconds, I heard (several say), 'Oh, my God, I have to go blog this.'"

Indeed, within minutes, people had posted videos of the event on YouTube.

In addition to the Las Vegas event, 42 and Microsoft plan more spectacles on the same scale throughout January in Miami, Sydney, San Francisco, Singapore, Berlin, Los Angeles and other locales.

But even before the Vegas event and before the game had really officially begun, bloggers like Scott Beale were getting packages in the mail filled with puzzles, clues and videos connected to Vanishing Point.

Beale quickly posted what he'd gotten onto his blog. Before he knew it, his readers were running with it.

"Since my blog is visual, I put the photos up and the video up," Beale said, "so I had all the pieces laid out so people had the information, and within hours, people were working on the clues in my comments section."

And to players like Waite, the game was impressive.

"I've played the first series of puzzles, and I was happy," Waite said. "There's a lot of really cool Web elements to it. I'm not a puzzle guy, but I really enjoyed the creativity behind them."

And even though no one may ultimately remember that the game was linked to Vista, stories like that are music to Lee's and Marr's ears.