The Vanishing Point Game To celebrate the release of Windows Vista, Microsoft and AMD launched The Vanishing Point, the first global trans-media puzzle game to reward their most enthusiastic, tech savvy consumers. The game spanned four weeks as players worked together to decipher embedded clues in real world events and solve puzzles online to win a trip to outer space. CHALLENGE The project’s objective was to engage the hardcore tech savvy audience already familiar with Windows Vista in a hip, mysterious and intellectually challenging way that would cultivate positive brand awareness and loyalty. To accomplish this, 42 Entertainment designed spectacular real world events with embedded secret messages and codes. These were captured in real time through photographs or video before they reached “the vanishing point” and uploaded to the website. Players searched through this documentation to uncover clues needed to solve online puzzles that were simultaneously unlocked on the website. These events took place in 12 major cities around the US, Australia, Canada, England, Germany, and Singapore. EXPERIENCE The game launched mysteriously, with a stealth campaign utilizing Japanese puzzle boxes, USB drives, AMD computers and videos on YouTube. This led bloggers and players to The Vanishing Point website with a countdown to the game’s launch, pointing to a specific GPS location in Las Vegas, Nevada. Over 200 players arrived at the appointed place during CES to see a Bellagio fountain show suddenly “hacked” by a mysterious puzzle-master, Loki. In the following weeks, more puzzle boxes were unlocked, and players found cryptic clues written in the skies, on architectural projections that transformed world landmarks and coded in a unique fireworks show. Throughout the puzzle sweepstakes, players could also search for information about identity of the puzzlemaster, Loki, and earn the privilege of having their name inscribed on an entire production run of AMD computer chips. COMMUNITY Online communities of players developed who worked together to solve the puzzles. They created resources such as forums, photo/video archives, online hints and even web-radio stations that broadcast in real-time during the live events. This created an enormous global media and consumer buzz surrounding the game.
	A WORLDWIDE PUZZLE GAME The Vanishing Point Game consisted of 48 puzzles given out over 4 weeks. Each week, a spectacular real-world event occured that unlocked a new suite of 12 themed puzzles, ranging in difficulty from very easy to deviously difficult. The real-world event always contained clues that would be needed to solve each and every puzzle. Every puzzle was worth a certain amount of points, depending on difficulty. Every point won was an entry into a drawing at the end of the game, so the more puzzles you solved successfully, the better your chances of winning. The Grand Prize for one lucky winner was a trip into space! For example, the first puzzle suite, Time Puzzle Suite , consisted of 12 puzzles, four each of Easy (10 points each), Medium (20 points each), and hard puzzles (50 points each). It was opened by the player and marked the official beginning of the campaign. Each puzzle was launched by rolling over and clicking on spinning watch gears. At a glance, players could tell which puzzles had and hadn’t been solved yet.
WEEK 1: “TIME” PUZZLE SUITE SAMPLE PUZZLE WALKTHROUGH Clicking on the first gear opens up a window showing an interactive sundial. Below it is a slider that shifts the sun direction and accompanying shadow when used. Instead of numbers, the sundial shows 12 random letters. Clearly a further clue is needed, so players refer to the video of the live event at The Bellagio that kicked off the game. At a specific spot in the video, a list of 6 times of the day appear in a radiating sunburst. These times could be represented on the intteractive sundial online. As players moved the sliderbar back and forth to match up the times, the shadow on the dial points to specific letters. 2:30 = H The player types in a “H” into the provided textfield.
Once all 6 times have been set and the letters have been noted, the puzzle is solved. In this case, the answer is “HELIOS”.
	WEEK 1: “TIME” PUZZLE SUITE MAGIC PUZZLE SUITE ONLINE WEEK 2: “MAGIC” PUZZLE SUITE At the beginning of Week 2, skywriting appeared above Sydney Australia, Miami FL and Los Angeles, CA. At that moment a new suite of 12 Magic-themed puzzles was unlocked online. As before with the Bellagio fountains, the clues in the skywriting were vital to solving each puzzle.
	WEEK 3: “ERAS” PUZZLE SUITE At the beginning of Week 3, hi-resolution projected images were used to transform famous landmarks around the world (London, Berlin, Toronto, Singapore and San Francisco). Hidden in these images were further clues needed to solve the newly unlocked suite of 12 puzzles , this time themed to historical eras.
	WEEK 4: “FAMOUS VANISHINGS” PUZZLE SUITE The finale was a spectacular fireworks presentation in Seattle. The fireworks themselves were embedded with crucial clues to the final suite of 12 puzzles, this time themed around famous vanishings of history.