It’s looks like Microsoft is really starting to get creative with their marking campaigns, for instance their recent Clearification promotion for Windows Vista. That campaign was pretty viral, but there is now a new one that is attempting to directly engage the community.
Last Friday I received a small package sent from the following address:
LOKI
One Microsoft Way
Redmond, WA 98052
Inside the package was a small wooden box and a paper note addressed to me “From The Desk of Loki, Enigma Director” that referenced www.vanishingpointgame.com.
It was a puzzle box. After a while I figured out how to open it.
Inside the box was a 256MB USB thumb drive. The drive contained 3 files:
This .jpg image of a Cipher Key.
A .txt file with the following:
Well done! Now you have your first cipher key, plus a video my employer didn’t think you needed to see. What he doesn’t know won’t hurt him.
Do others deserve to see these files, too? I’ll leave that up to you.
~Loki
P.S. Go to vanishingpointgame.com to find out what to do next.
And finally the above .wmv file of a video with more clues to the game.
A quick search turned up an active forum over at Neowin.net that is busy working on trying to solve all of the puzzles. They have posted the results of puzzles they have solved, but they still have a bunch of stuff they are working on figuring out. So far the game seems to have something to do with an announcement that Bill Gates is going to make at CES in Las Vegas on January 8th.
If anyone finds out any more information regarding what this game is all about, let us know.
UPDATE 1: unfiction’s unforum is working on the game as well.
UPDATE 2: Ah, so it turns out each box contains a unique key. Jonathan Moore successfully deciphered my key as: wh3r3t0g0
When you go to vanishingpointgame.com and enter my key, it generates a page of code. The unfiction guys entered that code into an html document which led them to, http://vanishingpointgame.com/CIRCUMAMBULATION/, a page that lists several cities and dates:
Las Vegas, Nevada
Monday, 8 January 2007, 6:30:00 pmLos Angeles, California
Saturday, 13 January 2007, 9:00:00 amSydney, Austrailia
Miami, Florida
Austin, Texas
Saturday, 13 January 2007, 1:00:00 pmPhoenix, Arizona
Saturday, 13 January 2007, 1:02:00 pmSingpore
Saturday, 20 January 2007, 4:30:00 amBerlin, Germany
Saturday, 20 January 2007, 10:00:00 amLondon, England
Saturday, 20 January 2007, 11:00:00 amToronto, Canada
Saturday, 20 January 2007, 4:00:00 pmSan Francisco, California
Saturday, 20 January 2007, 7:00:00 pmSeattle, Washington
Saturday, 27 January 2007, 6:00:00 pm
UPDATE 3: Microsoft sent me a free laptop with Windows Vista and inside the laptop was the same note from Loki, so it appears that Vanishing Point Game is related to the Windows Visa launch.
UPDATE 4: Robert Scoble writes that the contest ends on January 8th in front of the Bellagio in Las Vegas during CES. He and PodTech are organizing Bloghaus CES which takes place at the same location right after the contest ends.
UPDATE 5: A Vanishing Point Wiki has been created to help solve the Vanishing Point Game. Also, a German Vanishing Point Wiki has been setup by ARGR.
UPDATE 6: Here’s a video from Windows Connected of the Vanishing Point Game message that was delivered by Loki on January 8th at the Bellagio Fountains in Las Vegas.
UPDATE 7: Daniel Terdiman interviewed me and used my photos for his CNET News.com article on the Vanishing Point Game: “Building Vista buzz with a puzzle”
Here Are A Few Related Posts You Might Enjoy:
- CNET News.com Article on The Vanishing Point Game
- You Suck At Photoshop #10 – Vanishing Point
- Microsoft Sent An Acer Ferrari Laptop With Windows Vista
- Microsoft Looking to Purchase Yahoo!
- Board Game Based on Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas by Hunter S. Thompson
{ 12 trackbacks }
{ 17 comments… read them below or add one }
cypher text is:
te6o6q3d3
plain text is:
wh3r3t0g0
So are you going to post the video to blip or any thing?
Jonathan: Ha, you read my mind. The video is now embedded in the post.
ah so silly. If you type the clear text in to the flash app at vanishing point game you get a page that is a bunch of html all encoded in html entidies for Unicode points. The flash on linux will not let me copy and past it in to any thing so I can’t vie it in a browser. Maby so me one else can do that.
Since the finding of the 5th page with the global countdowns indicating live events on the 13th, the 20th and the 27th, I think that this isn’t really going to end on the 8th. Rather, that is just the kickoff event. Isn’t Vista being released to the public on the 29th?
By the way, thanks for posting the great pictures!
I found some interesting information by hacking the swf.. I trackbacked this post.
i just heard that people who got laptops need to get rid of them so Squid can i have your laptop i pay the shiping fees and add some extra to that :)
Hey,
Does anyone know what is flashing on the page “http://vanishingpointgame.com/CIRCUMAMBULATION/”? As I was watching this page on IE 6 I noticed the times change to words than back to times. Could this be another clue? Just curious to see if someone has seen this yet or not?
http://vanishingpointgame.com/biography/
I don’t know if you guys have seen this clue, but on that site the person emphasizes on her “exact gpa” which appears to be 3.1415 which is the exact value of pie..
Can someone explain how the cleartext is extracted from the picture?
Just received a note from Loki today the 4th Jan, I might need a hand to decrypt. What should I do next.
This message was sent to Microsof’s customer service office earlier today. Any ideas?
“Jesus I’m impressed. Euclid’s 47th proposition? The clues led me into even history of the masonic lodge, and all this for Vista? Though I’d have to say that most of the clues to solving this were (for the most part) in the 3 part definition of the word “CIRCUMAMBULATION” . The incorporation of so many ‘ELEMENTS’ pardon the pun – but pi, videos, notes, and more — even with all those clues circumnavigating the internet the way they did, you kept me busy for exactly 17hrs and 6mins. It’s a shame that one of the people to figure out this whole mess didn’t even get a Laptop – no box, no note. Oh well. I’ve got to hand it to you ‘loki’ with the end result being what it was, you certainly live up to your elustrious name – you’re one deceptive little guy.
-The Walrus”
The times being shown for the Jan 13th events are interesting. In the post it says Phoenix is 1:02pm. The countdown clock on the vanishingpointgame.com website will expire at 4pm Phoenix time. Regardless, going to be waiting with video recorder in hand.
To the person that asked about the lauch of Vista to the public. The date is January 30th of this year
so how do you guys get onto these lists where you are sent the boxes and laptops and other stuff, cause currently my hard drive is giving me this error “Hard disk failure is imminent. Please back up hard disk and replace immediately and a free laptop would be nice”
I’m with Devin, how do you get on one of these lists for free goodies?
We are still working out whether we are able to do a Skypecast or if this will be a recorded conference call to be posted when completed. So for now please email me if you would like to join the conference call. If there are any changes i will get them to you ASAP. Also please email me if you have any specific issues or questions you would like us to cover.
Hello Vanishing Point Gamers and Space Enthusiasts!!!!
We are very excited for this web cast/recorded conference. This is the first time in company history we will put our selves out there for the general public to act as the media so often gets to. We are hoping this will be much like a press conference where you will get to talk with, and ask questions to us, the staff, at Rocketplane Kistler. We are looking forward to talking to you about our involvement in the Vanishing Point Game, as well as our involvement in creating privatized space, a world that until recently has been open only to governments and military organizations.
To make this a really special and fun event we are going have our NASA Astronaut and XP Pilot John Herrington be the key note speaker for this web cast. He will talk to you about his past with NASA, flight history, and his current involvement with Rocketplane. He will also talk to about what he is going be doing as the pilot of the XP during space flight. It’s not everyday you get to sit down and have a conversation with an Astronaut so this is going to be really cool. Just to give you a little history on John, he became a Naval Aviator in 1985 and has logged over 4.000 flight hours in over 30 different types of aircraft; he was selected by NASA in April of 1996 and was qualified for flight assignment as a mission specialist. His space flight experience consists of the STS-113 Endeavour mission to visit the International Space Station. During this mission he logged 330 hours in space, including 3 EVAs (Extravehicular Activates) totaling 19 hours and 55 minutes. On October 1, 2005 he retired from the US Navy and left NASA to pursue a career in the commercial space industry, Rocketplane Kistler. “John is a NASA astronaut, however it is his many spectacular talents and abilities that make him valuable to the Rocketplane team,†says George French CEO. “He is a military test pilot, knows flight avionics and astronautics, and knows the environment of space. To us, John is an asset in that he brings education, knowledge, experience, and skills to finish and test our space plane, which will regularly take civilian astronauts into space.â€
We will allow you to ask questions to John and for the ones he is unable to answer we will have a few staff people there as well. These staff members will include a design engineer, sales rep, and possibly someone of senior management. This design engineer will be someone who has designed and developed integral parts of the XP.
We are also lucky enough to announce that the winner of the space flight prize will be taking part in this web cast. He/she will talk about there involvement as a contestant and their feelings as winners. We will also let you ask them questions as well.
Lastly, someone from AMD and Microsoft may decide to join us on Monday but nothing has been decided with that.
Feel free to pass this message on to everyone you know. We are looking forward to having a very large and diverse audience. Again this is something we have never done for the general public so I just hope you are half as excited about this as we are. Talk to you soon.
If you would like to take part in this web cast please contact me at gfrench3@rocketplane.com. Write me with your name, where your from, what forums you maybe on, and why you would like to join us. I will contact you with any call-in or connection information you need. Also to be posted is the URL location of the web cast or the recorded conference.
-George French III
Date: Monday Feb. 12, 2007
Time: 2:30 pm CST