Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, Gaming, Software, Odds and ends, Developer, iPhone
Puzzlotto has been about as hidden as the lemurs you can see in the screenshot over there, for some reason — the concept isn’t real easy to grasp, and if you just stumbled across the “game” in the App Store, odds are that you’d think you had $5 stolen from you. But there is a weird story hidden here, both literally and figuratively. The game itself was designed by people like Mike Lee of Delicious Monster and David Lanham of Iconfactory, but the screen you’re presented with on loading the game doesn’t seem anything like the Mac software those guys are known for — there’s just a picture of a forest, and a few eyes that you can touch to make lemurs and other creatures pop out. I would tell you more, but I haven’t actually figured it out yet — there’s a “fosa” that will scare away any lemurs or butterflies you’ve summoned, and I know that the butterflies are basically a progress meter, but other than that I have no idea.
But Puzzlotto isn’t just that perplexing app — it’s been dubbed “fundware” by Lee, and 10% of the proceeds from the game will go to the Madagascar Fauna Group to support the habitats of lemurs, fosas, and butterflies. And it’s actually a puzzle to be solved, with a cash prize — if you can be the first to figure out the “puzzle” behind Puzzlotto, United Lemur will give you a cash prize out of their prize pool, currently at $5000, and growing every day for 31 days. If no one claims the prize at the end of the 30 days, all the money will go to charity, project over. You can follow updates on their Twitter — it sounds like no one’s claimed any prizes yet, which is no surprise — if there are any clues in the app, they’re very, very hard to find. United Lemur claims that there is a game in there (and that it is worth the $5 entry fee), but so far, all players have found is a few screens of the weird lemur puzzle.
But it is a different kind of game — a cash prize handed out by a flabbergastingly tough puzzle disguised as an App Store game, all designed to benefit a charity. Lee says on his blog that they wanted to make a game where players couldn’t cheat by telling each other the answer, but maybe they didn’t realize that part of the fun of Myst is sharing the strategy with other players. And if you don’t want to shell out the $5 on Lee’s word, it might be fun to just wait until the solution gets posted somewhere anyway. Have you solved any part of Puzzlotto yet?
Puzzlotto brings a different kind of game (and a cash prize) to the App Store originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Mon, 27 Oct 2008 20:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
Puzzlotto brings a different kind of game (and a cash prize) to the App Store originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Mon, 27 Oct 2008 20:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
Puzzlotto Prize Claimed at $8,000!
It was a simple enough contest. Buy Puzzlotto from United Lemur and try to solve it. Every day that passed without someone winning added $1000 to the pot, with a upper limit of $30,000.
Turns out, however, it only lasted 8 days. Says United Lemur:
Dave H, from Portland, is our new Puzzllotto Champion! Once the independent judges are done verifying, Dave will receive the Champion’s Trophy and $8,000 in prize money. Congratulations once again to Dave!
Might idea for a contest from a mighty company for a mighty game.