Cyberspace Contest Becomes Duel of Programming Wits

by Evan Ramstad
AP Business Writer

NEW YORK (AP) -- A contest designed to test cleverness about the Internet instead has sophisticated computer programmers trying to outfox the game's designer and gain split-second advantages over each other.

The Rift, a three-week game on the World Wide Web, was created by a San Francisco electronic design studio as a promotion for Silicon Graphics, Inc. One of the company's high-powered graphics workstations is the first prize.

But with contestants who possess extraordinary technical skills, the studio has found itself playing a technological leapfrog to make sure no one cheats.

"What they're supposed to be using skill for is solving the puzzle but instead they're hacking the system," said Henri Poole, president of vivid studios, which ran a similar event for TriStar Pictures' "Johnny Mnemonic" movie earlier this summer.

The episode illustrates the difficulty of holding a promotional contest in cyberspace, where things like time and location can be manipulated by programming. It also shows how people with little or no computer skills can be pushed aside in the electronic world.

Participants in The Rift are asked to solve several dozen clues to track down the Rift Surfer, "an interdimensional entity" tearing apart the Internet. vivid decided to place the clues on its Web site at random times, which would cause people to visit the game frequently.

But programmers at an electronic design firm in Orlando, Fla., created software to automatically alert them to a new clue and then made it available to everyone who was playing.

"Our whole office got sucked into this Rift game," said Brian Clark of Global Media Design. "vivid is definitely the premier studio for these kind of games and with a prize like a Silicon Graphics machine, every time I turned around here, people had Rift up."

vivid began probing the skill of Global Media's "clue robot" by changing the narration of the game, not just the clue. The robot picked up those changes, resulting in mistaken notifications of a new clue.

So Global Media improved it. And then, vivid began changing the clue structure, beginning with a narrative rather than a simple "Clue No.63."

"vivid was very responsive, teasing us, making changes people couldn't see in the page," Clark said.

It wasn't just the clue robot that vivid had to contend with, however. Some contestants began flooding the company with their answers, hoping to get a time advantage over others.

The contest ends later this week with the top 100 finishers subjected to a final day of very hard clues that solve the puzzle of the Rift Surfer.

"In some ways, we're flattered people have taken it seriously enough to write these sophisticated routines," said Nat Johnson, who administers the game. "Some of it's to be expected. The people who play these games tend to be very clever."

And what about those who aren't clever enough to program a computer that will keep them up with their competitors?

Well, like pro football, they can always watch.

"Some people just can't play in that league," Poole said. "With this game, we set up a whole area like a daily newspaper that reports on all this stuff."

Want to read more articles?

Home | Search | Feedback | Projects + Vision | vividians
Form + Function | PR | Culture Shock | Vivid Travel Network