by Adrian Hon, 14th May 2001

I've been following the promotional game/story for Spielberg's A.I. movie for around a month, and I'm finding it increasingly difficult to remember exactly what it was like when I made that first fateful search for 'Jeanine Salla' on Google. I'd actually been aware of the game for about two or three weeks before that and I have to admit that my initial attitude was of wary amusement. 'Sure, it's probably an interesting game,' I thought, 'but I bet it's nothing more than a short distraction written by a bunch of second-rate PR hacks at Dreamworks whose only experience of science fiction is limited to Star Trek.'

(This was probably something of an automatic defensive mechanism by my brain, which knows full well that when I find something interesting, I grab onto it and don't let go.)

Eventually though, after my attempts to avoid the game proved unsuccessful (I blame it on the weblogs) I decided to see what all the fuss was about. To my surprise, while the websites weren't universally works of art, they were solidly constructed and had some interesting concepts in them; the description of the Pluto-based, AI solar-system security force 'that stands ready to act not only as an early-warning system against interstellar incursions, but also as the ultimate in defense' at the Aragon Institute of Technology never fails to bring a smile to my face. Finally, I thought, someone had created a huge, realistic science fiction world replete with compelling characters, unbelievable interactivity that stretched all the way into the 'real world' and what's more, it was for free. What more could you ask for?

After a few days of pottering around the websites and lurking on Cloudmakers, I realised that there was simply far too much going on for me to comprehend anything ('Who's Belladerma? This Venus, she's a robot, right?'). This poor state of affairs was compounded by the fact that 'Update Tuesday' was just coming around, and while some newbies might not appreciate it, Update Tuesdays were serious stuff back then. You used to get huge chunks of plot and there were only (!) a few hundred people to help you analyse it all.

So that's how The Guide was born, both to help me understand exactly what was going on in the story and to make it possible for newcomers to the game to get up to speed quickly. As for its name, it reflected 'The Trail' and I also thought it would be a little like the Hitch-Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy (written by Douglas Adams, may he rest in peace).

Most of the work of writing the Guide was done in one day, after which I briefly became the most informed individual on this planet about the game, with the exception of its creators. Of course, this isn't the case any more since the Guide only requires weekly or semi-weekly updates generally coinciding with Update Tuesday and I'm taking more of a back seat role when it comes to discovering new websites or solving puzzles.

While I think the Guide is still doing a good job of introducing people to the game, the sheer amount of time you have to invest in simply reading the damn thing is constantly increasing. I haven't checked recently but I'm sure it's over 30,000 words long now, and in that respect the creators of the game (the 'Puppetmasters') have a hard job ahead of them. Not only do they have to keep on updating the game as frequently as before, if not more due to the insatiable appetites of the fans but they also have to be mindful of the fact that with each addition of new material they're making it more difficult for newcomers to catch up. Sometimes I suspect that the creators were counting on someone to create resources such as the Guide and the Trail, since if they didn't exist I really do wonder how it'd be possible for anyone to understand the game a month after it started.

I'm confident however that the creators are more than aware of these problems. Even now, I believe you can see the creators changing strategy. If you look back to the first few frenetic weeks of the game, Update Tuesday always held revealed some startlingly important fact about Venus or Evan or Laia. This wasn't surprising in the least when you understand that the pressure was on the creators to grab the attention of as many people as possible, and so along with content-rich updates they also included interesting yet easily solved puzzles - compared to the latest batch, the Chemistry Elements and DonuTech login puzzles were walks in the park.

Yet only a few weeks on from that, as the tidal wave of media attention crashed over the game and the Cloudmakers could be seen on newspapers, radio and national television, it became clear that the status quo of the game updates couldn't be sustained or else the game would have run out of control and newcomers would be even more dissuaged from taking it up on seeing the frankly daunting list of links at the beginning of the Guide. I still vaguely recall how confusing the game was when I first encountered it, and it can only be worse now. Amusingly, during my interview with the BBC World Service, the interviewer exclaimed that the section entitled 'Before you start reading' was long enough by itself.

So instead of a continuation of the weekly content-rich updates, what we've seen lately is the development of sub-plots secondary to the whole Evan Chan/Venus story, such as the string of deaths of Martin Swinton's homes and the strange real-life ARM rallies. The puzzles are also getting much more complex and demanding; just look at the infamous BWU Mowz puzzles or the Rational Hatter debacle if you want proof. Overall, the actual progression of the main storyline has been decelerating.

This change in strategy seems to be working quite well. At the time of writing, the Cloudmakers are happily soldiering away at any number of puzzles that are stubbornly refusing to yield and on average we are taking far longer to solve these than previously. Indeed, the irritating 24 hour time delay once witnessed on the Eliza's Tearoom puzzle is only further evidence of the creators wanting us to slow down. Meanwhile, other communities such as SphereWatch have sprung up and been given prominent links within 'early' game sites so that new players can find a welcoming home.

These are all signs that the game is entering a mature, sustainable phase. Few of the plot threads shows any sign of conclusion (this is not necessarily a bad thing) and we're constantly being introduced to new characters and intrigues. No-one seriously believes that the game will finish before the premiere, and personally I think that Dreamworks stand to gain more if they delay the ending until several weeks afterwards so that when the game ends (undoubtedly with a bang), there'll be yet more media coverage and a whole new wave of people visiting the movie on the back of that coverage.

So let's hope that the creators continue to remain on the ball and provide us with more of the same until then: a refreshingly original interactive story that grows every week and allows us to take part - and don't forget, it's all for free!

Adrian Hon is the creator of The Guide, a comprehensive walkthrough of the A.I. game