Q: OK, I'm here, but I have no idea what this game is or what's going on.

Q: Do you have general advice for playing this game?

Q: Hey, I found this fascinating clue from Chatbot on the A.I. movie site!

Q: I don't want to use the phone in this game. Do I have to?

Q: I don't have a fax machine. Will I be missing out on the fun?

Q: I don't have access to the Internet. How can I play the game?

Q: I've heard a lot of things have changed since the game first started. Is it too late to join in?

Q: Who are the Puppetmasters?

Q: How do I get started with the game?

Q: I've found a lot of sites that seem to relate to the game. How do I tell which ones are real?

Q: Hey! I just got a strange pop-up message!

Q: I just found this strange code with lots of % signs in it! What's that all about?

Q: OK, I'm here, but I have no idea what this game is or what's going on.

A: That's not exactly a question, but I'll let you get away with it this time! Read the introduction. Questions only!

On one level, this game is a marketing ploy to try to get people involved in and familiar with the world of A.I., the Stanley Kubrick/Steven Spielberg film. On another level, this game is a murder mystery. But more on that as you begin to play. We wouldn't want to give away the whole story!

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A: Actually, we couldn't give the whole story away, even if we wanted to. This mystery has not yet been solved, and new clues are constantly appearing.

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Q: Do you have general advice for playing this game?

A: Yes, lots.

Q: Well, what IS it?

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Q: Well, what IS it?

A: Be sure to look carefully at every page. Try everything you can think of, no matter how wild or goofy it might seem. Call the phone numbers, follow every link, guess at passwords, scrutinize every piece of information. You never know just where you'll find an important clue! It's also important to bookmark every site you find so that you don't lose them later.

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Q: Hey, I found this fascinating clue from Chatbot on the A.I. movie site!

A: Man, if I had a dollar for every time somebody said that...

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A: Alice is not a clue or a plant. Alice is completely unrelated to the game. She is a gossip and only knows what other people have told her; a lot of people have asked her about the game, and so she sometimes sound like she's in on a secret. Trust us. She's not.

Q: No, really, she sounds like she knows something!

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Q: No, really, she sounds like she knows something!

A: A lot of people have been feeding Alice information about the game and trying to get her to say specific things. To date, nothing she has said has been relevant in any way, nor do we expect that to change, because of the way she's programmed. Feel free to talk to her; just keep it to yourself.

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Q: I don't want to use the phone in this game. Do I have to?

A: Well, yes and no.

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A: There is information you can only get by calling the phone numbers, and by giving out your phone number.

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A: You can call long-distance numbers for free by using Dialpad - go to http://www.dialpad.com.

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A: You can also listen to the sound files of what you hear when you call on the Cloudmakers site.

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Q: I don't have a fax machine. Will I be missing out on the fun?

A: Well, yes and no.

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A: There is information that you can only get via fax.

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A: If you want to receive the faxes for yourself, but you don't have a fax machine, sign up for a free eFax account at http://www.efax.com.

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A: If you're not interested in doing that, you could also just look at the files of any faxes as they're posted up on the Cloudmakers site.

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Q: I don't have access to the Internet. How can I play the game?

A: You can't. What were you thinking? How the heck are you even reading this without Internet access? Weirdo.

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Q: I've heard a lot of things have changed since the game first started. Is it too late to join in?

A: A lot of things have changed since the game began, with some information only being distributed for a limited period of time, and some sites adding new information as the game proceeds. Throughout this Journey, we'll let you know when something is important in a later part of the game to try to provide you with an experience more like what we have had so far. Although it is too late to receive some e-mails, hear some messages, etc., whenever possible, we will direct you to a location where the original version of the mail or phone message is stored.

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Q: Who are the Puppetmasters?

A: The "Puppetmasters" is the name we've taken up using for the people behind the game. They seem to be refusing all press contact, and we don't know much (if anything) about them.

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A: Well, actually, we know quite a lot about them NOW.

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A: But it's really not relevant to the game. Don't go on if you don't want to know who's behind this game. It has nothing to do with the puzzles, and it may even ruin your fun.

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A: Still curious, are you?

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A: They gave us a poster at the showing of the film. It's interesting stuff that may appear in the Journey at some point.

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A: On that poster were the names of all the Puppetmasters.

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A: Here they are: (Last chance!)

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A:

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Q: How do I get started with the game?

A: First, download the second AI trailer.

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A: You can get the Quicktime version from http://countingdown.com/features/?feature_id=16381 or the RealPlayer version from http://film.com/topten/movies/ai/index.jhtml

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A: Next watch the trailer.

Q: So why am I looking at the trailer?

Q: Is there any other information in the trailer?

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Q: So why am I looking at the trailer?

A: There are clues hidden in the trailer.

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A: Look at the "Summer 2001" frame.

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A: Notice the notches in those letters?

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A: The answer is calling your name...

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A: Count the notches.

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A: The notches add up to a phone number.

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A: Call 503-321-5122.

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Q: Is there any other information in the trailer?

A: Yes.

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A: Look carefully at the credits.

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A: See any interesting titles?

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A: Ever heard of a "Sentient Machine Therapist" before?

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A: Do a Google search for "Jeanine Salla".

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Q: I've found a lot of sites that seem to relate to the game. How do I tell which ones are real?

A: Go to http://www.webreference.com/cgi-bin/nslookup.cgi and enter the domain name of the site you're curious about (for example, "thevisionary.net" or even "yahoo.com"). All of the real in-game sites have the same IP address: 63.240.137.3. If it doesn't have that specific IP, it's not a part of the game.

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Q: Hey! I just got a strange pop-up message!

A: That's not a question!

Q: What is this, Jeopardy?

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Q: What is this, Jeopardy?

A: Something like that.

Q: OK, what's with this strange pop-up message? It's really creeping me out! There it is again!

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Q: OK, what's with this strange pop-up message? It's really creeping me out! There it is again!

A: Well, it's a warning.

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A: What is it warning you about?

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A: Can you find it again and get a different message?

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A: It's designed to create pop-up windows on your machine wherever you go all over the Internet, so don't be surprised if they keep popping up on random unrelated sites. They pop-up once every seven minutes, or immediately if you click on the "Back" button on the "in memoriam" page.

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A: There are five different messages: Get out. Deep Water. You would drown. Get out. Dark Dream. You will not wake up. Get out. They are smarter than you. You would be broken. Get out. This cannot be stopped. You would be run down. Get out. Physical Lookup in Progress. Hide while you can.

Q: Who is giving us this warning?

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Q: Who is giving us this warning?

A: We still don't know, but we'd love to hear if you've figured it out!

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Q: I just found this strange code with lots of % signs in it! What's that all about?

A: These codes are used in URL encoding. Some characters aren't safe to be written in a URL, so they're stored that way instead.

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A: The two characters after each % are numbers in hexadecimal that refer to ASCII code.

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A: We decoded these by writing your own decoder. If you want to, you can do the same.

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A: Alternately, you could just use our decoder.

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