How do you find someone who doesn’t want to be found? More importantly, what kind of a game do you create with the folks over at NBC Universal to track down said person? Answer: A game where players scour the internet in search of Treadstone’s rogue agent – Jason Bourne.
What we love best about the Bourne movies is the details that give viewers a hint at what it takes to be a spy. Jason knows at high altitude, he can run flat out for a half mile before his hands start shaking. And he sure as heck knows how to handle himself with a ballpoint pen. That’s what we wanted to capture in our 15-day challenge. It turns players into Treadstone agents, assigns them missions via an Agent Console, and puts at their fingertips the best search tools available from Google.
Players roam the world in search of Bourne. And along the way, they stumble upon Dater Notes – a fake dating site full of clues, track down rendez-vous spots in London, determine when someone is telling a lie, and learn that being a secret agent is “priceless.” Better yet, they can win prizes like iPhones and a VW Touareg and trips and cash and DVDs. Too bad we’re not eligible at Big Spaceship.
Some people even read our code and searched through any digital trail that we may have left in order to get extra intel that might place them one step ahead of their competitors. Which made another challenge for us – How do you hide all the answers and make them findable by Google at the same time?