Perfect Fools up in Stockholm have just released a new adventure/puzzle style mystery game to promote the Samsung D600 mobile phone. As the game starts, a mysterious woman hands you a mobile phone before rushing off. As the player, your job is to discover and use clues on the phone to help solve the mystery. The game follows the conventions of classic point-and-click adventure games, as well as the more contemporary escape-the-room type games like Crimson Room and Viridian Room. Players who find all the clues (and who are residents of Sweden, Denmark, Norway, Finland, or Iceland) are entered for a chance to win a D600 phone.

What's interesting about this game is the central role of the handset. The main interface for the game is a simulation of the handset, and to play the game the user must learn about the features and functions of the device. The marketing is a bit heavy handed in this game for my taste -- the game even explicitly asks you to pay close attention to the product features, and when you use a feature a sidebar pops up with more information -- but the idea is sound: integrate the functional capabilities of the product into the gameplay. Of course, one might argue that we have very little practical need to solve murders using phones handed to us by passing beautiful women, but the potential for extension is certainly there. The game creates a space between the product and the player that the latter can try to fill in with the more mundane details of his own life, and make a set of assessments about the product's potential worth.

The production value is very high, although the game pays for it with frequent loading sequences. The game also apparently ties in with a TV spot of the same theme, which I haven't seen of course, given that this handset is not meant for the US market.