The Da Vinci Code Quest
Sponsor: Google and Sony Pictures
April 17, 2006 through May 21, 2006

Overview:
As part of a promotion for the movie “The Da Vinci Code”, based on the popular book of the same name by Dan Brown, Sony Pictures teamed up with Google to provide an entertaining puzzle based contest. The puzzles were primarily created by Google's Wei-Hwa Huang, an award winning puzzler. The first ten thousand participants to complete the main puzzle sequences received a cryptex replica and were invited to compete in the final set of puzzles over a long weekend. The finalist with the fastest time on the final puzzles was eligible to win the grand prize valued at $128,170.54.

Puzzles:
The main part of the competition was broken down into 4 rounds, with 6 puzzles in each round. There were 6 basic puzzle types, and each one was repeated in each round in a more difficult format. The Symbol Challenge was based on sudoku, using symbols from the movie (fleur-de-lis, onyx, blade, chalice, etc) instead of numbers. The Restoration Challege involved a custom art restoration game where neighboring dirt splotches had to be combined 2 at a time until only one splotch remained. The Curator Challenge and The Geography Challenge were different puzzles, and The Chess Challenge was based on chess moves. The Observation Challenge involved watching a video and then answering questions about what was seen. The final competition was made up of a very difficult version of each of the first five puzzle types.

Highlights:
One of the first major online games of this type, this contest was a bold creation and set the stage for contests to follow. The puzzles were fun and fairly quick to solve, with no special code breaking skills needed. The release time for puzzles was mid-day making it easy to access the puzzles. The cryptex prize for so many finalists was extremely generous, as most contests have very few winners.

Room for Improvement:
The grand prize value was grossly inflated by giving 4 different trips that had to be taken separately by the same 4 people within a year. The tax burden on such a large prize would have made it beyond the reach of most people.
The last puzzle which determined the finalists was based on the easiest of the series, The Observation Challenge, which required watching a video and answering questions about that video. Attentive participants could easily find the video online which was released days prior to the contest, and allowed people time to memorize the video and answer any questions quickly. The speed of your online connection was more important than any skill as all of the finalists were finished within a few minutes.
The Google security software kicked in thinking the sudden rush of participants was a denial-of-service attack, frustrating some participants.
The final contest was set over a three day period. Finalists could sign in at any time to compete, but all finalists saw the same puzzles. The first day most finalists took several hours to complete the puzzles, and some of them took screenshots which they shared online. Using these screenshots, finalists who waited until the second day took less than an hour to complete the puzzles. A few finalists reported using keystroke logging equipment on one entry, and then having a friend play that back for their entry, solving the puzzles within minutes by the final day.

Prizes:
Grand Prize:
First-class round-trip air transportation for four (4) to London, Paris, New York and Rome (ARV: $97,000.00)
Four (4) nights deluxe hotel accommodations for four (4) in London, Paris, New York and Rome. (ARV: $16,000.00)
Ground transportation for four (4) between hotel and airport in each travel destination. (ARV: $600.00)
Leisure Select return tickets from London to Paris and London to Avignon courtesy of Eurostar. (ARV: $5,797.24)
One (1) Sony® 40" BRAVIA™ S-Series LCD HDTV Television (ARV: $2999.99)
One (1) Sony® VAIO® FJ770P/B Notebook computer (ARV: $2,599.99)
One (1) Sony® Cyber-shot® DSC -N1 Digital Camera (ARV: 499.95)
One (1) Sony® Platinum DVD Dream™ System (model DAV-X1) (ARV: $799.99)
One (1) Sony® NV-U70 Portable Navigation System (ARV: $599.95)
One (1) Sony® DPP-FP50 Digital Photo Printer (ARV: $149.95)
Four (4) Sony® Walkman Core™ MP3 Players (Model NW-E507) (ARV $639.80)
Four (4) copies of the Frommer’s Guide Books and Day by Day Guides to New York, Paris, Rome and London. (ARV: $483.68)
Total ARV of Grand Prize is: $128,170.54

Ten Thousand Finalist Prizes:
One (1) Cryptex (ARV: $30.00)

Winner:
Anthony N. from Collierville, Tennessee

Links:
Pictures of Finalist Cryptex prize
Cryptex Creators
Wei-Hwa Huang