Skyfall Viral Uses Text Adventure to Seek Out New MI6 Agents

In anticipation of the film, Sony turned to Wieden+Kennedy to give fans the opportunity to serve alongside the Royal Secret Intelligence Service’s most famous fictional agent, by passing a secretive five-part examination conducted through an online text adventure game.

Finding the text adventure game in the first place required more than a little work. A few weeks ago, Ireceived a package in the mail from “J,” a man with an unwholesome fixation with barn swallows. Inside the relatively innocuous package, J sent over a Sony IC Reader pre-loaded with 18 seconds of birds chirping. The name of the file, 50-112-251-215.mp3, directed attentive players to the IP address50.112.251.215, which serves as the hub for the experience. An advertisement on the Reddit homepagealso drove visitors to the page, along with a companion advertisement from the “Sky Full Society” that provided Redditors with the same sound file of birds chriping.

The stark website features the Royal Secret Intelligence Service’s seal, along with a simple question: “ARE YOU FIT TO SERVE?” Initially, the test itself was protected by an audio password: players could only gain access to the MI6 application process by playing the audio file of birds chirping. That additional barrier has since been removed, and the viral experience begins in earnest with the click of a button. —Wired