VIRAL NEWS

More Cryptic Tron Viral Sites Discovered - But What's Next?

by Alex Billington
February 25, 2010
Source: MovieViral.com

Yesterday the viral marketing for Tron Legacy kicked into high gear with a race held in 25 cities around the world that eventually revealed a special event this weekend that we believe will be the premiere of the trailer in IMAX theaters in 5 select cities. But it's far from over! If you're a fan of ARGs (alternate reality games), then we've got plenty more for you. Users on both the Tron Sector and Unfiction forums discovered another hidden "code" on the Zero Hour site that eventually lead them to a discussion forum on the Flynn Lives site. Our friends at MovieViral.com also have a good rundown on all the latest going on with the viral.

If you visited the Zero Hour site yesterday at all, you may have seen the main grid that would slowly reveal to form the Pit Cell photo. Each block was unveiled when users would pick up a package and enter a code found on collectible Tron cards. Now that the grid is complete, if you flip over each card so that the photo is finished, the circuit piece directly below the grid on the right side has small squares inside of it that start blinking in a pattern. It's another binary code that gives us a few numbers. If you then flip over the cards corresponding to the numbers, it reveals the Flynn Lives forums: flynnlives.com/discussionforums/.

From there plenty of new sites have started to pop up, as the Tron ARG world is starting to take shape. The guys behind this viral seem to be giving us a lot to play with this time, as those who picked up the packages yesterday also got copies of news articles about Kevin Flynn and Encom, the fictional company he worked for in the original Tron. Anyway, the forums contain a lot information that includes links to other sites that seem to be connected to this, but we're not sure how yet. One discovery was a video (found in this thread) that shows how they made the bit pieces from the early part of this viral using a 3D printer: watch here.

Two other sites were discovered in the forums that seem to be the most interesting. The URLs for both of these new sites are very long and contain what look to be a random assortment of letters and numbers. One of them is found here: qm6k3pshu8rr302kv6xej8p72s.net/default.htm and the other one is found here: n8xd93f2rk077px1n6wdq839m0.net. Both sites only contain a huge photo that looks like some digitally distorted version of the lightcycle concept art we saw on display at Flynn's Arcade last year. The photo directly above this is a "combined" version of the two photos from both sites created by MrToasty on Unfiction. Beyond that, no one knows what these sites are for, however those URLs must mean something?

If you didn't already know, I was one of the 27 people to get one of the packages yesterday that came with a mobile phone and the Tron cards with codes on them. There's not much else I could find in the stuff I got, so I think I'm just supposed to wait for a call. If you're into any of this and want to help, I suggest you start checking around on the Flynn Lives site and the discussion forums to see if you can find anything anywhere. There may be more out there, it's just got to be uncovered. Don't forget to also register for tickets today for the IMAX event via the Pit Cell website. I've got a feeling that website is going to be used lots more as well.

The official website for Encom was also just discovered this morning thanks to the users on the Tron Sector forums. It's located at EncomInternational.com and has a lot of good info, giving us a good look at the new Encom as it will be seen in Tron Legacy. Encom was the company run by the "evil" Sark (aka MCP) in the original who betrayed Flynn and stole his work. It still exists today because they're a successful company thanks to Flynn's games. You can even see Bruce Boxleitner as Alan Bradley in the People section of the site, which is pretty cool. I wonder if there is more hidden on this website, as Encom is a central part of the plot.

The thing I love about this particular viral (or ARG) is that it involves computers and technology which means they can hide things in so many technical ways, like using binary code and hiding secrets cryptically on websites. At Comic-Con last year we had to use blacklights to find coordinates. I've inspected everything we got yesterday under a blacklight and couldn't find much, so that doesn't help us at all here. But we'll be keeping you updated on this as more is discovered, so stick around! And let us know if you find anything!

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