Solve the mystery in new Flash-based teaser, Tap Joint, for Tom Hanks' post-apocalyptic web series Electric City.
Now this will take a bit of brainpower - but if you're up for a challenge, love a mystery and enjoy solving puzzles then Tap Joint is exactly the site for you. Created by B-Reel as a teaser to Tom Hanks' post-apocalyptic web series Electric City, the site features a mysterious underground room called Tap Joint.
It's a real-world version of the animated series and puts site visitors into a world where they use the tap kit (a form of Morse code device) and clues to navigate around. Using a bespoke logic system, the aim of the game is to solve all the clues to piece together the storyline in order for the revolution in Electric City to take place.
We had quite a few discussions about Flash vs HTML5 for this project
"We actually had quite a few discussions about Flash vs HTML5 for this project," explains Eva Mautino, executive producer at B-Reel. "Even though timings were a very important reason for using Flash - making sure the experience was flawless for all users - the big reason was actually security, as we knew the target users would have tried to have the experience and find all possible information to solve the mystery.
"Initially we were not planning to use any backend/server-side scripts (which we later added as an extra security). It's better to hide information in a complied SWF instead of a frontend JavaScript code that is easily accessible to obtain by viewing the source."
Tap Joint puts visitors into a world where they use the tap kit and clues to navigate around
However, Mautino didn't want to lie down and make the information easy pickings for enterprising clue hunters. "Of course we knew that people could decompile the SWF and find some of the code as well, but this takes more effort from the users," she proclaims proudly.
This showcase was originally published in .net magazine issue 233.
