Floating City

Lately I've been immersed in the Floating City.

Thomas Dolby (She Blinded Me With Science) is releasing a new album. He created an online game to help promote it.

It's set in an alternate version of the 1940s. WWII turned out differently with a global energy experiment having gone haywire. The Earth’s magnetic fields have been reversed, and the planetary climate system violated. The world is flooded and we are trying to get to the North Pole.

You create a persona, with a boat, and get items that group together in sets. In trading the items you complete sets of five and that unlocks a code to download the MP3 of that song. Finishing the tutorial trade with the purple ship will complete the song 'She Blinded Me With Science' - Chemicals, Spheres, Trench Coat, Tubes and Wires, and Careful notes. There are nine songs on each set - getting all nine will unlock an album - with three albums being available.

Trading will move you on a Google map of the world, with your tribe working to move their way north. As you complete trades you get points for you and your tribe. At the end of it, the tribe with the most points is supposed to win a free release concert in their area in which Thomas Dolby will perform the entire album.

I'm listed as Frozen North (Canada) so it will probably end up being in Toronto and out of my reach - but so far we are leading.
vate concert at which Thomas Dolby and his band perform the album in its entirety.

This is my referal link:
http://www.floatingcity.com/Register?id32=3ba9a8939870f59b0f...
If you sign in through here I get a few extra points and extra cargo bits. This will put you in the Frozen River tribe though - so central and Northern US and Canada.

Otherwise the regular link is http://www.floatingcity.com/

It's lovely looking from a graphics view with sepia newsletters and design. From a marketing standpoint, for someone who hasn't really released an album in 20 years, it's making pretty good use of technology. I'm not what I consider a big Dolby fan, but the combinations are intriguing me and I'm definately going to noodle around in there for next while.

Check it out.