SmartKit recently posted an article on Liebig “Puzzle Cards.”  Liebig is the Liebig Extract of Meat Company, which was founded in 1840 by Baron Justus von Liebig.  His “extract of meat” product was intended to provide a cheap and nutritious meat substitute for those that couldn’t afford real meat.

The company also made sets of trading cards, some of which were hidden object puzzle cards.  The cards would have a question printed on them like, “Where is the X?”, and the goal was to find that object.  The card on the SmartKit site asks “Where are the other smokers?”  If you read the comments for that post, you can find the answer.  (Note:  You won’t be able to find the object in my mini-picture.  It’s just there to give you an idea of what they looked like.)

If you’re interested in more hidden object puzzle cards, I found a great collection of them on a site called cardmine.

I’ve been reading up about the puzzle game called Perplex City, which was blogged about on boingboing (here and here) and Shiny Shiny.
At its heart, the game involves solving puzzles but, in execution, it draws from the following genres:

1. Collectible card games - of which Magic is the best example. To play Perplex City, you buy packs of 6 cards that have puzzles on them. Each card has an individual puzzle and the cards can be combined to form other puzzles. Some of the cards are harder to find than others and, presumably, you will have to collect all of the cards to win.
2. Alternate reality games - like the ones used in the marketing for the movie A.I. or the game Halo 2. These games involve clues that are hidden in the real world. Characters that you can contact and that will contact you back. And fictitious web sites that look like they’re set up by real people.
3. A treasure hunt - with an object hidden in the real world that you have to find.

The winner gets $200,000, which will certainly be incentive for many to play. Of course, you’re likely to sink a lot of time and money into the game in order to even have a shot at winning.