It's not quite a game nor is it quite a web cast, but The Cypher, what the WON online gaming site is calling a "mystery miniseries made for the Internet," makes its debut on WON tomorrow (Halloween).

　　The miniseries requires the Real Audio Player to play, but Scott Fasser, WON product manager, says, "All the components for The Cypher were designed with slower access speeds in mind, so with a 28.8 connection the audience's experience is completely immersive."

　　As part of the "immersive experience," players will explore the ruins of a castle, delve into Scotland Yard files, and tap into the encoded files of a computer specialist as they piece together the clues of a mystery that spans the medieval, Victorian, and the late 20th-century eras. The miniseries chronicles the adventures of one James Francis Ravenshim, who discovers a series of hidden chambers beneath his ancestral castle. Those chambers contain ancient charts, diaries, weapons, and mechanical devices, which Ravenshim must decipher in order to ascertain just who put these devices into those chambers and why they did so. The Cypher builds to what WON is calling a "horrifying climax" on Dec. 31, 1999.