OpenAI's new ad that ran during Game 1 of the Knicks vs Spurs NBA Finals included a hidden game of its own. The company debuted an advertisement for Codex, its AI coding tool, titled "Time to Fly." The ad shows a variety of users vibe coding a product idea. One asks for a companion app; another puts their request on "Extra High" mode. A third seems to be developing a video game.
The name of that game echoes the title of the ad: "Time to Fly." Eagle-eyed viewers found and played the game online — and won some free AI tokens.
The "Time to Fly" game is a "cosmic logic puzzle game about orbital rotation," per OpenAI's website. One employee wrote on X that the team built a "mini game that's waiting for anyone curious enough to follow the clues."
One user posted their "MISSION ACCOMPLISHED" screen on X. The screenshot showed that they won $1,000 in tokens. "Thank you for the credits!" another user wrote.
For those mining for some free AI money: apologies, it seems like you missed your shot. One user posted that they were proud to have placed third, even though OpenAI had run out of tokens. Another posted a screenshot showing the game screen saying, "We're all out of promo codes, but you can still compete on the leaderboard!"
AI tokens, often referred to as credits, are a unit of measurement used to help determine the computing costs associated with using AI products. The rise in popularity of Anthropic's Claude Code and OpenAI's Codex in the last year have given rise to trends like tokenmaxxing — as well as concerns over AI costs and budgeting.