How the BANG differed from the SNAP

So, um, we simulcasted SNAP 5 as BANG 22 a few weeks back (results and puzzles). It was crazy. People say they had fun, but in manning my station for Echoes, all I saw was grumpy teams coming from Cipher thinking they only had one puzzle left, only to be handed nine new puzzles all in one go. So from my point of view, nearly everyone had a horrible time. I've been assured, though, that said POV wasn't reflective of the event as a whole.

Afterwards, the common question we got asked was "Which puzzles are yours?" A good question: When you want to criticize — or even compliment — a puzzle, it helps to know who was actually responsible for it.

The truth is we adapted nearly every single puzzle. The reason for this is that SNAP 5 had a meta consisted of getting a second set of photos for each Echo solved. The photos were of pylons of a bridge, and used them as alphabet letters. We, obviously, couldn't do that, so we came up with an alternative meta. The alternative meta, though, meant we had to change the solutions to all but two of the puzzles, and, in some cases, replace puzzles altogether.

So here's a list of puzzles and what we did to them:

1. Journal
Adapted from the same mechanism SNAP 5 used. Their puzzle solved to "GET NOTES AT KILT STORE". Lacking such, we used a row of palm trees.

1a. Ransom
Using photos to get from site to site was the same thing Grey Goo did. We decided to use different photos, though... just to keep the first walk short.

2. Graffiti
Nearly identical to Seattle's version, only with a different solution word. It was called "Signs", but since we were using an abandoned building, we decided to make the presentation look like graffiti and changed the name appropriately.

3. Calendar
Exact same puzzle as used in SNAP 5. I'm not sure if they used the same binding process, though.

4. Chessboard
Our original puzzle, but inspired by Grey Goo's idea. Their version was pretty cool: You were given laser-cut clear acrylics with words on them, assembled the pieces into a chessboard, and did the semi-knight's tour to the king. The words the knight passed over only had one letter in common for each move.

Although we looked into getting acrylics done, it just wasn't in our budget. After coming up with our version, we thought about using transparencies for the "snakes" (which is why we suggested bringing a dry-erase marker) but decided in the end that they would be too flimsy to work with.

5. Gridwork
Nearly completely unchanged from the SNAP 5 version. The main difference is that we changed solid lines on the grid to dashed as our playtest indicated that no one would think to cut out the different sections. Funny thing is, many teams still didn't... they were able to read "FAMOUS EQUATION" and a few other things to get the answer.

6. Symbols
Exact same mechanism as Seattle's, adapted locally. We obviously needed to change the objects in the environment; Grey Goo used a sculpture garden, we used anything that looked like an identifiable shape. We also changed the sets to work with the our version of its echo.

7. New Arrivals
Our original puzzle. Grey Goo's puzzle dealt with determining the right year for mistaken dates of historical events. We liked the puzzle, but decided the library we were using was too small to have thirty teams simultaneously trying to look up what year the Magna Carta was actually signed.

We had been planning something a little more difficult (descriptions would be a mix of two magazines, always with a single magazine between them, then use the middle letter of that magazine), but the version teams saw during the playtest worked so well that we decided to keep it as it was. Pity none of us ever noticed that a handyman could be a belt-wearer.

8. Word Salad
Same SNAP 5 mechanism, different solution. I think Seattle's version was given to them in a styrafoam container. On a side note, I just want to say that croutons and parmesan cheese take the longest time to drain of oil.

9. Cipher
Our original puzzle, though heavily inspired by Grey Goo's version. We made one or two changes to cipher's mechanism (encoding vs. decoding at one point) and the extraction mechanism (first letter vs. glyph), but pretty similar to Seattle's in the end. One big difference was that Seattle's version was only handed out to the fastest teams. The nature of our meta, though, required every team get this puzzle, so we made an "easy" and "hard" version.

Echoes
I hate to think of Echoes as "mini" clues as they weren't a subset of a puzzle, but simply meant to be a location that teams got nine new puzzles that either directly or indirectly echoed previous puzzles (the hunt had a "deja vu" theme).

10. Poetry
Our original puzzle. Seattle's version of Poetry dealt with poems written on different sides of columns. We tried to adapt it, but it did not get good feedback in any of our tests, so we went with something completely different. The sad thing about our version is that in transferring the poem's text from OpenOffice (where it was written) to InDesign (for the Mobius template), the single up-down apostrophe changed, even though it was the same %&$*&@ font on the same !#&*$!% computer. Desktop publishing, go fig.

11. Questions?
Our original puzzle. Seattle used a version called "Elements" and had periodic table abbreviations with a number attached to them for indexing. We needed a different solution word and ended up adding the drop-quote element to the puzzle at the same time. Apparently, we're too old, though, since some teams had no idea what the numeric solution to "IS ENOUGH?" was.

12. Inbox
Exactly the same as Seattle's version, only with our new solution word.

13. Chessmen
Exactly the same as Seattle's version, only with our new solution word.

14. Rebus
Our original puzzle. Seattle's version was "Gridworks" and had a nonogram that solved to an image of a metronome, as well as letters scattered throughout the grid that would get crossed off, with only the solution word remaining (hmmmm... sounds vaguely familiar). Our new solution word didn't lend itself to a nonogram very well, so we decided to try and put a rebus inside a nonogram. I wrote a version of it, but it was a damn hard solve! We ended up running out of time and decided to put the rebus out as is. The day after the hunt we came up with a better puzzle.

15. Sets
Our original puzzle. Seattle has a sidewalk with images from the Chinese zodiac on them and gave teams copies off said images so that when a line was traced from image to image, letters were spelled out. Obviously, couldn't do it, so we decided to have it work in concert with Symbols.

16. Rags
Another completely original puzzle on our part. Seattle's "History" puzzle was fun, we thought, but it just wouldn't work with the magazine theme that this puzzle would echo.

17. Alphabet Soup
We used Seattle's version of the puzzle, though in changing the solution word, we changed the puzzle somewhat. The solution of each can was now a soup instead of a salad name from the Word Salad, and we providing a rough ingredient list for each soup.

18. Paraphrase
Our original puzzle. It turned out the mechanism Grey Goo used for their "Numbers" puzzle would not work with our meta solution word, so we we decided to reuse the cipher.

19. Meta
Our original puzzle. As mentioned above, Grey Goo's dealt with using photos of a bridge that we couldn't duplicate.

20. Ransom Note
Pretty close to Grey Goo's. I think they made use of two sets of photos; we only had the one and had to adapt accordingly.

BATH4 Puzzle Origins; or A Study in Chaos

When the Smoking GNU was invited to participate in BATH 4, we looked forward to it for two reasons: a) it's a puzzle hunt; and b) it might give us a chance to redeem ourselves from our disastrous showing at Iron Puzzler (an event from which I can say definitively that it's not a good idea to change clear letters into coke bottles representing semaphore because you don't think that using Frankenstein as the wallpaper for an autostereogram covers the ingredient requirement enough). The first step, of course, was to choose a sector to place the puzzle in.

Jonathan and I came up with some basic requirements for our location: It should be interesting, should be accessible during the length of the hunt, hopefully be inside in case of rain, and maybe most importantly, it should have easy and free parking. Places such as the main branch of the library and the building where Sam Spade had his office were considered, but ultimately rejected.

After much discussion and debating, we decided our choices would be the one that might have live gnus (kind of funny after we found out where this year's GC Summit was to be held), the one with the 25-foot tube slide, and a third, throwaway choice.

After getting assigned the last, I scoured Google street view to see if there was anything interesting. The best I could do was a playground with a map of the U.S. on it, but it looked like it was solidly padlocked. Despairing, I looked to as-of-yet unclaimed sectors and found an interesting, possibly haunted cave/tunnel at the Sutro Bath ruins. I wasn't sure we could find a solution word there, except perhaps in graffiti.

Given and I finally went out to scout our sector and found nothing. Well, we did find a post that had "Jenna Earth Day 06" scrawled on it, which we could have used in a "Who attended Earth Day three years ago?" question. But somehow, it just kind of lacked the "punch" we were hoping for.

Midway through driving from there to the cave, we stopped when we spotted this beautiful white fountain at a roundabout. Not a single identifying word was on it. But the environmental contrast from the sector we'd just come from was so great, so we just started looking around when we stumbled upon the St. Francis Wood fountain. It had tons of inscribed bricks and quote from the Song of Solomon on its centerpiece. Compared to the drought of data were we had been, this truly was a garden of possibilities. There were no parking difficulties, birds were singing ("And not seagulls!"), and it didn't even feel like you were in San Francisco.

Leaving the fountain and heading towards the cave, we spotted another interesting place in a different sector, but didn't have time to look at it. We were running out of time though and figured when Jonathan was visiting the following weekend we could scout it then.

The first thing I noticed when we arrived at the Sutro Baths ruins was that parking was terrible. It was free, which was good, but it took us 10-15 minutes to find parking. It was not a good sign. The ruins were pretty neat, especially keeping in mind the amzing structure that was once there. The cave was also kind of neat, but the graffiti I was hoping for had been worn away by the salt air or pasted over by a greenish-concrete. There was some amazing graffiti on the rocks outside the far end of the cave/tunnel, but it was indechipherable (to us anyway) and who knows how long it would be there. That only left us with the "Danger" sign or the band sticker on its back as a possible solution. Not ideal.

Jonathan and I had been talking about what we wanted our puzzle to be for the past couple months. We came to the consensus that we wanted one that would first solve to the destination, then once at the destination, would resolve to instructions as to which word to take as the answer. Good structure, we thought, only that with three weeks to go, the number of puzzles we had come up with was exactly zero.

During the week between the first scouting trip (sans Jonathan) and the second (with Jonathan), I had an idea. I didn't think it was a very good one, but it worked. The first layer would have solvers decide to take a letter based on whether the first or last name of a person on memorial bricks matched with the first or last name of somebody famous (a weak dichotomy, I know). It solved to "ST FRANCIS AND SAN ANSELMO". At that location, all the names on the bricks fell within twenty-six spaces of each other, and thus represented letters. It spelled out "UPPER FOUNTAIN SONG AUTHOR". On the upper part of the fountain was an engraved quote from SOLOMON.

I told my teammates that it worked, but was clunky in execution.

Jonathan came up for the second scouting expidition, providing good opportunity to test it out. The test went well, but Given and Jonathan agreed it was clunky and that it should be our backup puzzle. So we went to the site we had spotted earlier but hadn't explored (if there's ever a similar BATH that we get invited to, we plan to use it), and got some good ideas to go with it. We started working on what we planned would be our primary puzzle. We worked on it for about week, when Eric pointed out that the sector that it was in was actually taken...

So now the former backup puzzle became our primary. It needed cleaning up, so we began really pounding it out. A week went by and things were not looking good. The first/last name matching was deemed not a real dichotomy and some of the brick names were really causing problems. It had to change... but how?

At 2:30 am, the Wednesday morning before BATH 4, I woke up and had an idea that was a definite dichotomy and would be a lot more fun then matching first/last names. At 3am, I sent off a trial version to Jonathan. He had fun with it. So with only three days to go, we were completely revising our puzzle.

The next day, an email came in from Eric. He had a backup puzzle for us. It was a crossword with two grids. I solved the crossword but didn't spend much effort on going any further, instead concentrating on getting our primary puzzle ready for production. Jonathan stayed up until 4am getting work done on his end.

Early Friday evening, I get a call from Jonathan. Had I tried Eric's puzzle yet? Yes, but not to completion. He then told me how it worked.

"Damn him," I told him. "It's better."

It was more elegant than what we had been working on. It worked really well. We were impressed.

"We need to decide which we're going to go with," Jonathan told me. "But I'm leaning towards Eric's."

As was I. First, though, we sent both puzzles off to many people to try. Most people preferred Eric's. A few people preferred ours. Finally, we got Given to try it. He needed a hint, the exact same one we gave out most often during the actual hunt, but solved it, and preferred it.

So at 10:30pm the night before the hunt, we told Eric we were going with his puzzle.

It ended up being ironic, as Eric had also wanted to redeem him unsolvable puzzle from an earlier Iron Puzzler. Condering the positive feedback, including a favorite vote from Get on a Burning Raft, I'd say he did exactly that.

Muppet Movie Game Thoughts

I love the idea that Orange Snood is going to be blogging about their creative and thought processes during the creation of their Game for next fall. It's especially good for those of us who might be considering running a Game in the future and advice from an experienced team is always helpful. Although I have opinions of questionable validity (I've technically only played in one full-lenth Game) one way or the other about various aspects of Game play, my main thought is that every event should have T-shirts. Yes, T-shirts. There need to be more T-shirts. Definitely.

Well, that and I wonder if the number of applications received is a function of how far in advanced a Game is announced...

Ghost Patrol Lessons and Finding Sonoma County Puzzlers

Playtesting and volunteering for Ghost Patrol, I have to say, were invaluable experiences (many thanks to Lowkey and Desert Taxi!). First off, we had so much fun during the playtest, it was all I could do to stop myself from telling everyone at BANG 19 who was going to play "You guys are going to have a blast!" in order not to skew opinions and experiences. (I think my unspoken prediction was accurate judging from the standing ovation for GC.) Secondly, it gave us a behind-the-scenes look at what it's like to run The Game.

One of the main observations I made about constructing a Game is that having teammates who live fairly close nearby almost seems like a requirement, since Game constructors will have to meet on a fairly regular basis. Someone I asked from GP's GC said they met once a week for about a year and three times a week for the last month or so. This kind of presents a difficulty for us... one I've touched on before.

At some point, The Smoking GNU would like to host a Game. It may be years in the future, but it is on our to-do list. The difficulty is that on our team, pretty much only Jonathan and I are really devoted to the idea; Given maybe to a lesser extent. The rest of our teammates tend to be involved when they have some free time, but aren't ready to commit to such a large production. Heck, sometimes, I'm not sure I am either.

Two and a half puzzlers aren't enough to host a Game and I don't know of anyone else in Sonoma County who's involved in the community. So I keep thinking that somehow I need to introduce the locals to this amazing event. My guess is that 99% or more of people around here think that a puzzle hunt is something involving haikus (thanks, Downtown Santa Rosa Puzzle Hunt!). That opinion needs to change.

One idea I've had include re-running a BANG up here and putting a clue to its existance on craigslist or around the Santa Rosa Junior College. Seems feasible enough and maybe I'll try it after the arrival of spring. I think my teammates would be up for helping with that.

The SRJC, actually, seems like the best place to get people interested in puzzling. It's possibly the best JC in the U.S. and has around 40K of students who have yet to be introduced to this idea. I wish I had heard of puzzle events back when I was going there and would like give that opportunity to students who might be like me (scary thought). So the idea occurs of maybe getting the SRJC to have a hunt a la Mystery Hunt and try and make it an annual tradition. I'm not sure how to go about doing that though.

Assuming a Sonoma County puzzling community would take root and grow, then perhaps we can find enough local people to make whatever Game we eventually come up with a reality.

Inconvienient Mechanical Issues

Driving 75mph on your way to help staff Ghost Patrol clue sites is not the best time to find there's no pressure when you depress the clutch pedal. And especially not when one team is blasting through all of the clues like they're on a mission from God to not only be ahead of every other team but GC as well, and therefore GC would really appreciate it if you could get to your sites a wee bit early.

Superbowl Mini Puzzle Hunt Recap

Using puzzles I'd developed, but did not get a chance to deploy (having been Porlocked), for New Year's Eve, I set up a "surprise" puzzle hunt at the Superbowl party at my Dad's. It was to be a distraction for those who weren't that interested in football or the other activities, as well as a way to feel like I hadn't spent all that developmental work for nothing.

I didn't directly tell anyone. In the emails I sent out, I put a little code at the end which, when deciphered, lead to a YouTube video, which lead to an entry in my blog about my "secret" plans for the Superbowl. However, of all the people I asked to join us, only three noticed the code, and only two of those attended.

The puzzle hunt was five puzzles long and had three paths. The puzzles on each path were similar but lead to different locations in order to prevent accidentally seeing a team retrieve a puzzle (the house and yard being the extent of the hunt). Only the final puzzle was the same for all paths.

It took me longer than expected to get organized and place all the puzzles around the house. Oddly, no one seemed to notice. Once everything was in place, I began surreptitiously dropping the starter puzzle around the house in what I thought were obvious locations. Nobody saw them. I overheard the two people who knew there was to be a puzzle hunt asking when I was going to start it.

As the Superbowl neared its end, I discussed it with my wife and she suggested I abandon my plan of hoping some would pick them up out of curiosity and instead announce it. I reluctantly agreed and pointed them out to a couple people and asked them to point them out to others. That finally got them noticed but this was a few minutes before the Patriots scored their 4th quarter touchdown and the ball game suddenly became a lot more interesting.

Four impromptu teams of two formed eventually, one of which had to leave as soon as the game was over, and only solved the preliminary puzzle.

Apart from the final one, I had written the puzzles to be especially easy... or at least so I thought. I tested them on Jonathan and he thought they worked fine, but as always, little things began to pop up. For example, one clue was "Place on a scale": Some interpreted "place" as "a location" instead of "put". At that point, I knew I couldn't just sit back and participate in other activities; I had to actively GC.

As luck would have it, the three teams that stayed each went on a different path, so each had their own unique puzzle hunt to play. Each puzzle in each path lead to a similar location; for example, puzzle 2 would lead to the kitchen area, with the red path leading to the freezer, the blue path to a cookbook, and the green path to a cabinet drawer.

Puzzles one and two both consisted of crossword style clues that were assembled in different ways to lead to the next location. Puzzles three and four were two parters: Three was a cryptogram (which one team had never tried before) that gave instructions on finding an Apples-To-Apples card with a code on it, while four a semi-acrostic that ended up telling solvers to go to a room where the names of stars were written on the wall. This puzzle was kind of broken, as I had designed it to make use of a planetarium projector, but the kids who came to the party decided that that room was the most fun to play in, so i had to improvise. Considering the quality of the toy star theater, maybe that was a good thing.

The fifth puzzle was a chess puzzle, but required players find the already setup chess board next to the fireplace. Nobody picked up on it and instead tried to solve it just based on what was on the paper. I basically had to give all three teams a hint that they needed something more to solve it.

I think everyone had a good time playing, which is the important thing. Each team got a prize, although my brother "dragged" his wife into it, but had dropped out to play Lego Star Wars by the middle of the last puzzle, so she got to choose her prize. A few things popped up, like a typo on the semi-acrostic, my dad's place turning out to have two woodpiles, one team never having heard of the Crash Test Dummies, and the chess puzzle should have been tweaked more. But all in all, I think it went pretty good.

He really should have known

The following is as near a complete transcript of the conversation as my brain will allow.

Me: Hi Dad, mind if I use your radial arm saw?

Dad: As long as you don't take any fingers off. What do you need it for?

Me: I want to make scale replicas of these. [holds up strange objects]

Dad: Okay, you can do that. There's a little bit of a trick to it. It's easy, but it's time consuming.

Me: I think I prefer that to the other way around.

Dad: So what are you making these for?

Me: It's for a puzzle.

Dad: [laugh] I should have known.

Me: Yes, you should have!

Photos - Shinteki Decathlon III

I've finally gotten photos from Week 1 of Shinteki Decathlon III up. Most of them are simply various teams arriving and solving at clue sites I staffed.



However, I decided not to take pictures of teams at Site 10 for the Endurance challenge since: a) none of the teams arrived until after dark; and b) we weren't supposed to reveal our presense, which I'm sure a flash would have done.

When I had taken the photos, I made liberal use of the "audio notes" feature of my camera so I could keep track of which team was which; unfortunately, the sound files didn't transfer. This means that I'm going off my memory, which is quite poor in some cases, so apologies in advance for any mistaken IDs and big thanks if you can provide the correct ones.

Sunburnt for Shinteki

So I spent yesterday puzzle-sitting for Shinteki's Decathlon III. Apart from not applying sunscreen (despite having brought some and being given some), the day went really well. It was surprisingly relaxing, considering my behind-the-scenes work at our puzzle hunt last year, but the sites were just beautiful. I wish I had brought a tennis racquet (well, two really).

I spent most of the day with Ian Tullis while we watched over three sites. First time I met him, had a great time picking his brain, talking over various aspects of all things puzzley, and sharing stories from previous hunts. Hopefully, he was able to put up with my driving! He was kind enough to bring some of his puzzles along for me to take a crack at, which I had fun doing. Unfortunately, the complications from dry socket were making my brain ache at the second site, while working on what was a fairly simple crossword (Get On A Raft With Taft's entry into Pirates BATH). I ended up having to solve that one at home today, but the rest I had fun solving as the sun set at our third site.

Wish I could do it again next weekend, but since my wife is going to a bridal shower in Concord, I just won't be available. Until next year, then!