BANG 25 Writeup Addendum

Jonathan rarely reads my writeups. On the occasion he does, he often complains about their accuracy. I think he said at one point that they maybe averaged being 90% accurate. Given the limitations of human memory (especially mine), I'm almost surprised it's that high. I comfort myself that, like the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, when I'm inaccurate, at least I'm definitely inaccurate.

Some of the inaccuracy may simply occur because I don't have a full team point of view. For example, Jonathan pointed out to me that he was already doing prime factorization on the Math Class puzzle when Given said "Prime factorization?" He had seen the puzzle before and knew exactly what to do. Given, therefore, was just explaining what he saw Jonathan doing. Since I hadn't seen Jonathan start writing down factors at that point, from my point of view it looked like Given had had the aha.

Another one was where the P.E. clue. Rob was talking about how each of the baseball positions also had an innate ordering. Jonathan had apparently just mentioned seeing a similar puzzle that used that ordering before and asked if anybody knew what the ordering was. Rob was giving it to him. I had arrived late to the table, though, so again, from my point of view it looked like Rob had had the key insight.

I hate to rob anybody of credit for having a major insight into a puzzle. The truth is, though, that Jonathan, Eric Prestemon (when he plays with us) and to a lesser extent myself, usually have a majority of them. This may simply be because we've had more experience than the rest of our team and it doesn't hurt that Jonathan and Eric have really quick minds. I also don't mean to diminish from other team members' contributions either; they all have invaluable insights and are never lacking when it comes to making our team competitive.

In the end, my goal is not necessarily to provide an accurate reporting of what went on for any given puzzle event, but instead to preserve my memories, flawed as they may be, before they fade from my head completely.

Lost vs. Sudoku

I wonder how I would feel if I wrote an "ultrarealistic" screenplay about a plane that crashed on a deserted island that was rejected because the shark attack of a swimmer was deemed "too unrealistic", but then was accepted once it was rewritten by "Alias" creator to include a monster and a polar bear attack instead? Maybe, just maybe, a little pissed. Especially if ABC attempted to deny that I created a story about a doctor, a con man, a fugitive, a pregnant woman, a drug-addict, and a spoiled rich girl surviving a plane crash on said island. Luckily, through arbitration, Jeffrey Lieber was able to get listed as one of three creators of the show, but has had no creative input since J.J. Abrams and Damon Lindelof did their re-write.

After having read said article and viewing the new hatch video, "The Orchid", I got to wondering why I always get hooked by TV shows like Lost, Heroes, Alias, Kyle XY, etc. that have an overall story arc (applies to books and movies too). I figure it's because they're like sudoku puzzles.

Basically, you write a story with a lot of background, current happenings, and planned outcome, the same way a sudoku creator first fills out the entire grid of their puzzle. Next you determine what bits and pieces you are going to reveal to your audience in the first episodes, in the same way that the numbers are removed from the sudoku grid, leaving just enough for players to complete it. And then, you reveal a little bit more of the story each episode, similar to how the player fills in each number. (Okay, so that not really how sudoku puzzles are generally created, but you get the idea.)

And I love sudoku puzzles; the only thing is, I have to wait until February to see where that next "9" is placed.

Puzzle Hunt Prizes

I was talking with a friend yesterday about how, when trying to describe a puzzle hunt to someone who's never heard of it before, one of the typical responses is, "So, what do you win?" Almost invariably, the person cannot understand why anyone would want to compete in a contest of skill that has no prize. We discussed how one of the main reasons, of course, is that if a prize were offered, competitors would try to bypass, short-circuit, or otherwise get around puzzles as quickly as possible, since the goal was no longer solving puzzles, but winning. After our conversation was over, I was thinking that I was glad I had never seen such things happen, but then I realized that I already had.

Though it had many flaws (eliminations for one) and unfair puzzles (breathing on mirrors for one), I still consider "Treasure Hunters" to be a puzzle hunt. It did offer a prize and because of that, all but one team destroyed a kinda neat little puzzle. Teams were supposed to arrive at a stop on the Underground Railroad, spot the word "FREEDOM" painted on the door with the letters r, e, and d in red, and make the connection to use their rose-colored glasses to look at the tons of quilts scattered throughout the room. When doing so, a star would be revealed on one of the quilt panels, indicating where a hidden message was located.

Instead, most teams simply used the tried-and-true brute force method and started ripping through the quilt panels until they found which panel held the hidden message. Only Team Geniuses, who were in last place at that time, figured it out. Of course, one of the benefits was that this saved them a lot of time.

I keep thinking that as a puzzle designer, I would have been tremendously disappointed to see teams ripping through my puzzle like that, but maybe breathed a sigh of relief when one team actually tried to solve it the intended way.

I love prizes. I rarely win them. And with teams like Five Blind Boys, The Buninators, Get On A Raft With Taft, and Coed Astronomy, to name only a few, it would be chancy even in our best moments for The Smoking GNU to come out on top of any puzzle hunt.

There were enough prizes at BANG 16, though, that we were able to take some home. I treasure my "Match Wits With MENSA" book (thank you to whichever team brought that!), but the real prize comes from truly solving quality puzzles.