100708 Puzzle Inventory Refinement

Part 1 Of Notes

Hello team!

We had a productive team meeting last night. We reviewed the puzzle inventory so far and agreed that we're now ready to begin some puzzle development. Yay!

I'll send out a more detailed notes from last night later. But the two key things you need to know of as a result of yesterday's meeting are:

1. The next meeting will be on July 29th. This is a push back of one week, so please update your calendars!

2. Everyone's homework for the next meeting is to select one puzzle in the current inventory and create a prototype for it. (The inventory is contained in the wiki--let me know if you're having trouble accessing it. I've listed some highlights below.)

Let's get puzzling!

Allen

PS: I know it has been difficult for our several team members spread around the world to contribute. But now that we are beginning puzzle creation, I hope that you will take a fresh look at the puzzle inventory and try to start writing.

PUZZLE INVENTORY HIGHLIGHTS

• "Core Dump 1" The "error log" of the malfunctioning time machine somehow decodes to "POOPED PEP RING" (or something similar).

• "Pep Ring" The time machine needs new "tachyon aether pep rings." The teams have to figure out how to build them...and maybe even construct them. This could involve going to a fun location, such as Sunnyvale's Weird Stuff Warehouse. Solution = the actual pep rings (or maybe just the instructions on how to make them). Wei-Hwa has a possible idea for this one at the moment, but if you have a great concept, go ahead and try yours, too.

• "Password Puzzle (Doctor When)" Need to figure out the password to Doctor When's super computer. Teams visit his childhood bedroom to look for clues--perhaps he encoded it within a Rubik's cube or some other classifc80s trivia item. Solution = BuffyRocks (or

similar)

• "Calibration" The time machine is finally working again...but needs to be calibrated. We have a record of where Doctor When has bounced around in time so far (which is a string of famous movie clips with the Doctor inserted into The Land Before Time, 2001, Ben Hur, Terminator, etc.). If the team can somehow predict where he'll go next, we can calibrate the machine. Solution = BEGINNINGOFTIME - though we're also considering having him go directly to the high school science fair, in which case the solution would be a time & date from 1986 or so (see the next puzzle concept).

• "Send Me Back (Doctor When)" We can see the Doctor on the time machine's video window into the past. He wants to be sent to a specific time/space coordinate before he returns to the present. Unfortunately his message is garbled. (Or maybe audio isn't working so he has to pantomime his message.) Solution = "Atherton High School May 16, 1986 10 AM" or something similar.

• "Retrieve The Letter" While the Doctor was bouncing around time a vital document dropped out of his pocket. This is the letter he planned to slip into the locker of his younger self. The team needs to figure out where it is and retrieve it. (The video from the Calibration puzzle may have clues about at which point he lost the document. The puzzle may be figuring out where it is now, or figuring out how to get past the security that's guarding it in the present day.) Most likely solution is _either_ a date OR something that can point to a date - e.g., if the letter got lost during a specific movie clip, the solution might be the movie name (assuming that the players can then research that movie and find the specific date & place).

• "Core Dump 2" Similar to "Core Dump 1," but this time the solution is "MENTOMETER" or something similar. And this time instead of it being a paper core-dump print out, it may be reading the positions of a bunch of pineapple cores or apple cores or something similarly wacky.

• "Mentometer Repair" The teams have to somehow repair the time machine's mentometer, similar to the Pep Ring puzzle above.

• "Password Puzzle (Prof. Chronus)" Need to figure out the password to Prof. Chronus's super computer. This time the teams go to
• her* childhood bedroom. She's encoded it in a mix tape of 80s hits. Solution = IHEARTWESLEY. [Erik has claimed dibs on this one.]

• "Send Me Back (Prof. Chronus)" Prof. Chronus wants to be sent to a particular time and place before returning to the present. She can't communicate directly with the players since she's lost in time. So she makes "subtle" changes to great works of art (such as being the new model for Whistler's Mother, in American Gothic, etc.). PCs must comb through an art history book and decode the alterations she's made. Solution = "Atherton High School May 16, 1986 11 AM" or something similar.

• "Locker Combo" Prof. Chronus needs to get inside young Wesley's school locker, but she doesn't have the combination. Players must decode information from the principal's office to find it for her - in particular, the principal has a list of master combos from 2010 all the way back to 1987 or so, but frustratingly not the year they need - so they need to backsolve the pattern to figure out what the master combo was in the right year. Solution = "12 34 56" or something similar. [Sean has claimed dibs on this one.]

• "Jiffy Pop Puzzle--Solve" After the Doctor activated the time machine it clearly malfunctioned. Instead of him returning, a bunch of gadgets did--one for each team. Fiddling with the gadgets reveals "To break infinite time loop change letter. Don't tell Chronus or When" or similar. (We may end up using this Jiffy Pop to point the players to several other puzzles in Act III, so the message may be complex. ... but if you have an idea as to how the Jiffy Pop puzzle might work, by all means, start thinking about it - this is a hard one to create and a key one for the game.)

• "Jiffy Pop Puzzle--Rebuild" Players realize that the Doctor can never return until they close a causality loop. They must reset the Jiffy Pop Puzzle to the same state they received it in and send it to themselves.

There are other places to insert puzzles - natural ones include extra steps in fixing the pep ring/mentometer, and possibly the Retrieve the Letter puzzle (the letter could have taken multiple bounces through time. The above ones seem like the key, plot-driving puzzles, though.)

Part 2 Of Notes

Hello, chrononauts!

Here's a little addendum to my brief recap of last week's meeting:

• There's been a lot of shifting back and forth about when and how many times to use the Jiffy Pop puzzle. Those present acknowledged that yes, it would make a great beginning for the game. But we felt that it would be dull to use it in both Parts 1 and 3, and that it make an even better ending. So it was decided to only use it in Part 3.

• There's also been a lot of shifting back and forth about whether we should attempt to send the players back in time at the end of the game. It would be really cool...but would require securing another location to set up a full science fair set (and the associated costs). But those present so liked the idea of letting the players see all the science fair exhibits submitted as part of the application process (and hopefully weaving them into the plot and a puzzle!), but we are now leaning in that direction.

• If we do send the players back in time, we *may* need to build the science fair set in a separate location from the laboratory, such as renting out a high school gym for a day (it will be summer after all). In that case we need some flimsy excuse of a way for them to activate the time machine in the lab, but not go back in time till they travel to the gym (because if they have to drive across town after activating the time machine, they'll see it's not 1986).

I was thinking that we could introduce a new piece of mad science technology (in addition to the "tachyon aether pep ring" and the "quantum chronomentometer"): the temporal stabilization bracelet. The would-be time traveler charges up his/her bracelet using the time machine, activates the bracelet, and then is transported to the time/space coordinates in the "charge." This way all the players could charge up their bracelets, drive to the gym, and activate them just before they enter ("less chance of screwing up the timeline that way). (This "stabilization" concept might also explain all the bouncing around time problems that our protagonists have.)

Or maybe they'll just work together to steal the time machine and place it just outside the gym...

• Figuring out the location of the laboratory set will help with all the other location scouting and with inspiring puzzles. So Allen's homework assignment for next session is to follow-up on some location leads. Sean will also contact some of his Burning Man acquaintances and ask them for leads on suitable locations. Melissa will contact a high school in her home town about using their gym.

• Sean mentioned the Weird Stuff Warehouse in Sunnyvale (http://www.weirdstuff.com/). He suggested we do a little field trip some day because it has such cool (and weird) stuff. To the best of our knowledge, it's never been used as a Game location.

• Sean mentioned that for many full games food is one of the largest expense categories. Allen pointed out that since we have two obvious breaks in this game, we might be able to encourage the players to feed themselves

• At some point in the not too distant future we'll need to assemble teams for video production, web site creation, and graphics (for the two versions of the school newspaper).

• We also need to do general research of trivia from the 80s. Melissa has already done some. (I'll create a page on the wiki and post her stuff to date.)

• Now that we're starting puzzle development, it might be good to contact some people who have dropped out of the team and see if they want to re-engage.

• Just for laughs, it might be fun to include in the set for Wesley's childhood home (used in the first password puzzle) a list of his discarded invention ideas, such as "network for sending 140 character-long messages--no that would never work" Other candidates: post it notes, Google, eBay, etc.)

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That's it for now.

Don't forget: we meet again in just under two weeks--two weeks from yesterday. And we all have puzzle prototyping homework for that meeting.

Allen