110428 Drop Dead Dates and Core Dump 2 Puzzle

Only 20 weeks to go!

Allen, Erik, and Sean were joined by David Greenspan (whose first public puzzle will appear in tomorrow's DASH).

FYI, David informed us that he's very technically proficient in Illustrator...perhaps we can entice him to apply those skills later on as our Game needs more polish.

DROP DEAD DATES

We reviewed and revised Allen's draft list of production activity categories, activities in each category, and drop dead dates for each activity. (See the Google Docs for this document.)

It became obvious that we need to accelerate our recruiting of videography, web design, graphic design, and set design talent. Similarly, we'll probably need to have our web site up and running within 1 or 2 months if we want to give our applicants a relaxed amount of time to complete their applications.

• Allen to put some thought into drop dead dates for each activity on the spreadsheet. After he revises, other team members will be invited to review and revise.

• Allen to begin recruiting efforts for missing areas of expertise (see above). If anyone else already has leads in these area, please contact him!

RETRIEVE THE LETTER

Sean presented a rough idea of an activity (not puzzle) in the "Retrieve The Letter" slot. Basically we'll set up a temporary "Archeological Dig" site (or maybe outpost of the San Francisco Historical Society") near the Ft. Point location of the scene from "Vertigo." An actor portraying the guard will refuse to let them enter without a badge. The players will be faced with a "creative problem solving" task of figuring out how to get or make a badge (or otherwise get past the guard).

One solution is that behind the guard will be a big pile of used badges. The players will also find nearby the components of a makeshift fishing pole. If one teammate can just distract the guard while the other reaches in to snare an old badge...

We liked the idea, but had some concern that if a team sees another team use the pole, then they won't have the fun of coming up with the idea by themselves. Perhaps there's some way we could build the structure so that one cannot see what another team is doing.

There was also some concern about whether a team would feel know that it is OK within the Game context to deceive an authority figure character. Perhaps we could have Ty on the scene to nudge them.

Perhaps in addition there might be a way for teams to make their own badges. Or other creative solutions.

Once inside the fake dig or office or exhibit of ancient San Francisco documents, there might be additional creativity required to find the correct envelope. That process might even require the players to look at the contents of the envelop, which is something we need them to do to understand this element of the plot.

CORE DUMP 2 PUZZLE

We playtested David's Core Dump 2 puzzle. It's a tessellation puzzle with custom laser cut acrylic pieces in the shapes of apple cores. Our eyes bugged out with glee as soon as we saw them. The puzzle solved cleanly, was very in-character, and fun to solve.

We might revise the accompanying artwork into ASCII art form to be more related to a computer core dump. Also, we might want to add in another layer of complexity to make it a little longer. But for now we're considering it *done*.

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As always, revisions, corrections, amplifications, etc. are welcome.

Allen