110915 Act II Registration Maze and More

29 weeks to go!

Allen, Erik, Sean & Wei-Hwa attended.

PUZZLE STATUS

Welcome to a new weekly feature of our status report: the numbers. We're targeting approximately 40 puzzles/activities in our final game, about half of which are mandatory and the rest optional for the "rabbit" teams. Our work-in-progress inventory is now:

11 unclaimed 19 prototype development 5 revising prototypes 4 final polishing

Over time those numbers will all migrate to the bottom.

Art History--Justin is reworking this puzzle.

PUZZLES--MESSAGES FROM THE PAST?

Erik pointed out that puzzles presented as encoded/garbled messages from the past may pose some difficulty fitting in to our plotline. What messages could Doctor When or Prof. Chronos send us from the past that would would really help us in 2012 to help them?

Certainly it makes story sense that if a time machine component breaks down in 2012 the lab assistants would call up the players in a tizzy asking for their help to fix the problem. But would Chronos or When have anything useful to tell the people safely in 2012?

This is important because a) garbled messages from the past was one of the first motivators for this whole time travel puzzle hunt concept, and b) several of the optional puzzles are heading in that direction.

One solution that Allen thought of is that perhaps When or Chronos has a hunch about what went wrong or a suggestion of what he/she would check if he/she was there. So a message could be "CHECK HEISENBERG COMPENSATOR"...which then also serves to motivate a follow-up optional puzzle.

For all the puzzles that use this particular motivation, we'll have to adjust for them in the day-of-game optional puzzle assignment heuristic.

We'll try to think up additional appropriate motivations for messages from the past.

VIDEO

The video team needs to nail down its production schedule so it can give deadlines to Acorn and Ken for their props.

PROPS

Trisha has started writing stories for the Paine Memorial student newspaper.

LOCATION/SETS STATUS

Shoresh and Allen visited the locations for the high school scenes and the labs for the purpose of taking thorough measurements. These measurements will allow Shoresh to move forward with his set design. He hopes to have design ideas to present at the next or subsequent meeting.

By the way, the new location for the lab scenes--Highlands Elementary School's auditorium--is FANTASTIC. Plus it's a very short walk from the Rec Center, which is fantastic for Acts II & III in which the players have to go from one to the other.

Erik & Melissa have cleaned out their garage and so can start storing set components.

WEEKLY DECLARATIONS

Allen suggested a new way of motivating ourselves to make steady progress: each week each of us can announce one task that he/she will endeavor to have completed by the next week.

Wei-Hwa wasn't as enthused since such declarations would put pressure on ourselves...but Allen, Erik, and Sean thought that maybe we should start putting more pressure on ourselves.

We'll try it and see if we like it. But it's optional. Wei-Hwa prefers just to identify which task is currently the top priority of his list.

Allen--revise script to incorporate recent changes that he, Erik, and Wei-Hwa identified Erik--(oops...I forgot to write his down) Sean--progress on Retrieve The Letter activity Wei-Hwa--his top priority tasks are the two compressor puzzles

Team members not attending our Thursday meetings are welcome and invited to make weekly declarations, too. Just email 'em to Allen to include in the notes.

PLAYTESTING--REGISTRATION MAZE

Wei-Hwa presented an exciting activity for the very start of Act II. Each player will have to fill out a registration form...but correctly filling out the form will require interacting with many other players and will use their scientist, journalist, government agent, investor roles. It tested very well.

Erik will modify the flavor text to make even more use of the four roles. And we must remember the color schemes used in this activity when we design the name tags for the players.

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As always, please respond with any corrections, revisions, amplifications, etc. on my notes.

Allen