Original Concept

Back To Doctor When’s Excellent Adventure--Original Concept

Revised: August 30, 2009

BASIC STRUCTURE Doctor When has invited the participants to witness the unveiling of his life's greatest achievement: a time machine. Before their very eyes he jumps inside to demonstrate it...but, of course, it goes haywire and he gets lost (bouncing around?) in time.

Then the lab assistant asks the players to help him figure out how to operate the time machine so that he can retrieve Doctor When. Specifically he asks the teams to perform a number of “research projects” and investigate a number of “puzzling” phenomena over the course of a day and evening.

Some of these are direct attempts to communicate by Doctor When…but he has to keep them very subtle (such as encoded) so as not to pollute the time line; other messages are simply altered by the passage of time. Thus there is an “in character” reason for the puzzles to exist.

Along the way they learn that a crucial temporal vortex will open at midnight. So all the investigators gather at that time to crack one last enormous mystery, and together they rescue Doctor When.

INSPIRATION Time Travel-Related Movies: • Back to the Future • Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure • Weird Science? • Doctor Who

FUN PHRASES TO USE Great Scott! 3.1 gigawatts Flux capacitor TARDIS Heavy 88 miles per hour; Delorean

Background • All the puzzles have a time theme • The hosts would be Doctor When, his beleaguered assistant Rodney, and a airhead super sexy female assistant (who flirts with the mad scientist but he never notices) • At the start of the game all the teams are gathered. Dr. demos a time machine. It's actually similar to a magician's trick: it can be opened...but when it's closed stage hands in back can put things in and take things out. • Perhaps the lab could have various mementos sprinkled about giving hints about the early lives of both Doctor When (and Prof. Chronus—see below), Rodney (and his parents—see below), and Kitty.

Pre-Game • Since the teams will be visiting a “high tech lab,” they will be required to wear security badges. Perhaps these could form some sort of pre-game puzzle.

The Lab Accident • Perhaps game could start with a presentation by Doctor When detailing his path to discovery…with lots of funny charts and illustrations of his failed prototypes. (He can poke fun of early designs based on phone booths, such as in “Bill & Ted” and “Doctor Who.”) He could also say things that turn out to be hints and foreshadowing. • Maybe at the start he could introduce his Brain-O-Matic supercomputer (or some other fun name). He could mention that he is always concerned about people trying to steal his ideas (foreshadowing Prof. Chronus—see below) and so has lots of security built into his computer. (Later on there could be a puzzle to figure out the password to his computer.) • The machine will vibrate and make strange noises when it operates; these should be mainly electrical...but with a few mechanical (plumbing?) noises thrown in...and a random animal noise at the end (dog barking, cow mooing, etc....maybe the animal noise could be a metapuzzle) • Of course, the time machine starts acting up right away. For example, while he's speaking it seems to activate on its own and 20 objects materialize (or the same number as the number of teams). • Still, Doctor When proceeds with taking a test journey...just a minute into the future. It does not go well. Doctor When does not reappear. He must be in trouble! So Rodney enlists the help of the teams to fix the contraption and get Doctor When back. • Of course, Rodney doesn't know exactly how it works...so the teams will have to help figure it all out.

The Research Projects The dual-duty puzzle Neither Rodney nor the players know who sent them the “packages” that comprise the first puzzle. However, solving them should require that they are all disassembled.

Much later in the day the time machine will be restored to at least partially-working order: it can send inanimate objects. Somehow they will realize that they themselves are, in fact, the ones who sent the packages that arrived at the start of the game. So the teams will have to “complete the time loop” by reassembling their puzzles and then sending each through the time machine to the past. Thus the same puzzle becomes *two* puzzles. (This is a homage to “Bill & Ted.”) The other puzzles

Mix Tape Puzzle: What’s more ancient than mix tapes?! One puzzle could include songs with "time" in them. Some would make numbers, some would describe mathematical operations. • If I could put time in a bottle (multiplication) • Nothing from nothing leaves nothing (subtraction • Wait till the midnight hour (12) • Oh what a night (1963) • Time Keeps Slipping Into The Future (release date of the song) • Time Has Come Today • Time (Pink Floyd) • Add It Up

"It's life...but not as we know it!" Puzzle: Maybe some strange life form from the far future helps out by sending a message. Instead of sending a biological life form (which is difficult for time travel) they send an artificial life form: some sort of weird computer with blinking lights. At first Kitty doesn’t know what it is, but Rodney declares, “It’s life…but not as we know it.” Then the teams have to figure out how to communicate with it. (And perhaps in the end it offers to help only in return for some odd compensation: like they can't get a good bagel in the 27th century...)

Photoshop Puzzle: Rodney suspects that Doctor When is trying to communicate with us through time. But he can only make subtle changes or else dangerously pollute the time line. Maybe the teams could find these “subtle” changes made by Doctor When in various points in famous history: old newspaper clippings of JFD (but with the doctor in the background), famous pieces of art that show him in the background (now he’s depicted in “American Gothic”?). Maybe they have to go to an art museum and find these changes…or simply a coffee table book of art.

Growing Older/Growing Younger Puzzle: The teams will return to the lab at various points. As the machine is slowly fixed Rodney is willing to try it...but only to send and receive only inanimate objects through time machine. This will allow fun puzzles where to figure it out the team has to put things in, set the knobs in various ways, and then push "start." For example, Rodney could say that the machine is now operating as a device that makes things older or younger. You could put a flower or a burning candle in...and when it comes out it's instantaneously half burnt. Put it in again, and it's *less* burnt.

Sabotage: Perhaps it turns out that part of the problem is that Doctor When's invention was sabotaged by his long-time nemesis, Prof. Chronus. The players can help defeat Prof. Chronus. "Prof. Chronus's Crazy Clock"? (It might be invigorating to have a new character injected into the game half way through.)

Matchmaker Puzzle: Perhaps the teams have to make a Rodney’s parents fall in love by responding to his mother’s Bay Guardian personal ad on his behalf so that Rodney is born? They have to figure out which PO Box to send it to based on a puzzle contained within the text of the response letter (which they somehow have obtained)

Parallel Universe Puzzle: At some point Rodney thinks that the machine has been repaired enough to risk human travel. Have the players go back in time to rescue Doctor When. But, in fact, it does not send them back in time. But rather to a parallel universe that is *just slightly* different from our own. For example, in this universe, Kitty is a brilliant scientist and Rodney is an airhead. [Basically, while the players are in the time machine the cast can change outfits and the lab can be slightly altered.] Then the players have to investigate to figure out the slight differences between our world and the parallel dimension. That will form a puzzle. And once they solve the puzzle then can reset the machine to return home.

A Group Effort: WOuld love to get "3.1 gigawatts" into the game, but we can't plan lightning. But perhaps the teams can come to realize that they all must do something right at the stroke of midnight. This could become a big group puzzle at end. Perhaps 26-digit hex puzzle to get onto wifi network? Each team solves two digits?

MISCELLANEOUS IDEAS

• A Braille puzzle using six packs of beer • Mythical creature “math” puzzle, http://www.flickr.com/photos/preshaa/3847027500/sizes/l/; perhaps could also notice that creature names can relate to geography, such as Phoenix, AZ • Perhaps the game can consist of ten puzzles, first with 1-digit answer, second with 2-digit, etc. • Get the "butterfly effect" in there somehow? • Perhaps they start to realize that Doctor When knew something was up from the start. Perhaps the sneaky Doctor When had planned it all along. • 7 digit puzzle solves to phone number. The teams have to dial the number for more clues. • 10-digit solves to physical key? Get them to actually go to a locksmith and have the key made? • 6-digit puzzle is combo lock? • Would love to have someone accidentally sent to the time of dinosaurs. • Must have a flux capacitor. • A clock arithmatic puzzle. • A sundial puzzle. • Would love to have physical tiles turn out to be binary code. The team will have to sneak into a bathroom and write down the tiles. • Perhaps a puzzle resolves to a dewey decimal number and they look something up in a book? • Perhaps they have to get info from the past and do a sports bet? (Homage to Back To The Future)