Yearbook
From DoctorWhen
Contents
- 1 Order
- 2 Status
- 3 Location
- 4 GC Point of Contact
- 5 Location Notes
- 6 Type
- 7 Plot Setup
- 8 Props
- 9 Plot Point to Convey
- 10 Short Description
- 11 Open Time Period
- 12 Staff Instructions
- 13 Detailed Description
- 14 Puzzle Answer
- 15 Puzzle Solution
- 16 Budget
- 17 Credits
- 18 Manager
- 19 Hints
- 20 Response to Correct Answer
- 21 To Do
- 22 Other Notes
Order
Abandoned
Status
::PROTO::
Location
Status: something
GC PoC: someone
Parking: N/A
Notes: None n/a
GC Point of Contact
n/a
Location Notes
Anywhere
Type
Optional Puzzle
Plot Setup
None required
Props
Plot Point to Convey
Short Description
Secret message in the pages of a yearbook.
Open Time Period
When?
Staff Instructions
Your Role: Lab Assistant.
Handout Instructions: Do something.
Site Close Down: Clean up.
Other Instructions:
- Stay in character.
- Except ... if a team says "time out," break character and help them.
Detailed Description
Puzzle Answer
Puzzle Solution
Budget
Credits
Manager
Lisa
Hints
Ask teams what they have done, probing details if necessary (often this will get a team unstuck by themselves).
Response to Correct Answer
?
To Do
Create and playtest version 3.
Other Notes
Playtest notes from 2011-04-04.
Trisha playtested this puzzle mostly by herself, with Wei-Hwa acting as gruntwork + GC, since Wei-Hwa knew too much about how the puzzle worked. The puzzle was solved in about one hour, although not without hints. The next three sections are: * Issues we had with the puzzle; * Suggestions for future versions; * Raw transcript of the solving session. -------------------------------- Overall, the puzzle is an improvement over the last version, but some of the changes have added to potential frustration. Here are the major issues we identified: * An elegant data-driven puzzle manages to use all of its data exactly once. This puzzle has a substantial amount of unused data (e.g., the photographs, the punning in the name), which isn't great but tolerable. More importantly, there are critical data (Xs and Os) which are used TWICE. The Xs and Os not only describe the rows and columns of the person you are looking for, but they also are used for the ordering of the message. I am guessing this was done to give the solver extra confirmation, but it had the opposite effect -- once the solver figured out that the Xs and Os corresponded with the rows and columns, they considered that information "used up" and never went back to it again. This was exacerbated by the fact that the same first name often appears multiple times, reinforcing the concept that the Xs and Os are mostly used to disambiguate which Helen or which Jack is to be used. * The photograph section, as a whole, turns out to give very little information at all. Since you are indexing early into the name, and people are already signing their first name, with only the signature page you can get the message ?REAKINT??HEJOINT. This feels rather inelegant; it would be better if the photograph section had a larger role in the solving of the puzzle. * There are several inconsistencies and cuteness -- the punniness of the names, the fact that the same name appears multiple times, the fact that the names are in roughly alphabetical order but not completely. Generally all of these are signals that there is some puzzle construction constraint that these are trying to disguise or signal. But it turns out that these are complete red herrings -- there is no reason at all, for example, why "Kari" needs to be sorted with the Cs, except perhaps to deliberately mislead the solvers. ---------------------------------- Here are our suggestions for how we think the puzzle could be improved: * Don't use row/column as the primary sort key; the X/O can solely be used as row-column confirmation. Perhaps the signatures might sometimes be nicknames, so that the X/O will then serve as disambiguation. * Instead of using row/column as primary sort key, hide a primary sort key within each page. For example: ** One person on each page could have an embedded number in their name ("Tyrone", "Pat Woo", "Keith Reese"...). ** Acrostic -- read the first letters of names on a page and it spells out a number, or even a trivia clue that points to a number ("BRUCEWILLISMONKEYS") Make it so that there is *exactly* one person used from each page. * Have deeper indexing, so that you're not grabbing letters from the first name all the time. Alternatively, just index into the last name. ---------------------------------- Raw transcript (numbers are in minutes): 0 - start 3 - writing XO! data onto pictures 11 - wrote most of data, with exception of Dinah and Kari 12 - noticed that X and O seemed to mostly correspond with rows and columns. Started to transcribe picture data (page, row, column) back onto "comments" page. 19 - discovered that there were three people named "Helen". 29 - attempted to use "!" as index into name, but was ordering by page. Got nonsense. 34 - found a fourth Helen, then two Jacks. Trisha visibly frustrated. 40 - GC (Wei-Hwa) asks if Trisha wants a hint. Trisha refuses but asks if she can confirm information. She asks if the "!" are supposed to be indexes and Wei-Hwa says yes. She asks if her letters are correct and Wei-Hwa confirms that they are mostly correct. Trisha then starts a process of confirming letter counts -- "Is there one B? Yes. Is there one K? Yes. Are there two Ts? Uhh...." Wei-Hwa realizes that if he says "Yes", it may mislead Trisha into thinking there are no more Ts, but if he says "there are at least two Ts" then it effectively is giving Trisha a hint she hasn't asked for. So he starts saying "there are at least" answers to all the questions. 42 - Trisha says she is frustrated. She says she doesn't like the vague alphabetical order of the pictures that isn't accurate, doesn't like the repeated first names, and doesn't like the fact that the row/column X/Os don't always match. 47 - Wei-Hwa finds Kari among the "C"s. Trisha says sarcastically that that is "not annoying at all." 54 - Trisha finally asks for a hint. Wei-Hwa's hint is "The order of the letters is not arbitrary; there is a reasonable ordering that will put them in the correct order for your message." 58 - Trisha figures out the correct ordering and starts to make good progress. 60 - Wei-Hwa is unable to stifle a laugh as he realizes that Trisha is taking about 5 page flips to figure out what the 5th letter of "Helen" is. 63 - Puzzle Solved.