Yearbook

Status

::PROTO::

Location

Anywhere

Type

Optional Puzzle

Plot Setup

None required

Short Description

Secret message in the pages of a yearbook.

Manager

Lisa

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.