110303 Detailed Discussion of Script

Hello team,

We had an intense and productive meeting last week.

LOCATION

Erik has placed a deposit on the recreation center. (We should make sure our financial controller reimburses him...oh wait, he's our financial controller.)

RECRUITING

Sean and Allen will talk on Monday to plan concrete steps for finding qualified technical director candidates.

PUZZLES

Erik is working on a prototype of the calibration/"Forrest Gump"/movie clip puzzle.

We brainstormed that maybe we should have a puzzle related to the midi-ether co-keypad ring that is musical in nature since that would be sort of a play on the word "midi."

We brainstormed that it might be fun to have a puzzle in 1986 using an old Atari arcade game. Sean thinks he could locate those old machines if we need 'em.

Trisha is going to contact all the potential puzzle authors and encourage them to pick a puzzle and start working on it.

SCRIPT

We used an in-depth discussion of the draft script as a means to iron out some plot issues. (I'm presenting the discussion a little out of order...I hope this revised order makes the agreements and conclusions make a bit more sense.)

• Should the adult version of Doctor When and Catherine Chronos be present in the 1986 science fair?

The current script includes substantial exposition by the adult When and Chronos in the gym (in all three Acts). There was general agreement to not do this and instead just show the high school versions of the characters. Erik dissented and felt that the exposition by the adult versions will make it clear to the players that they have succeeded at the end of each Act, and will provide much more emotional payoff at the end of Act III.

In Acts I & II the players will be watching the gym scene on their computers. So we can superimpose various fake time technology readings on the sides and bottom of the image...including a text box for the Brain-O-Matic 9000 computer to send messages to the players. We can use this text box to tell the players, "Temporal anomalies corrected. Time travel target Wesley When acquired and being returned to laboratory. Chronotonic radiation will return to safe levels by 9 PM. Return to laboratory then." (Or some such verbiage.)

• In Act III, how do the players get back to the present?

We agreed to introduce a new concept to our time travel mythology. Namely, that the time machine can project a glowing portal to any time/space coordinate. When it glows red it's not ready to be stepped through. When it glows green it is ready. We can even mention/foreshadow this idea in Act I or II.

So for Act III we can have the archway appear to the players in the gym (of course, all the non-player characters will be mysteriously unable to see it). It will switch from red to green just after young Wesley and Catherine smooch. That should give the players the hint that it's time to go back to the future.

• In Act III, how do the players know that they have to go back to 1986 and fix the time loop?

In the current draft the players sneak back to 1986 behind Prof. Chronos's back. But there's really no reason she couldn't learn about the time loop along with the players.

The Jiffy Pop puzzle solve could tell players and Prof. Chronos alike that someone must go back to 1986 and change "left" to "right" in the envelope. Prof. Chronos could claim that she has to stay behind and operate the time machine...so won't the players *please* go back themselves and save the universe? She can then also instruct the players about return trip archways, please don't change *anything* else in the timeline, etc. She can even hand the players a handy little pamphlet, "So you're going to be a time traveler."

• Should we have the character of Ty?

There was general agreement that the character of Ty was very funny and will be useful to make sure that the players behave properly in 1986. So he stays in.

Allen dissented with complaints that the character just comes "out of left field"/has no relation to any of the other time travel mythology in the story. It seems like a "writing crutch" to him.

Since we're going to have the character in, we will consider adding some foreshadowing by having him appear in Act I and/or II. Perhaps he's a time traveler from the future himself.

• In Act III when do the players send the Jiffy Pop puzzle to themselves?

A long discussion yielded no final decision on this thorny issue. Perhaps if someone comes up with a great prototype that will inspire modifications to the plot to accommodate it. [Wei-Hwa has since written the potential puzzle specifications up in a concise form and will ask his puzzly friends for ideas.]

The possibilities for when the puzzle first appears are: a) right after Doctor When disappears and the time machine malfunctions, and b) a couple of puzzles in. There was more enthusiasm for b), but some concern that it might leave the players disheartened for too long because it will appear they are doing the exact same thing as in Act I. However, there was greater concern that if we do a) the players will suspect that the early puzzles are *not* exact repeats of Act I and then be mad that they wasted lots of time on puzzles that aren't there.

And when do they send it back to themselves? The leading candidates are a) just before they go to 1986, b) while they're in 1986 (e.g., they leave hide it to be found in 2011), or c) when they return to 2011.

• When do the players see that the fix in Act I causes Catherine to be slimed?

The current draft doesn't show the players Catherine getting slimed. The possibilities are a) in the video at the end of Act I or b) in Act II. There was general agreement for a). But Allen was concerned that this approach will make the achievement of Act I far too bittersweet to be a satisfying emotional payoff during the first break and will ruin the surprise of seeing the lab transformed when they return to it. Others thought that's actually a feature...some teams will probably guess what's going to happen and will have the pleasure of feeling quite smug when they return to the altered laboratory and see that they're correct.

• Which should come first: the password puzzle or the pep ring puzzle?

The current draft has the pep ring puzzle first. But the pep ring prototype might work very well to "time compress" the fast and slow teams...if we need that towards the middle of an act. Wei-Hwa said not to worry about that for now. He can rework/migrate that general approach to compression to a later puzzle should we need it.

• In Act I, are we doing the big bang joke?

Several people didn't get the big bang joke in Act I and/or didn't find it funny. Certainly the Doctor needs to be somewhere/some time at the calibration puzzle. But should it be the big bang?

We'll leave it for now since it's a nice short solve phrase and attempt to improve the writing. But we may dump it later. Erik will pick since he's working on a prototype of the puzzle.

• In Act I, is the missing envelope a puzzle or just a retrieval mission?

No real decision here. But the retrieval location might be a good place for Ty to first appear.

• In Act II, what is the motivation for the art history puzzle?

In the current draft we haven't matched this puzzle up with a specific piece of the time machine that needs to be fixed. We'll just rewrite the script so Doctor When tells the players they have to do it.

• In Act III, how do the players transition from the present to the past?

See archway discussion above.

• In the denouement, what are the identities of the main characters?

We agreed that in the denouement the players will see a *fourth* version of Doctor When, Catherine Chronos (and Buffy!). This is the happier, cooler timeline versions of them (sort of like at the end of Back To The Future).

• Overall, what is Catherine's character/personality?

There was unanimous agreement that Catherine as currently written does not have a clearly-identifiable character nor appearance. They can be broad strokes/caricature, but they have to be easy to recognize from scene to scene.

We brainstormed several possibilities. We drifted towards trying to make her equally scientific *and* artistic (which foreshadows the art history puzzle). Her high school style will be an ill-advised homage to Cindi Lauper. Berets and Prince style are another fertile source of inspiration.

We noted that the films "She's All That," "Pick Up Artist" (and "Hot Tub Time Machine") might have useful 1986 fashion ideas.

NEXT STEPS

• Erik to work on calibration puzzle prototype.
• Sean and Allen to talk on Monday about technical director recruiting.
• Allen to revise the new character descriptions on the wiki
• Trisha to contact all the puzzle authors and start encouraging them to sign up for puzzles
• Wei-Hwa, et. al., to recruit at Equinox party

(* If I can find time this week--likely--I'm going to take a pass through the script and attempt to insert all these changes.)

This was *a lot* of stuff. Please reply with any revisions, corrections, amplifications, etc.

Allen