3.12 Yearbook (Jiffy Pop) Puzzle, Closing the Loop

Status

::REVISE::

Location

Name And Address: "Paine Memorial High School" -- actually Highlands Rec. Center, 1851 Lexington Ave. San Mateo, CA 94402; this puzzle uses two sites at this location: the Gym and the Student Journalism Office.

GC PoC: Erik & Melissa

Parking: N/A

Type

Mandatory Puzzle

Plot Setup

• Players have just fixed Prof. Chronus's time machine and are returning to Peach Frontier Laboratories to see her re-materialize.
• But upon returning to the lab they found it is once again Trenchwood Institute and they realized they are right back at the beginning of the Act I timeline
• The Doctor's time machine demonstration has once again gone awry.
• The visitors have instantly solved three key technical problems for fixing the time machine: unscrambling the core dump, designing a new co-keypad #34, and hacking the password to the supercomputer
• The Doctor realized the players are in an infinite time loop...which reminded him of strange poem in his high school yearbook...which he didn't understand at the time...but the players decoded to reveal instructions on how to break the loop.
• The players have been sent through the repaired time machine back to Paine Memorial High School in 1986 and so that they can do the newspaper-altering mission
• The time machine has created some sort of disguise field around the players so that they blend in to the era they are visiting
• The players have successfully altered the newspaper and want to return home through the return time wormhole archway

Props

Each teams' original Jiffy Pop gadget; "presidents poster"

Gym

• return time wormhole archway
• remote control for archway

Student Journalism Office

• Sign over door (may already be on site)
• Posters of USA presidents (may already be on site)
• Painter's tape (may already be on site)
• Counter bin (may already be on site)
• Stack of 11" X 17" paper (may already be on site)
• Set of gold star stickers
• Poster of proofreading marks (may already be on site)
• Poster of writing checklists (may already be on site)
• "Cheat sheet" list of the presidents
• Wax machine
• Wax
• Layout board
• Scissors
• Presidential trivia tests

Plot Point to Convey

The team sent the mysterious message to themselves, from their own future.

Short Description

Re-construct the puzzle that was received earlier.

Open Time Period

Gym: Sunday, 11:30 AM-3 PM

Yearbook Office: Sunday, 11:30 AM-3 PM

Staff Instructions

Note To All Staff: During this portion of the Game you're pretending you're in 1986. So don't let the players see you use any modern technology (such as cell phones and laptop computers).

Gym

Your Role: You are Tiresias, the all-knowing game fairy (not that there's anything wrong with that), currently posing as the head janitor of Paine Memorial High School.

Handout Instructions: There’s no puzzle here. Instead, teams will come here twice:

1) After they’ve placed the envelope in the locker. These teams will be wearing iridescent smiley-face stickers (but not gold stars). When they approach you, make the archway flashing red. Then say:

Howdy, y'all! I'm guessing your mission went well. But what's up with your return portal? That flashing red can't be good. You didn't screw up the timeline, did you?

Teams will probably be confused. Then say:

Think, think! Did you kill your grandfather? Assassinate Hitler? Step on a butterfly? Not step on a butterfly? Did you forget to leave something for your future self to find?

Teams now must realize that the the “cryptic poem” - which Doctor When cut into the yearbook pieces that formed a secret message that told them to go back in time - was originally “written” by them. If teams aren’t getting this, be more and more explicit.

What about that message that told you to go back time in the first place? Do you remember where that came from?

Teams might need to be reminded that Chronos said that the pieces came from a “cryptic poem” in the yearbook. (The “hourglass” grid they assembled back at the lab wasn’t a cryptic poem - it didn’t make any sense at all.) They need to go find out what that original yearbook entry was, and make sure it gets in the yearbook somehow.

When they finally figure this out (or are told), say:

Oh, that's so Time Travel 101. Well, get to it. Don't want the universe to implode. Secret messages aren't going to write themselves! Y'all better get to the student journalism office and get that message in the yearbook. Then come on back and we can check the archway again.

Teams proceed to the journalism office for the Jiffy Pop 2 puzzle.

2) After they’ve completed Yearbook 2 (getting the cryptic message in the yearbook) - these players will have gold stars from the journalism assistant. When they approach you, make the archway solid red (not flashing red) and say:

That looks better! The archway isn't blinking anymore. It's still not glowing green, so why don't you stick around for a few minutes, and something dramatic might happen! If you haven’t had lunch, you can go eat, or you can check out the science fair.

Players are now done with the mandatory puzzles. They’re free to have lunch, solve optional puzzles (Lunch, Apple II, making banners, etc.), or look at the science fair exhibits - and you can point them toward any of these options.

Hints: Teams cannot call in for hints, since they’re in 1986. Teams that are stuck must rely on you; see the instructions above.

Answers: The “answer” in step 1 is for teams in steps 1 or 2 to realize they’re “not done yet” - they have some sort of “time loop” they have to close (getting the cryptic poem in the yearbook).

The “answer” in step 2 is for teams to realize that they’re pretty much done and that they can kill time until the finale.

Site Close Down: Clean up.

Other Instructions:

• Stay in character--you are Tiresias, a janitor at Paine Memorial High School.
• Except...if a team says "time out," then break character.
• If a team comes to you before placing the envelope in the locker (they have neither the “I gave a gift to a student” or the journalism “gold star” stickers), remind them that they probably have some important business to attend to. Because you’re Tiresias, you can help them remember what they need to do - find the envelope, change the writing on the newspaper, and put it back in the locker.

Student Journalism Office

Your Role: You are an assistant journalism teacher at Paine Memorial High School.

What Your Character Knows: Due to the disguise field that the time machine projects around the players, they appear to you to be students. You know nothing of Trenchwood Institute or time travel.

Setup Instructions:

• Turn on the waxer--it needs time to heat up!
• Set out pasteup boards
• Make sure there is a sign on the door saying Journalism Office.
• Make sure there is a poster on the wall showing the presidents in a strange grid.
• Make sure there is a bin on the counter with a sign saying “PLACE YEARBOOK SUBMISSIONS HERE”.
• Make sure you have a set of gold star stickers.
• Make sure there are two posters on the wall - Proofreading Marks and Writing Checklist.
• Make sure you have a list of the order of the presidents. Keep this hidden.

Handout Instructions:

• There’s nothing for you to hand out to teams. The puzzle here is contained in the presidents poster and the yearbook pieces that teams brought with them to the school.
• Don't let players eat lunch in here
• Don't let players not working on the puzzle hang out in here
• Don't let players take the posters off of the walls.
• Don't let players who are not wearing iridescent smiley-face stickers hang out in here. (The stickers indicate they've completed a required prior puzzle.) Perhaps tell such players, "don't you have better things to do?"

Hints:Teams cannot call in for hints, since they’re in 1986. They need to rely on you. If teams ask about how they submit something to the yearbook, tell them simply to wax their typesetting or artwork, lay it out on a piece of paste-up board and drop it in the bin. If they’re confused about what to do and say something like “we’re supposed to write some sort of cryptic poem,” you can say:

I’m not sure what you want to submit. On a totally unrelated note: do you see that poster with the presidents on it? Isn’t that grid on the top strange? Have you ever seen anything like it?

The players have seen the grid before - it’s the same shape that they assembled earlier that morning with the cut-out pieces that Chronos gave them. It looks like an hourglass laying on its side.

They should do what the poster says: take the pieces from the "hourglass" configuration and reassemble them into the lower configuration, by finding the piece associated with the George Washington place on the president grid and placing it in slot #1 on the lower grid, finding the piece associated with John Adams and placing it in slot #2, and so on.

When done, the "poem" grid has a row of four pieces, four rows of nine pieces each, and a final row of four pieces. The configuration also has a pattern with a blue X on alternating red and yellow columns. The poem reads: On the Unused Future Trapped in loops in time unable to go right Words in the newspaper will help them to unite Change back and revise the show to its opposite You're finally writing a new ending with happiness infinite Replace what you create

Players may worry that they don’t know all of the presidents. There are several ways for them to make progress anyway:

1. They should know the first few presidents (Washington, Adams, Jefferson...) and the last several (44, 43, 42, 41, Reagan, Carter...). Then, they should be able to "get close" with many presidents, at least putting them in the right era.
2. Each piece must have the right orientation (triangle up or down). For instance, if players know that Harding and Coolidge come between Wilson and Hoover, but can't remember whether Harding or Coolidge comes first, the orientation should tell them.
3. They're constructing an actual poem, so they should try to make intelligible English lines of poetry.
4. They may notice that the colors seem to be forming a pattern - red and yellow stripes with a big blue X.
5. They can get help from other players - or, eventually, from you.
6. They can scrutinize the presidential trivia test; the answers aren't there, but they can deduce some information just from the questions.

If a team is having trouble with a few last presidents, or it’s after 2:20, you can help them with the president order. If it’s after 2:35 PM, you should help teams construct the poem. All teams should be done with the puzzle by 2:55 PM.

Answers: Once they reconstruct the poem, it's possible that they may have forgotten what to do next, and expect the poem to give them some sort of clue. Although the poem is meant to reflect what the players are doing - helping When and Chronos unite, "revising the show", and writing a new, happy ending - it doesn't give any instructions.

Instead, players need to remember that their goal is to "close the loop" and create the message that Wesley will cut out and then Catherine will give to them in 2012 - and to do so, they need to put the completed poem in the yearbook submission bin.

• To submit their answer, the players should actually run their puzzle pieces through the waxer and arrange them on the paste-up board. Then they'll put the board in the "submissions" basket.
• Check their work.
  • If it's wrong, "reject" their submission. You can telling them that it's not "laid out correctly" or that their submission doesn't quite seem like "yearbook material" or something similar to guide them in the right direction.
  • If it's correct give each player a "I submitted to the yearbook" sticker and instruct them to put it on their person.
• After each correct submission, discreetly take it out of the bin and hide it away so the other teams don't see it. (We want them to have the illusion that they're the only ones putting the poem in the yearbook.)
• You may run out of paste-up board. If so, feel free to peel the pieces off of a submitted board and then put the newly-blank board back in the pile.

Site Close Down:

• Clean up
• Return materials to GC HQ

Other Instructions:

• Stay in character.
• Except ... if a team says "time out," break character and help them.
• It is possible teams may ask about the “teacher’s lounge” (and may specifically ask about TRASH cans in the teacher’s lounge). This is not the teacher’s lounge (it will be in the future, but you don’t know that), and there are no TRASH cans here.

Detailed Description

Like the slogan for "Jiffy Pop" popcorn, this puzzle is supposed to be as fun to make as it is to solve. They've already solved it, now they make it. They are sent to the school Journalism room to insert their puzzle into the yearbook, assembled according to pattern established by a nearby poster of U.S. Presidents.

Puzzle Answer

Submission of correct configuration is approved by GC staffer

http://weihwa.com/~whuang/nodir/doctorwhen/yearbook/solution-part2.pdf

Puzzle Solution

The journalism office has a poster showing two grids:

1) 44 presidents (the 1st 40, plus the 4 slots for the presidents elected post-1986) in the "hourglass" configuration from the solution of the first Jiffy Pop puzzle.

2) Below this, another grid in a different shape with numbers 1-44.

Players take the pieces from the "hourglass" configuration and reassemble them into the lower "poem" configuration, by finding the piece associated with the George Washington place on the president grid and placing it in slot #1 on the lower grid, finding the piece associated with John Adams and placing it in slot #2, and so on.

When done, the "poem" grid has a row of four pieces, four rows of nine pieces each, and a final row of four pieces. The configuration also has a pattern with a blue X on alternating red and yellow columns.

The poem reads:

On the Unused Future

Trapped in loops in time unable to go right

Words in the newspaper will help them to unite

Change back and revise the show to its opposite

You're finally writing a new ending with happiness infinite

Replace what you create

Players must reassemble the poem with the pieces from the first Jiffy Pop puzzle, affix it to a piece of paper found in the journalism room, and place it in the bin of submissions for the yearbook - thereby ensuring that the poem will be printed in the yearbook, where Catherine can find it and cut it out and give it to the players in 2012, thus "closing the loop".

Manager

Eric L

Hints

Ask teams what they have done, probing details if necessary (often this will get a team unstuck by themselves).

- The process of reconstructing the poem starting from the "hourglass" shape should be fairly straightforward - assuming the players know the presidents! Of course, since they're in 1986, they can't do internet research...

- If players are having trouble figuring out the order of the presidents, there are a few tricks they can use:

1) They should know the first few presidents (Washington, Adams, Jefferson...) and the last several (44, 43, 42, 41, Reagan, Carter...). Then, they should be able to "get close" with many presidents, at least putting them in the right era.

2) Each piece must have the right orientation (triangle up or down). For instance, if players know that Harding and Coolidge come between Wilson and Hoover, but can't remember whether Harding or Coolidge comes first, the orientation should tell them.

3) They're constructing an actual poem, so they should try to make intelligible English lines of poetry.

4) They may notice that the colors seem to be forming a pattern - red and yellow stripes with a big blue X.

5) Finally, they can get help from other players - or, eventually, from the lab assistants.

Once they reconstruct the poem, it's possible that they may have forgotten what to do next, and expect the poem to give them some sort of clue. Although the poem is meant to reflect what the players are doing - helping When and Chronos unite, "revising the show", and writing a new, happy ending - it doesn't give any instructions.

Instead, players need to remember that their goal is to "close the loop" and create the message that Catherine will cut out and give to them in 2012 - and to do so, they need to put the completed poem in the yearbook submission bin.

(The last line of the poem - "replace what you create" - can be interpreted as an instruction: they players "create" the poem by assembling it, and then "replace" it in the submission bin. This is vague and cryptic, though, and is meant more as "potentially consistent" than as a necessary instruction.)

If players need to leave the journalism room and go back to consult with Tiresias, that's fine. For instance, Tiresias could remind them that they need to close the loop by sending themselves the message - and where did they get the message? From the yearbook, so they'd better figure out how to get it printed in the yearbook.

Response to Correct Answer

n/a

To Do

• Print large size poster of U.S. Presidents