1.04 Choose Your Own Adventure

Order

1.05

Status

::MOCKUP::

Location Status

Done deal

GC Point of Contact

Dwight

Location Notes

Room within Joe Freund's home in the Haight. (632 Cole Street, San Francisco)

Parking lot two blocks away. (ABC Parking, 801 Stanyan St)

Type

Mandatory Puzzle

Plot Setup

Prof. Chronus needs access to the Doctor's super secure Brain-O-Matic 2000 supercomputer, which contains key data needed to finish installing the midi ring. But she doesn't have the password. Over their years of friendship he's hinted that he always uses the same password and stored it for himself in puzzle format in case he forgot it himself.

Props

Childhood memoribilia for set dressing and foreshadowing.

Might also (just for fun) include a poster board or notebook of Wesley's really big invention ideas. These will all be things that turned out to be big hits (Twitter, Google, etc.), but each is crossed out with some derisive comment ("144 characters messages?--too short!"). The only one that remains is enthusiastically circled at the bottom, "time machine!"

We could also possibly have an empty picture frame (where he used to store the newspaper clipping), possibly with a note, "not this time." We could also display cryptic trajectory calculations and diagrams (that turn out to relate to the science fair).

Plot Point to Convey

Young Wesley had the hots for young Buffy.

Short Description

"Choose your own adventure" book, inspired by "Caves Of Time." Yields a security password.

How To Give To Teams

Co-Keypad Puzzle page has the boiler plate text for the email (since those that one has an email response and this one has an email motivation.)

Once at location, GC member playing Wesley's father gives them the book and shuffles them out to any of the local lunch establishments. (See pp. 9-10 of script.)

Puzzle Answer

Password = "BUFFYROCKS"

Puzzle Solution

The story has only 3 outcomes: conclusion 1, conclusion 2, or a "try again" page that sends you back to the beginning.

The "try again page" (16) actually describes the sequence of layers you will encounter in the course of solving this puzzle. They are called out below as GUIDING SPIRIT quotes.

GUIDING SPIRIT #1:  "You shouldn't be here. This is not the right path for you. You must start on the right path."

Starting from page 1, follow all right-hand choices at bottom of each page. All of them lead to a right-hand (odd-numbered) page, to further reinforce the right-ness, and it ends up at a conclusion (p31) instead of the "try again" page. Initial letters on this path spell a message:

1 23 7 19 21 17 9 25 29 5 27 11 3 15 31
PAGE NUMBERS INDEX

For reference, the story on this path flows as follows:

• straight to castle
• accept princess quest to slay dragon
• encounter troll bridge
• detour to blacksmith
• proceed to wizard
• detour to grouchy
• fight dragon
• return and stay with princess

GUIDING SPIRIT #2:  "The being of light extends its index finger"

Following the same path, and indexing the text on each page by its page number, yields this sequence of letters:

PARIGRAPH LENGTHS
(There was a typo in one playtested draft, to be fixed for game: PARAGRAPH)

GUIDING SPIRIT #3:  "... the route you have chosen ... look at it with remorse."

On that same path, each page now represents a letter of morse code. Short paragraphs are dots, long paragraphs are dashes. The new message obtained reads:

L AND R ALTERNATING

GUIDING SPIRIT #4:  "There is an alternate path.  It does not start out right, but it ends well as well."

Find a new path starting from page 1, this time choosing the left option (does not start out right), then the right, and alternating thereafter.

A new, but still consistent, storyline is obtained on this path. It happens to use all even pages, which is an artifact of construction and not relevant to the solution. Like the other path, it ends with a happy conclusion (p32) (ends well as well).

 1 22  28 4  18 24  12 30  26 10  8 20  2 14  6 32

The new story flow is:

• farmer gossip
• minotaur
• gypsies, stay the night
• giant's castle
• hide in sheep
• find harp, treasure
• slay sleeping dragon
• rescue princess
• chased by giant
• bring her to your time

The first letters of the new path spell a new message:

PATHS AS SEMAPHORE

GUIDING SPIRIT #5:  "Are there any symbols or flags ...?"

The two choices at the bottom of each page on this path represent two cardinal directions. They may be of the form North + West, or Up + Left. Sometimes they're explicit in the choice text, sometimes the direction is given in the page body and only indirectly referred to in the choice text. In one case, some deduction is required to remember which direction was traveled FROM to arrive at this page, and the reverse of that direction matches the "go back" choice.

Matching the two directions to semaphore flag signal code yields this message:

XS BECOME BIG DOTS

GUIDING SPIRIT #6:  "you do not see. You must learn to see the right spots ... completely blinding you."

There are very few instances of the letter "X" (capital or lowercase) on the pages of this path. They are to be interpreted as Braille, in the frame of the whole page. This yields one more message:

PRIME PAGE ENDINGS

GUIDING SPIRIT #7:

There is no guiding spirit hint for the final step. Starting from the beginning of the book, look at the last letter on all page numbers that are prime. This is your final message:

2 3 5 7 11 13 17 19 23 29 31
BUFFY ROCKS!

Credits

• Dwight - concept and prototype.
• Wei-Hwa - structural revision.
• Trisha - narrative writing.

Manager

Trisha and Wei-Hwa

Hints

?

Response to Correct Answer

Team phones Institute. Answer is verified by lab assistant (p. 10 of script)

LAB ASSISTANT (O.C.)

Hello. Trenchwood Institute. How may I direct your call?

VISITOR 1

We're the ____ team. We've cracked the password to the Brain-O-Matic supercomputer.

LAB ASSISTANT (O.C.)

Excellent! What is it?

VISITOR 1

It's _____.

Use the following lines for an incorrect answer:

LAB ASSISTANT (O.C.)

Oh, that can't be right. We tried that one already. Would you keep working on it and call back later?

VISITOR 1

Sure thing!

The call ends.

Use the following lines for a correct answer:

LAB ASSISTANT (O.C.)

We haven't tried that one yet...let me patch you though to Prof. Chronos. But first...are you on speakerphone?

VISITOR 1

Absolutely.

LAB ASSISTANT (O.C.)

Excellent. I'll connect you.

PROF. CHRONOS (O.C.)

Hello! I hope you have good news--we really need to access his supercomputer!

VISITOR 1

The password is "BUFFYROCKS"!

PROF. CHRONOS (O.C.)

Buffy? He can't still be thinking about that stuck-up, conniving, boy-stealing bimbo of a cheerleader from high school, who right now is probably a waitress in an all-night diner? Buffy? I...

Keyboard sounds in the background as Prof. Chronos types in the password.

PROF. CHRONOS (O.C., CONT'D.)

I can't believe it. I just typed it in and it works!

VISITOR 1

What can we do now?

PROF. CHRONOS (O.C.)

Oh, yes, there's so much more we need your help with. But I have to rush off to an urgent calculation. I hope you don't mind if I hand you off to one of the lab assistants for your next research assignment.

Lab assistant sends them to either optional, role-oriented puzzle or Calibration puzzle.

To Do

Wei-Hwa is updating puzzle and encoding. Trisha is re-writing to unify the currently disparately-themed pages into a single coherent narrative. Retain flavor of episodes where possible, culture references. Add plot exposition that more closely mimics the solution method, as an extra hint for slow players (retain "You will visit me again" conclusion, expand on that idea for entire book).

Rigel to draft 1 cover + 6 interior art pieces. Allen has passed specifications to her.