Save Our City - Public Post - NO SPOILERS PLEASE

[essentialsaltes]

Herein is public discussion of my Save Our City puzzle rally in Los Angeles.

If you are interested in the game, you can now download a PDF of the whole shebang, so that you too can Save Our City. (Thanks, Riz!) Go out and play! Have fun! (File also mirrored here

Players, please do not spoil any of the puzzles in this thread. Comments that I consider spoilers will be deleted. So keep your comments general, using words like "diabolical", "impossible", "asshole" and "evil", rather than referring directly to puzzles and locations. So it's fair to discuss your overall impressions as well as general aspects of the experience that won't be available to those playing at home (so to speak): the soundtrack, the party, the prizes, etc.

For spoiler-laden comments, please go to this thread. For those of you who haven't played the game, but might... don't read the spoiler thread, duh.

Once again, thanks are due to all the players, who generously allowed me to torment them under trying conditions. Despite the various stumbling blocks that I intentionally and unintentionally threw under your wheels, everyone seemed to be good natured about the whole thing.

Again I thank Becca who provided insight, advice, and nachos.

And notjenschiz, who offered advice and feedback on some puzzles.

And one person I forgot to thank last night, but who deserves it is aaronjv, whose ChronoAgents road rally inspired me to run my own (including the time travel theme, though I mixed in a huge dose of 12 Monkeys).



Getting teams checked in, cameras checked and modified, and teams under way was a bit frenetic, but once things got started, all 9 teams were on the road in less than 30 minutes. Total number of players I think was 33.

After that, I sat on my ass next to the phone for about an hour, before the first team called in for a clue. It was crazy going from frantic activity, to nothing. I really wanted to be riding along with each team to see how things were going.

Fielded a couple more calls before heading to the lunch location. Operation Grab Bags had arrived by the time I got there a couple minutes late (police were blocking an exit off the 105, causing thousands of Angelenos to slow down to look at the flashing lights). I got a chance to hang out with the teams as they arrived and chat a little bit, but I was still too wired, sleep-deprived and jumpy to enjoy much. Got everyone off on the afternoon/evening session and headed back to HQ, passing by the mission #11 location to see if it was still as I remembered it (it was).

Fielded many more calls after lunch for clues. Honestly, I didn't intend those puzzles to be harder - I tried to arrange things so that the morning missions would be better for daylight hours (I failed at that too, to some extent). Team Platypus tried its hardest to turn this into a LARP after all, and I got plenty of confusing communications from them. This also had the effect of pulling Becca into LARPing mode as she fielded a lot of calls in the home office of 'Mickey's Carpet Cleaning'. [In 12 Monkeys, the number to call the future appears (at one point) to be a carpet cleaners. Teams in the game called the carpet cleaners to get hints and/or abuse me.]

Team Two Wongs Don't Make a White threw in the towel around 5. They rocked the morning session, but things went sour after lunch, it appears. Although they didn't 'finish' the game (and were thus ineligible for this particular prize) Two Wongs did post the highest average speed: 21.2 mph. They hung out for a bit at HQ before moving on to greener pastures.

The other teams poured in from 8-9 pm, and I was deluged by answer sheets to check, photos to download & judge on artistic merit, etc. Oh, and order pizzas. Everyone seemed pretty happy to chat and reminisce and bitch and moan, but I apologize if it took a long time to get the results out.

I'm also sorry that I gave everyone a little too much to do... so that no one finished the final puzzle. If you still have that sheet ( or download it when I get the game up) go do that puzzle. And follow the instructions to the letter.

But anyway, here are the main results. Items with dual numbers are raw score and penalty-adjusted score:

Stamina Prize (out the longest): The Wyrd Ones (657 minutes)
Gas Guzzer award (drove the furthest): Alpha Squad 7 (166 miles)
Tortoise award (slowest average speed): The Deloreans (10.74 mph)

Most Bonus Points: Team I Went 50 Years In the Past and All I Got was Shot in an Airport (144 points, a crushing victory)

Aesthetic Award (best photos): Shades of Glory (average 8.125/10)

Leadfoot Award (completed game with fastest average speed): Alpha Squad 7 (16.04 mph)

Efficiency Award (completed game in least distance): The Deloreans (113 miles/130 miles)

Saved Our City (completed game in least time): Operation Grab Bags (616 minutes/621 minutes)

Grand Prize (best average rank in each category): Team I Went 50 Years In the Past and All I Got was Shot in an Airport (3.2)

Comments

Further Scoring Details

[essentialsaltes.livejournal.com]

If I get really bored, I'll relearn (for the nth time) how to do tables in HTML.

Team Missions Actual Distance (miles) Scored Distance (miles) Actual Time (min) Scored Time (min) Actual Speed (mph) Bonus Aesthetic
Shades of Glory 16.5 158.7 196.7 613 685 15.53 98 8.13
Alpha Squad 7 14.5 166 197 621 682 16.04 87 7.85
Deloreans 13.75 113 130 631 662 10.74 112 7.29
Oper. Grab Bags 15.75 140 143 616 621 13.64 99 7.71
Bad Idea Bears 11 150 176 656 708 13.72 88 7.58
Team IWFYITPA… 18 149 152 614 619 14.56 144 7.47
Team Platypus 5.5 105 108 568 573 11.09 90 7.71
Two Wongs 6.75 150 156 425 435 21.2 34 7.20
The Wyrd Ones 10.75 132 168 657 729 12.05 99 8.00

Team Ranks for Grand Prize (Wongs and Platypus were considered not-complete for the distance, time, speed categories, but were in for bonus and aesthetic) [The first three on the average rank are the same order as what was on my crazy sheet on Saturday (whew!), after that, the overall rankings are a little different.]

Team IWFYITPA… 3 1 3 1 7 3
Oper. Grab Bags 2 2 5 4 5 3.6
Shades of Glory 6 5 2 5 1 3.8
Deloreans 1 3 7 2 8 4.2
Alpha Squad 7 7 4 1 8 3 4.6
The Wyrd Ones 4 7 6 4 2 4.6
Bad Idea Bears 5 6 4 7 6 5.6
Team Platypus 6 5 N/A
Two Wongs 9 9 N/A

Re: Further Scoring Details

[rizwank.livejournal.com]

* is used to delimit the < and > tags.
*table border=1*
*tr*
*td*
item 1
*td*
item 2
*/tr**tr
*td*
item 3
*td*
item 4
*/tr*
*/table*

I left out the closing td tags, but you end up with

Item1	Item2
Item 3	Item4

Re: Further Scoring Details

[essentialsaltes.livejournal.com]

Haha, I was just doing it!

Re: Further Scoring Details

[rizwank.livejournal.com]

Interesting idea, using the rankings. Thats very cool.

I count five categories in the final table - for us :
Shades of Glory 6 5 2 5 1 3.8

We were first in Aesthetic, so I assume the 1 is that.
What are the other four? Are the missions done one of those?

(Tons to wrote about the experience, but can't do it at the office.)

THANKS again!

Re: Further Scoring Details

[essentialsaltes.livejournal.com]

What are the other four? Are the missions done one of those?

Scored distance, scored time, speed, bonus points and aesthetics.

Re: Further Scoring Details

[rizwank.livejournal.com]

So the missions aren't actually figured into rankings, while the distance and time are doubly factored in - they're both represented in distance/time and speed. Is that right?

Re: Further Scoring Details

[essentialsaltes.livejournal.com]

Well, yeah. The grand prize was supposed to be the average of all the other prize categories: dist, time, speed, bonus, photos (and the final puzzle). I was a little intrigued that if you have a short time (good) and a short distance (good), that might give you only a so-so speed.

Or conversely, like for you guys, you were 6th and 5th in distance and time, but 2nd in speed. So distance and time are 'counted twice', but non-linearly.

You got some bonus points for missions. If I had it to do all over again, maybe bonus points would start at 14 missions or 12 or whatever, but it wouldn't have mattered much.

Re: Further Scoring Details

[rizwank.livejournal.com]

Interesting relationship there.

(Just musing aloud now, not trying to quibble about our score)
I wonder what a time/mission metric would have done in comparison to a time/distance.

I can see how it would have been better to have one team that saved the universe, thereby a clear winner - otherwise, there's too many ways to balance the numbers. Rankings are interesting, and I wonder how rankings would have worked compared to raw scores, though.

Of course, no matter what, Leslie and Cort kicked some serious ass.

Raw Scores

[essentialsaltes.livejournal.com]

Team	Missions	Dist	Dist*	Time	Time*	Speed	Bonus	Aesth
Shades	16.5	158.7	196.7	613	685	15.53	98	8.13
Alpha	14.5	166	197	621	682	16.04	87	7.85
Deloreans	13.75	113	130	631	662	10.74	112	7.29
OGB	15.75	140	143	616	621	13.64	99	7.71
BI Bears	11	150	176	656	708	13.72	88	7.58
50years	18	149	152	614	619	14.56	144	7.47
Platypus	5.5	105	108	568	573	11.09	90	7.71
Wongs	6.75	150	156	425	435	21.2	34	7.20
Wyrd	10.75	132	168	657	729	12.05	99	8.00

Rankings

[essentialsaltes.livejournal.com]

Team	Dist*	Time*	Speed	Bonus	Aesth	Average
50years	3	1	3	1	7	3
OGB	2	2	5	4	5	3.6
Shades	6	5	2	5	1	3.8
Deloreans	1	3	7	2	8	4.2
Alpha	7	4	1	8	3	4.6
Wyrd	4	7	6	4	2	4.6
BI Bears	5	6	4	7	6	5.6
Platypus	N/A	N/A	N/A	6	5	N/A
Wongs	N/A	N/A	N/A	9	9	N/A

Re: Rankings

[aaronjv.livejournal.com]

Shit! We had the best raw time of the teams that completed the game; if we didn't have to take the penalty for the hints (which we needed, alas), we would have been first in time, giving us an average of 3, tying us for first place.

And we needed to get more bonus photos, I knew that much.

Re: Rankings

[essentialsaltes.livejournal.com]

Naw, what also killed you was the penalty for forcing the Scientists to keep the Time Portal open an extra 26 minutes. I'm sorry I didn't conceive and announce a penalty for this beforehand. Using only the hint penalty... lessee... your time would be 633, placing you 4th on that (if I do the same for the others). Oh, but on distance, you'd actually drop to 7th, so there'd be no benefit. So being late didn't actually hurt you at all, it seems. I guess it was the hints after all.

Re: Rankings

[aaronjv.livejournal.com]

We had this discussion a few times in the car. Riz was of the belief that "the portal will stay open," I was saying "No, it ends at 8:30." K was of the "I want to go home now" lobby.

The only reasons why we stayed out longer was because:

1. I thought we were close enough that we ("we" being Riz) could figure out the final solution; I didn't realize it required a location as well. I thought that if we got one more mission clue, we could Save the City and call in that answer (before time expired). I was willing to sacrifice us (team not back in time) if it meant we could solve the game.

2. There was dispute (and this is good) between how much one more mission is worth vs. how much penalty we get for being late. If we would get a net gain, albeit small, it might be worth it.

3. And then, of course, we had to go back for the ripped bonus sheets. That was 10-15 minutes extra there, but since we had done 90% of the movie quotes, I figured it was worth it to get that back (we already had the photos).

Riz wanted to do one more mission as well; we had the address. I can't remember if this is the non-spoiler post or not, so I won't say which mission it is, but you can probably figure it out...maybe I'll make a puzzle out of the answer.

But I don't regret getting the hints; really, we needed them. I think we got four hints, we probably should have limited ourselves to the first two.

Re: Rankings

[rizwank.livejournal.com]

sigh at both the bonus photos at the hints.

As we discussed, we did fine, even well, but
a) An extra hand would have been good
b) Taking fifteen minutes before each section to really understand all the puzzles would have been even better.

B would have fixed the bonus photos issues, a would have helped our time and given K/I/You more time to , you know, code break. (Or curse Mike's name.)

I wish we had polled to see how completed people were in the first half - I'd venture to say that we probably had the best time/mission ratio at that point except for, Leslie/Cort's team.

Re: Rankings

[essentialsaltes.livejournal.com]

I am about done with data mining, but morning mission totals:

Shades 9.5 (the thing over the pantry wasn't quite right)
50years 9
Alpha 9 (and they found some other intriguing entrance for #7)
OGB 8.99
Wyrd 7.75
Deloreans 7.75
BI Bears 7.5
Two Wongs 6.75
Platypus 4.5

Re: Rankings

[aaronjv.livejournal.com]

Grrr...I figured we were doing well in the beginning, but we totally blew it for the second half: we left lunch headed in the wrong direction, turned around, went in another direction, then came back to lunch location to check the clues again. Not a good start.

We spent more time at that first post-lunch location than we should have. We kinda of got back on track a bit, and then hit the wall in the afternoon at mission 12. We solved that one realtively easily, but then got stuck. While parked and trying to work problems, other teams would come by, do their dirty deed, then laugh and wave and leave us still scratching our heads (I just wanted to take a nap).

That was followed by mistaken directions, the "bad" mission problems, the lost bonus sheets, running, and panicked pee attacks, where my bladder took control of the wheel and suspended normal 12 Monkey operations to avert an embarrassing crisis.

Still, I'm proud of the team. We did good, as I think most teams did. I'm very pleased that it seemed like everyone got something (or almost everyone).

Looking over the missions now, some of which are for the first time, in the relaxing comfort of my home, they seem easier. But then, I'm not motion sick, tired, hungry, stressed, trying to read a map and give directions and solve puzzles and drive all at the same time.

Mulligan. Sherman, set the Wayback machine!

Re: Rankings

[essentialsaltes.livejournal.com]

Sherman, set the Wayback machine!

I so wanted audio of Mr. Peabody on the soundtrack, but I couldn't find anything easily.