Jumpman's Grand Puzzle - Stage 1, Level 3 & Stage 2, Level 1

Tuesday, April 3, 2018

Stage 1, Level 3

Today was the day to duel the lich! Eating dinner and dressing for the part put us a little late. I wore my Liberator T-shirt, as in the rather obscure Atari coin-op featuring Atari Force, and my original Sony Walkman. It didn't work any more, but I just wanted it for looks. Walter wore his vintage, leather Members Only jacket and my newer Walkman (from the 1990s).

Walter vs. Lich

My two older boys and I headed out just before 6:00 PM, when the lich challenge opened. When we showed up at Pints & Pixels, someone was already playing Joust against the lich and there were several more waiting. The lich was a man wearing a skeleton T-shirt and half-skull mask, covered by a brown robe and topped with a steel crown. We stepped over to the registration table, where Walter and I gave our real and gunter (egg hunter) names and contact info. Then we waited for our turns to play against the lich.

Just as in the book, we had to beat him two games out of three. I lost my first game against him. In the second game I barely came out ahead. In the third game I was victorious and claimed my prize, the blue key. Unlike the book, I didn't ask to trade sides with him to see if that gave me advantage. Walter was annoyed that I'm that good at Joust.

Walter was next. He only won one game, and so had to go back to the end of the list for another chance. Thankfully we didn't have to go back to Sugar Belle to get the coin again. His brother and I played some games while we waited. On his second attempt, Walter did ask to switch sides, which apparently did make the "lich" essentially throw the game, and Walter won two games in a row and claimed his key.

On the registration table was a large photo. On the corner was a sign that said, "You may study this image but DO NOT REMOVE." So I asked to take a photo of it and they obliged. We later figured the photo had something to do with The Princess Bride. Two (poisoned) wine glasses, swords for Westley and Montoya, and the bellows used to somewhat revive Westley. We weren't sure where this was going yet, but I hoped we didn't have to repeat lines from the movie verbatim like Flicksynchs in the book. I didn't see The Princess Bride back in the day, so I was nowhere close to being able to repeat any but the most well-known lines. We watched it again when we got home and I noted that one of the T-shirts Richard Moss wore in the game's starting video was the quote about not going in against a Sicilian when death was on the line.

Next to the Joust at Pints & Pixels was a Fix-It Felix Jr. coin-op from the movie Wreck-It Ralph. And I couldn't help but notice the sign saying the games were available to play, except Sunday, Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday, 6:00-8:00 PM. Those were the same days and times on the gold coin, so it appeared we'd be playing Felix in the future.

Stage 2, Level 1

We played a few more games before getting in the car, originally planning to go home, but Walter and I both read the clue on the key and started thinking about it:

Unfathomable an object lies,

Its magic six to draw you nigh

I searched Google for "unfathomable synonyms" and stopped near the end of the list when I saw "deep." The next clue was probably at The Deep, a local comic book store and the biggest one in town. I'd texted my wife the clue and she came up with the same answer on her own. We spent the trip there pondering what the "magic six" meant, but didn't come up with any good answers.

We arrived at The Deep right behind a couple we'd seen at Pints & Pixels. And there was Steve the Space Invader waiting to greet us by the door. We started searching the store and eventually I came across a Rubik's Cube in one of the display cases with a Steve sign next to it. A cube has six sides and it was originally known as the Magic Cube, so mystery solved. Unfortunately, there were about five other players in the store and one of them thought to ask to see it before I did. We had to show our key(s) in order to do so.

They spent a long time unscrambling it. Then another couple got it before we did, but they gave up after a little while. In the meantime, my wife texted me a link to a Rubik's Cube solving site. That came in very handy once I got the Cube. I went ahead and solved one side without help before setting up the virtual cube on the site to match. It then took it a while to calculate the solution, but the interactive way it presented it, letting me step through one step at a time and showing me how it should look as I went, was immensely helpful.

The actual P didn't quite live up
to the planned P
shown in the diagram below.

Unfortunately, we'd already heard the employee tell the other players that the pictures drawn on the sides had faded off from being handled. Once I got it solved, we could make out the Superman logo, an outline of the USA, Batman's cape, a P or igloo shape, and a circle. The image that was supposed to be on the yellow side was completely gone. There were some other markings, but we didn't understand their significance at the time. I took photos and we left.

Once we got home, I sent a message to the Jumpman's Journey page stating the trouble, but got an auto-response, so I made a public post to the page giving little detail. That elicited a response, but it looked like we weren't going to get the photos of the Cube I was hoping for. But then later Mr. Moss sent me a diagram of the cube.

Using the dots to break the images into groups, we quickly came up with "super + P = supper." Then "Greatest American Hero - grate - America = hero" and "cape". So "Supper Heroes cape". Supper Heroes was a local, comic book-themed restaurant we eat at once a year or so. That's only because it's way over past the other side of town, about 13 miles away. (Over twice as far as Pints & Pixels from our home.) But the "cape" part had us confused. Well, I guess we knew where we were going for lunch the next day.

As promised, they updated the scoreboard that evening. I made the "High Five" at #4.

For additional entries, see the Jumpman's Grand Puzzle label.