Sunday, April 8, 2018
Stage 3, Level 3
Walter, my next oldest son, and I headed down to Pints & Pixels Sunday evening. The plan was to double check U. G. White Mercantile didn't need to punch our movie ticket, then grab some dinner there while we waited for the contest to start.
And that's pretty much how it went. The cashiers at U. G. White said they didn't punch the tickets, so upstairs we went. We only had about half an hour, so we ordered chili because it was quick. And some onion rings. After ordering, we went back to have a look at the Fix-It Felix machine. And, it turns out, even though the event didn't start until 6:00 PM, they were already taking sign-ups. So lesson learned for next time.
The lich was still available for those still in the early stages, although he didn't show up immediately. Then there was a few of us waiting to to play Felix. Lastly, there were several people there for the next challenge. For them, there was the man in black, the Dread Pirate Roberts. On the table he was seated at, the photo of the props had been replaced with the actual props.
As announced on Facebook, they rolled a 10-sided die to decide the order they would play in. We didn't catch the details, but they sat at the table with "Roberts," presumably reciting lines. They had cards which I think represented chances to get prompts. Roberts sometimes held up a light, which I think meant they had missed the line. Hopefully we'll get a chance to find out later.
There was done discussion amongst the officials and they were alternating players between the tasks. Meanwhile, we were reviewing the Konami code. I'm a bit old to have internalized it in my youth, but a song about it by the Gothsicles, posted in the early years of the FuMP, had helped me memorize it. What I had forgotten is that you were supposed to hold both buttons while pressing start. I'm glad I reviewed it.
Finally, I got my chance. I was told I had a few minutes, that no token was required, and that it would only work during the title and high score screens. So I tried it. It didn't work. I tried again. It still didn't work. I started trying slightly different combinations. Was it the player one or player two start button? Eventually the game went into demo mode and I had to take a break. It went back to the screens in question and after a few more tries, I finally got it to work! I couldn't tell you exactly what I did that made it work, but I no longer cared.
The text on the key was scrambled: 'aea wldh te TlI dh wwno eor.s
From the talk in the Facebook group, everyone had gotten stuck on this. The players who were there for the next step tonight had stumbled on the right location without solving the puzzle. I had hoped maybe I had some knowledge they lacked due to my age that would help, but no.
We went back to the car and pondered. We assumed the characters showed the word lengths. The two capital letters presumably were the first word of the sentence and a proper name or connection with I. I started writing a Perl script to give possibilities for the capitalized words. We spent the rest of the time allotted for the contest pondering to no avail. We drove by a couple locations looking for Steve's, but didn't find any.
When they posted the scores later that night, I had moved up from 10th to 8th. None of those who had passed the second gate had advanced last night. Pints & Pixels was closed until Tuesday, so we had a day to catch up, if we could.
Back at home, I spent the rest of the night, to the wee hours, writing Perl scripts to narrow it down. They didn't help much. Walter found a site today would help you unscramble anagrams, but it didn't differentiate case or handle contractions. I finally went to bed frustrated.
For additional entries, see the Jumpman's Grand Puzzle label.
There was done discussion amongst the officials and they were alternating players between the tasks. Meanwhile, we were reviewing the Konami code. I'm a bit old to have internalized it in my youth, but a song about it by the Gothsicles, posted in the early years of the FuMP, had helped me memorize it. What I had forgotten is that you were supposed to hold both buttons while pressing start. I'm glad I reviewed it.
Finally, I got my chance. I was told I had a few minutes, that no token was required, and that it would only work during the title and high score screens. So I tried it. It didn't work. I tried again. It still didn't work. I started trying slightly different combinations. Was it the player one or player two start button? Eventually the game went into demo mode and I had to take a break. It went back to the screens in question and after a few more tries, I finally got it to work! I couldn't tell you exactly what I did that made it work, but I no longer cared.
Stage 4, Level 1
They gave me the red key. I took a look while Walter waited for his turn. |
| Taken in a hurry on the hood of my car. That's the windshield washer keeping it from sliding off. |
From the talk in the Facebook group, everyone had gotten stuck on this. The players who were there for the next step tonight had stumbled on the right location without solving the puzzle. I had hoped maybe I had some knowledge they lacked due to my age that would help, but no.
We went back to the car and pondered. We assumed the characters showed the word lengths. The two capital letters presumably were the first word of the sentence and a proper name or connection with I. I started writing a Perl script to give possibilities for the capitalized words. We spent the rest of the time allotted for the contest pondering to no avail. We drove by a couple locations looking for Steve's, but didn't find any.
When they posted the scores later that night, I had moved up from 10th to 8th. None of those who had passed the second gate had advanced last night. Pints & Pixels was closed until Tuesday, so we had a day to catch up, if we could.
Back at home, I spent the rest of the night, to the wee hours, writing Perl scripts to narrow it down. They didn't help much. Walter found a site today would help you unscramble anagrams, but it didn't differentiate case or handle contractions. I finally went to bed frustrated.
For additional entries, see the Jumpman's Grand Puzzle label.
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