Jumpman's Grand Puzzle - Stage 4, Level 1 concluded; Stage 5, Levels 1 & 2

Wednesday, April 11

Stage 4, Level 1 concluded (Second Gate)

We had a work lunch out today for two coworkers getting married soon. I excused myself early to be at Lowe Mill when they opened at noon. I'd already found the best place to park and enter to get upstairs. After heading the wrong way and running into a former coworker, I finally found it. And it was closed until 1:00 PM. So back to work it was.

As I was debating whether to go back out at 1:00 PM, Walter called. The next location was the second gate, meaning we had to sign in and the order was important. I said I'd come now. He asked if I'd go by the house and grab his key, because he forgot it. So I did.

I got there and went upstairs. The artist was there, but no one else, including Walter. I handed over my key. The previous entry was for 12:46 PM, so apparently he'd opened early. I forgot to note my number, but there were about a dozen names ahead of me. I asked if Richard Moss had told him what had happened. He hadn't, so I filled him in on them posting a special clue.

While doing this, I texted Walter, who apparently I had missed downstairs. He came up as I was trying to figure out the clue. It was four clear plates with lines on them and Steves in the corner. I tried overlapping them along the lines a bit, but that didn't do anything useful. Then Walter had the bright idea of stacking them all on top of one another. That produced what was obviously a street map of downtown. There was a small dot showing the next location. Comparing to Google Maps, we eventually deduced it was a location around the corner from Pints & Pixels.

Not this...

...but this.

Stage 5, Level 1

Impossible to get a decent photo

That was our next stop. It turned out to be a poster in the window saying we were invited to the wedding of Buttercup and Humperdink during the typical days and times for Pints & Pixels.

Stage 5, Level 2

Walter was working that evening, so I went alone. I'd been listening to clips from the three scenes the props seemed to indicate since Monday. And I found a copy of the script online, too. So would a couple days study of a movie I only just watched for the first time last year be enough? Spoiler: No, it would not.

Because so many cleared the red gate this day, they enlisted a second helper to go through the scenes with gunters. He was the one I got. I muddled my way through the first two scenes, using cue cards to get the next line far too often. Richard Moss sat in for a while and gave me some extra cue cards for my performance on the lines I did now. But I didn't know the third scene well enough, as I'd studied it the least, and I was quickly out.

I got a second chance, but I realized as I started my mouth was dry and I was getting a headache. I was probably getting dehydrated. I did even worse than before, despite the tester's encouragement. And that was it for the night for me.

Meanwhile, two gunters advanced to the final test. I saw one of the officials bring something appearing to be two blue badges on strings to Richard Moss. "No way!" he said. Unfortunately, yes way. The two of them alternated playing an emulated version of Jumpman in the corner for the final challenge. They actually had an Atari 2600 joystick hooked up to the computer, so it was either the Commodore 64 or Atari 8-bit version of the game. Not that I've played either. The most I've done is play the Jumpman Junior cartridge on the Colecovision a little bit a long time ago.

So I went home. It turned out they had streamed the final game, so I watched highlights of it after getting home. Neither finished. Now I just had to pray no one else could finish either before we completed the Princess Bride challenge and could get to the final one.

When the scoreboard was posted, they made a mistake. The scores were listed with the correct amounts, but they put Washburn ahead of me despite me having 200 more points. The above is a corrected version of the scoreboard I made myself. They never corrected the graphic, just the text posting. I take a little pride in never actually falling out of the top 10.

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