Jumpman's Grand Puzzle - Grand Banquet

Monday, April 23, 2018

Jumpman's Grand Banquet

Tonight was our night for answers. Pints & Pixels was hosting a pizza night for all the Grand Puzzle's gunters. The bar was usually only available for private parties on Mondays anyway, so they simply scheduled their own. Pizza from Domino's (and mini-cupcakes from Sugar Belle) meant they didn't have to have kitchen staff, but the bar was open. Soft drinks were free; hard ones were not.

Our crew was me and my wife as my "+1" and Walter and his brother as his "+1". We were met at the door by Sherry Wallace, who is co-owner of the bar with Richard "Jumpman" Moss. It turned out she was the one who created most of the actual puzzles. So thanks to her for all her hard work. She had all the gunters sign a copy of a Ready Player One movie poster as a surprise for Richard. Walter also got a ticket for the door prize drawings. Because I'd finished in the High Five, I was getting something special instead.

The pizza arrived right after we did. I still had some tokens left from a previous trip, so the boys played a few games while they set up. Then everyone got their pizza and started eating. After a while, Richard began. First he introduced all his helpers. I didn't get all their names, but their was the lich who I think was also the Game Tech for the final Jumpman challenge, the Princess Bride reader and his helper who'd they recruited that night when so many people came through to do the lines, the guys that made the props, the Float Shop artist who'd also made plates for his puzzle, and, of course, Sherry. She wound up the thanks by presenting Richard with the poster.

A table full of prizes, door prizes, and thank you gifts.

Next we were presented with the prizes. Shadow, in fifth place, got a "squashed Jumpman box" (the laminated copy of the box cover from the Huntsville Escape Rooms challenge), the Clue game from which the pieces were used for the clear box puzzle at Toy Box Bistro, and a $5 Pints & Pixels gift card. I believe Shadow was the person I saw doing the Princess Bride lines the Tuesday night I finished the final challenge, so he made kind of a mad dash at the end to be fifth.

I, Liberator, as fourth place, got a "squashed Jumpman box", a copy of the Space Invaders Dice! game, and a $15 P&P gift card. I'd never heard of the Space Invaders Dice! game, so that was very cool. None of us can remember exactly what third place got, but it may have been a set of keys based on the movie and a $25 P&P gift card. Second place got two of the Tiny Arcade games and a $50 P&P gift card. I found out at the end of the evening that the guys in second and third were hosts of Rocket Punch, a locally produced podcast.

Then we got into the individual puzzles. In the first puzzle that lead to Lucky Dice Cafe, the "heroes spin" line did indeed refer to HeroClix, not comic book spinner racks. It seems the owner is a nationally ranked HeroClix player. They'd also originally planned to have the end of the first line, "you need to go" point gunters to the restrooms, which is where the posters would be. They thought Lucky Dice already had lots of posters in their restrooms, but it turned out they didn't have any in them, so they left them out in the main part of the store.

There wasn't much revealed about the next several puzzles that we hadn't already figured out. One detail many of us had missed was that the lich in the video (who was someone other than the lich we played against) was walking like an Egyptian as he went through the background. I also asked how many beat the lich without changing sides. Only one other gunter at the banquet raised her hand.

Then we got to that cursed box at Toy Box Bistro. It turns out the letters inside spelled out "Ulysses Grant", complete with a space for between the words. And the "U. G." in "U. G. White Mercantile" stands for Ulysses Grant, which I didn't know. When they beta tested the puzzle, there were only four tiles in the box: U, G, and two blanks. The beta testers declared that too easy, so we got more tiles.

Shortly thereafter, we discussed the damnable Ruby Key. It turns out the phrase on the key unscrambles to "IT's what we all do down here." This is in reference to a line in IT by Stephen King: "We all float down here." The Float Shop in Lowe Mill was where we had to go. What had been intended as a clue for those unfamiliar with the story, the capital I and T, had wound up messing us all up. We had been so close in correctly assuming each word was the length of the letters we got in the scramble. It also turned out the punctuation marks (apostrophe and period) were within the words they went with, even though the rest of the characters weren't already in those words. It turned out the grand prize winner, Mr. Tumnus, had figured it out eventually, but only after he'd stumbled upon the Steve at the Float Shop. He got a bonus prize of a Pints & Pixels cap for getting it.

The last puzzle of note was the word search at Haven. Walter pointed out I'd missed an uncircled letter: a J. I brought this up and Sherry handed me the word list to double-check my work. It seems I'd missed "Jem" (as in Jem and the Holograms) as one of the words.

I asked about the Jumpman level editor he used. It's called Jumpman Under Construction. The Jumpman link on the Facebook page linked to a page that then linked to the software. I'd not clicked on all the links in the Journal -- especially ones I'd already heard of -- so I'd missed that.

I asked if they'd considered changing the letters on the word search puzzle they had facing the outside of the window at Haven Comics. They said no. Later, during closing remarks on the contest, they pointed out that they didn't provide red herrings in the clues because we the players provided ourselves plenty of red herrings along the way. I hadn't thought of that, but it's absolutely correct.

After all questions had been answered, they drew tickets for door prizes. One person got a lot of the props, including three Rubik's Cubes, the map plates, The Princess Bride wedding poster, and I forget what else. Walter won a $20 gift certificate for Supper Heroes.

The final announcement of the night was to mark our calendars for September 10. Jumpman's Grand Puzzle II would start then. And it's going to be based on the '90s. I might be in trouble. I was an adult by the '90s, albeit a young one, and not as in touch with pop culture as I had been in the '80s. And my oldest child was born so late in the '90s he doesn't remember them, so we may be at a disadvantage all around.

My loot.

I'm happy to say that as we left, each player got a copy of the props from the game: a choice of Steve on a white or clear background, the three keys and the gold coin. I spoke to Richard about a couple of last things while the boys tried out Fix-It Felix. Then it was back home to our mundane life.

I'm so thankful to Richard, Sherry, and the rest of their crew for putting this together. It's obvious a lot of time and a fair amount of money went into it. I mentioned the movie Midnight Madness way back in the first contest entry proper. Since seeing that movie, I had dreamed of participating in a contest like that, but figured it would never actually happen. Now, not only has it, but I might get to do it again! The most appropriate word is obvious: Awesome!

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

[Later update: The second puzzle was delayed due to a turn in health of one of the organizers. Then Pints & Pixels announced they were moving. Then the 2020 pandemic started, so it's unknown whether there will ever be a second quest or not.]

Jumpman's Grand Puzzle - Stage 5, Level 2 concluded

Thursday, April 12, 2018

Stage 5, Level 2 concluded

Since my younger children were feeling neglected, we all went to Pints & Pixels for dinner. We took two cars so they wouldn't have to stay if we went late. Walter hadn't gone through the final scene much, so I played the audio for him in the car. Then he fed my lines for the first and maybe second scenes.

Once we arrived, while the family got a table, Walter and I went and registered. They were back down to just the original Dread Pirate Roberts. Three of us rolled 20-sided dice to decide the order. The first guy rolled a 3. I rolled a 10, but Walter rolled a 12. Which wasn't exactly what he wanted as he wasn't confident on getting through the final scene yet.

Unfortunately, while Walter was doing his scenes, someone -- I think it was the first guy to play Jumpman that night -- won the game and the contest. He couldn't believe it, but Richard presented him the golden egg. I didn't catch everything at the time, but was able to watch the video later. The winner seems like a good guy, so I'm glad he won.

Meanwhile, Walter successfully completed all three scenes. Then I was up. I made it through the first scene fairly well. I had one screw up, but didn't actually have to burn a cue card. I think I may have had to use one during the second scene, but by now I'd at least memorized the order of "so clearly I cannot choose the wine in front of me/you." The third scene was a little tougher, but it turned out it ended as soon as I, as Miracle Max, presses on Westley's chest to make him say, "True love." So all the effort to learn the rest was for naught, but I was glad to have made it through.

I spoke briefly to the tester. It turns out they picked him for the job because he loves the movie so much. I asked if that was still the case after having to go through it so many times, but he said yes. I was then presented with my green key, which read "Safe -- Marvel -- And Others." Obviously, Haven Comics, Etc. was the next stop. (Safe = Haven; Marvel = Comics; And Others = Etc.) But they closed in 20 minutes, which is about how long it would have taken to get there. So we went ahead and ate. Walter and I had waited until after completing the challenge to order our food.

We stayed and played some games, including four-player Pac-Man Battle Royale with Walter, the two youngest kids, and me. Then we went home. I put the kids to bed and watched the video of the winner. The scoreboard was updated. It only contained the name of three winners. I'd heard that there were six people competing that night, so I asked for clarification and got it. Only three of the six completed the challenge. I might still yet manage to end in the High Five, as I had started, if I was very lucky.

Although they limited the graphic to the top three, they updated all the scores in text. I was now #7 with 24,700 points. I'd scored 2,500 points for being the sixth or more person to get the Emerald Key. I was actually tied in points with Beck C137 at #6, but presumably they'd obtained the key before me.

They also announced that night that A) the challenges at Pints & Pixels would not be available on Sunday and B) the contest would end on Thursday, April 19.

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

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.

Jumpman's Grand Puzzle - Stage 4, Level 1 continued again

Tuesday, April 10, 2018

Stage 4, Level 1 continued again

I was at Pints & Pixels just after their opening at 11:00 AM. I'd never been in on a weekday and had never seen them so empty. I wandered, mostly admiring the decorations on the walls. I spotted two other guys also looking, but they didn't seem to notice me.

Finally, half way through the restaurant I went into the hall that goes back to the restrooms and there was Steve. He was by the signature of the artist who painted the wall: Float. I looked back and managed to take a photo unobserved. Then I continued to the restroom and texted it to my family.

Not the problem photo, but a later one.

Unfortunately, the flash had made it hard to read, and they told me so. I looked through the rest of the restaurant to make sure I didn't miss anything. Then I went back to take another photo. One of the gunters was standing there, making no secret of what he was doing. I played a game of Robotron: 2084 while I waited for him to move on. Once he did, I took some more photos, but my flash didn't go off. After ducking around the corner to turn it on, I found the other gunter was back. I gave up being covert and spoke to him briefly while I took more photos.

Meanwhile, Walter had found the artist's studio in Lowe Mill: Float Shop. Lowe Mill is closed until Wednesday, so there was nothing else to do this day except work on the Ruby Key clue some more. They'd announced a special price for whoever solved it, to be given at a post-contest dinner, date and time to be determined. Even though I now had the next location, it didn't help. I still couldn't solve it.

That night, a scoreboard update was posted. The top two obtained the green key. The end game is here and I'm not sure I can catch up.

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

Jumpman's Grand Puzzle - Stage 3, Level 3 & Stage 4, Level 1

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.

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.

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.

Jumpman's Grand Puzzle - Stage 3, Level 2

Thursday, April 5, 2018

Stage 3, Level 2

Contents of the box

A pox upon the damned, unopenable box! We spent all of Wednesday evening trying to figure it out. My wife pulled out our Scrabble set and tried to unscramble the letters. There are plenty of words one can make, but you always have leftover letters you can't do anything with. Meanwhile, I was trying to find code to create a Perl script to spit out all the possible permutations of the letters. My plan was to then take that file and run it through spell to weed out all the lines that weren't words.

It took forever to find one and make it work, but I eventually did. But I was running it on my ISPs *nix server because I didn't have Perl installed locally on a Windows box. Once the output file crossed 100 Mb, I stopped the script. If I left it going, I would have exceeded my file space quota. So that was a dead end.

At some point either my wife or son unscrambled the letters to spell "gunter." I took the remaining letters and, using the blank as an M, spelled "asylum." Well, almost. I had used an extra U and was left with an extraneous S.

We figured the absence of Mrs. White was significant. Local businesses containing the name, other than attorneys and accountants with that surname, were in short supply, though. U. G. White Mercantile, which occupies the bottom two floors of the building that Pints & Pixels is in, seemed like an obvious choice. In fact, I realized there was a Steve sticker on their door and then another in the elevator to Pints & Pixels. So where we first thought Steve had been welcoming us outside on our first trip to battle the lich, now I wondered if that's not what it meant. Also, we had Scrabble tiles and it was Mercantile. Was that a stretch?

We talked about it at church dinner Wednesday night. I went to bed thinking about it. I woke up thinking about it. I made a post in the morning on Facebook asking if anyone would help. One friend did. I gave him the info without sharing any of my theories. He went off on a tangent, and I reined him in a bit. Then he came up with another interesting theory: Mrs. White could be Vanna White and the tiles could be a Wheel of Fortune clue. That seemed brilliant, but didn't help us on where to go and neither Vanna nor Wheel were links on the Facebook page.

Another possibility came to me. Mrs. White had escaped the box. Or did it represent a room full of people? An escape room. I pulled up the web site of Huntsville Escape Rooms. One of the rooms they offer is The Psych Ward. The backstory mentions Dr. Gunter! In the Ready Player One story, "gunter" is short for "egg hunter," which is short for "Easter egg hunter" because they're seeking "Easter egg" style clues hidden in documents by the contest creator. My "Gunter's asylum" guess didn't seem to far fetched any more, but once again, the letters weren't quite right.

I sent a message to the contest official asking whether maybe one of the letters in the box was wrong. He said no, they were correct. But I'm still convinced its not a coincidence. Maybe we'll pick up more Scrabble tiles in another clue later and spell a longer phrase including those words.

So at lunch, I have two targets: U. G. White Mercantile and Huntsville Escape Rooms. The latter doesn't open until 3:00 PM, so I opted to just drive by and see if there was a Steve sticker. There was! Then I went to White Mercantile and walked through the entire store. I saw nothing.

Meanwhile, Walter was stuck babysitting and couldn't go out. His co-worker had nearly caught up to us, so we decided to meet him at Huntsville Escape Rooms after I got off work. Miscommunication had them show up early and be told that while they were a location in the puzzle, we didn't have the necessary piece to do their puzzle yet.

We met them back at Toy Bistro. They were already looking over the box. After stewing over it for 45 minutes or so, Walter's co-worker's wife called Haven Comics, Etc. for reasons I don't remember. Probably because we all figured if the Deep and Lucky Dice are participating, Haven would, too. Haven confirmed they were a participating location, so without other prospects, off we went. Steve was out front, but once again, we didn't have the piece needed to do that puzzle. The puzzle was a word search set up as a poster, so I went ahead and took a photo. However it also said "Ask for a handout!", so I figured there was probably more to it than just the poster. I planned to return.

One of the words we'd gotten out of the tiles was "Saturn," although once again there were letters left over. So we decided to try the U. S. Space and Rocket Center. Out in the parking lot were scale models of the solar system, also spaced to scale. Maybe Saturn held a clue. But it didn't.

Next stop, cuing off the cassette tape, was Vertical House Records in Lowe Mill. We got there only to discover there was no Steve. Beaten at this point, we decided to head to Pints & Pixels to see if maybe that's where we were supposed to be.

We arrived and spoke with the officials. They were still set up waiting for anyone that still needed to play the lich at Joust. They asked where we had been and said we weren't ready to be back there yet, offering no hints other than to examine our clue some more.

We started going through the letters again when a couple with a red key showed up. After they spoke to the officials and started to leave, Walter's co-worker asked if they would help us. They started off with the woman telling us the letters on tiles weren't important. She said that's all the help she would give, but we wound up sitting down with them and talking. Eventually I gave my theory about U. G. White Mercantile and said I'd already searched the place. (Although I still knew I might have missed it.) He asked, "Did you talk to the lady at the front?" I hadn't!

We thanked them and rushed downstairs. I told the cashier we were looking for Mrs. White. She told us to look around. We started to explore and it came to me. The cassette amongst the weapons. There was a case full of knives and axes. I rushed over to it, calling to what was now my gunter clan. There was a cassette player with a Steve sign sitting on it. How had I missed it??? We'd wasted hours because I'd overlooked it during my lunch trip.

We got an employee to come over and take it out of the case for us. We cued up some of our phones to record it and hit play. After what seemed like a long silence, it began playing the opening organ chords of "Faith" by George Michael. Just as the guitar part started, it stopped. After a brief silence, another song clip played: "It's the End of the World as We Know It" by R. E. M. There were more after that. I eventually went and retrieved my iPod from the car to try to help identify some of them. Here's the list we ended up with.

1. "Faith" by George Michael
2. "It's the End of the World as We Know It" by R. E. M.
3. (One we couldn't identify, but I mistakenly thought was ABBA.)
4. "In the Air Tonight" by Phil Collins
5. "Thriller" by Michael Jackson
6. "Forever Young" by Rod Stewart
7. "Eye of the Tiger" by Survivor
8. "La Isla Bonita" by Madonna
9. (Another we couldn't identify.)
10. (What sounded like another clip from the song #3.)

Walter wondered if there was anything on side 2. He took the cassette out and we discovered side 1 was labeled "Konami - Side 1." The back was labeled "Available Sun, Tues, Wed, Thur 6-8." The same times as the Joust, which we assumed meant it had to do with the Fix-It Felix machine that was next to it. We'd seen the sign on Tuesday saying both machines were unavailable at those times.

If you're particularly astute, you may have figured out something by now from the song titles. We were not particularly astute. We went back upstairs and tried to give Konami as the password, but that wasn't it. We went to the stairwell where it was quieter and tried to identify the last three songs.

I quickly went through all the ABBA songs. None of them matched. I thought song #9 might be "Invincible" by Pat Benatar, but Walter and I both listened and it didn't seem to match. We tried to make out what little lyrics there were. I should mention that none of the snippets were anywhere near long enough to use an app to identify. (Probably on purpose.) Walter's co-worker's wife searched YouTube.

Eventually the couple that had helped us came through on their way out. They didn't help us much more, saying we'd get it. We said we were trying to see if the songs spelled something. They were non-committal. We wondered how many Konami games were in the arcade. He said four, but that they didn't matter. Walter and I checked anyway and only found three. And eventually, 8 o'clock came and we were out of time. There was nothing to do but go home and puzzle over it there.

We got home and enlisted my wife. She thought maybe the song I thought was ABBA was Olivia Newton-John and started listening to her hits on YouTube. Finally, after another hour or two, we figured out that songs #3 and #10 were, in fact, the same song: "Xanadu" by Olivia Newton-John and ELO. Then, even though we'd ruled it out, I pulled up "Invincible."  The version on YouTube matched what we'd recorded from the tape. Apparently the version on my iPod was a slightly different mix.

So, for you non-astute readers who haven't figured it out, I'll tell you what my wife came up with first at this point. The first letter of each song spells out "Fix-It Felix." Like this:

1. Faith
2. It's the End of the World as We Know It
3. Xanadu
4. In the Air Tonight
5. Thriller
6. Forever Young
7. Eye of the Tiger
8. La Isla Bonita
9. Invincible
10. Xanadu

We also discovered that most of the songs on the playlist were featured in films, but possibly not all. This probably explains the movie ticket. [Later edit: Or, you know, because Fix-It Felix is based on the game in the movie Wreck-It Ralph?] So now we think we're stuck until 6:00 PM Sunday when we can play Fix-It Felix. Walter and I assume we need to enter the Konami code into the machine for the next clue. We'll see.

In the meantime, the scoreboard was updated again. I'm now down to #9. The good news is only one of the people ahead of me has added anything to their score. It was two people behind me jumping ahead that pushed me down. I hope we can make up some ground in the next portions of the contest.

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

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.

Jumpman's Grand Puzzle - Stage 1, Level 2

Saturday, March 31, 2018

Stage 1, Level 2

We had a ton of stuff do to on Saturday, but we decided to check Vertical House first. I was convinced what record Belle was holding in the clue is irrelevant because they made it so small and hard to see. How wrong I was.

Unfortunately, we didn't get out of the house until almost lunch time, so we headed out planning to stop for lunch first. We ate at Local Taco, not too far from Lowe Mill, when I remembered they're doing Huntsville Comic Con there this weekend, so the place was going to be packed!

About this time, my oldest son, Walter, who was at work, texted me. "So I asked one of my co-workers for their ideas and the clue, and he just pointed out that the background is sugar cubes." I read this to my family.

My wife said, "Sugar and Belle. Sugar Belle Cupcakes?!?" Yeah, she was on to something. So after lunch, we headed back in the direction of home to Sugar Belle. We arrived and there was Steve by the door again to greet us.

We walked in and looked around. No clues were immediately obvious, although the Super NES Mini system set up in the corner seemed suspicious. It sat on top of a cardboard fireplace with "bricks" printed on it. The TV screen made up where the opening for the fire would be.

I finally approached the man behind the counter with the Super NES still in mind. "I'm looking for a place to put a record. Or maybe set a record?"

"No, nothing like that," he replied.

We went back to the corner and pondered and looked around some more. Then I ordered a cupcake for the two sons who were with me. Everyone else was still full from lunch. Out of ideas, I approached again, asking aloud if I needed to ask him where I should put a clue. He told me he needed a certain phrase. I went back to ponder some more.

Finally, I used Google to search "Simon and Garfunkel lyrics cupcakes." My big duh moment came when it showed me the lyrics of "Mrs. Robinson":

Hide it in the hiding place where no one ever goes

Put it in your pantry with your cupcakes

I knew that song. I should have thought of that!

The man had stepped out, so I asked one of the remaining employees, "Put it in your cupboard?" Yes, it turns out "cupboard" was the word they're looking for. They pulled a large, plastic, yellow "coin" from the cupboard, etched on one side:

In the Ready Player One novel, the first clue led to a virtual reality re-creation of the Advanced Dungeons & Dragons module, Tomb of Horrors. The tomb was home to a lich (an undead wizard). The hero was challenged to a game of Joust, the coin-op by Williams Electronics, by the lich.

So, it appeared I had to go to Pints & Pixels on Sunday or Tuesday through Thursday between 6:00 and 8:00 PM to be challenged to a game of Joust. At least, I hoped that was what it meant because while I was nowhere near world record level, but I wasn't too bad at the game. But, Sunday is Easter and Pints & Pixels was going to be closed, so I could relax the rest of the weekend. There was nothing to be done until Tuesday. For once, I was finally grateful this was starting Easter weekend.

Later, while we were driving, I realized the guy in the skeleton costume in the background of the initial video must be the "lich". I laughed out loud at this realization and then had to explain to my wife why I was laughing.

While we were at Sugar Belle, I remembered to ask the employees how many others had come through. They told me less than ten. I knew one person had already mentioned a yellow coin on Facebook. Later Walter's coworker came by and got a coin. Walter told me that the Sugar Belle employees told him he was the third person. I think what they told him must just be the number of people that day. There had have been more on Friday.

At the time, I wasn't too happy with Walter about this. His coworker was able to jumpstart his quest, skipping the first clue entirely. Although his coworker also pointed out the sugar cubes that got us there, so I supposed it was a wash. Walter said he'd already planned to not give his coworker any more clues. He also went to get his own coin. He was 18 or over, so he could compete. I didn't give him the password, but did tell him how to figure it out.

So when Walter got home, he drug out one of our old computers, got Joust running on it via MAME, and hooked up my X-Arcade joystick. I hadn't used the X-Arcade in years and I had to admit, it was better than playing Williams Arcade Classics on the PlayStation controller. By Sunday afternoon, I'd managed to get over 100,000 points in a couple games. I hoped that was enough.

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

Jumpman's Grand Puzzle - Stage 1, Level 1

Friday, March 30, 2018

Stage 1, Level 1

Today was the day Ready Player One premiered in theaters. I had been catching up on Twitter at work while compiling code and saw this tweet.

So I watched the video. Holy cow! This was awesome! I could win a cabaret Pac-Man coin-op, not to mention 10 tokens a day for a year and an autographed copy of the book. (But would I really have to go in each day to get my tokens?) It's like a combination of the book's story and the Great All-Nighter from the movie Midnight Madness, one of my guilty pleasures.

I'd read Ready Player One, the novel by Ernie Cline, years ago when it first came out and liked it a lot. I was of the right age -- having spent my teenagehood in the 1980s -- to get so many of the video game, movie, and music references. I wanted to see the movie, even though I understand many things have been changed. My oldest son, Walter, had read the book recently and wanted to see it, too, but this now would take priority!

So I texted my two older boys and wife and started mulling over the first clue:

To start the quest you need to go,

Where Fortuna's favors flow,

On ivory bones and heroes spin,

To battle hard and sometimes win.

"Fortuna's favors flow on ivory bones." I look up Fortuna and find out she's the Roman god of luck. Ivory bones makes me think of dice. Lucky dice. OMG, the first clue is at Lucky Dice Cafe!!! And maybe "heroes spin" refers to Asylum Comics, a comic book store which recently moved in there. Remember the old spinner racks comic books used to be sold from? Or maybe it refers to HeroClix.

I texted this to them. My wife suggested dinner there, but it's Good Friday, so we had church at 7:00 PM. Given that the Cafe was in the opposite direction from church and south Memorial Parkway was a construction nightmare, this was unfeasible. But the place was open until 11:00 PM, so I'd have to suffer through until after church. I silently cursed whoever decided to have the movie debut on Easter weekend.

So, after chuch, my two oldest boys and I headed to Lucky Dice Cafe. I'd learned of the place's existence in just the past couple months and had yet to actually go there. We arrived and there was "Steve the Space Invader" by the door. We were indeed at the right place.

We went in and there was an employee arranging a display. I told him I'd been wanting to come and the contest, indicating Steve, had given me good cause. He told us to look around and that he couldn't provide any hints. So we did. As I was looking at the racks of comics, I came to the end and saw this on the wall:

So we had Belle from Disney's Beauty and the Beast holding a record asking where she can put it. The Steve on her skirt confirmed this was the clue. My immediate thought was about where one would put a record. Vertical House Records in Lowe Mill seemed like the obvious answer. There was also Maxwell's Music, but it wasn't nearly as well known and had only recently reopened. (Another place I needed to visit.) Vertical House didn't open until noon tomorrow, so we were done for the night, we thought. We also noted the record was The Concert in Central Park by Simon and Garfunkel.

A Dire Wraith, Ikon, and another
Spaceknight walk into a bar...

I looked around some more and discovered they sell individual Heroclix figures for a quarter. I'd been meaning to pick up the ones related to Rom, Spaceknight and discovered they had three of them: the Dire Wraith, Ikon, and a generic Spaceknight. I picked up those and a fifty cent copy of Fish Police #1, just because it was fairly well regarded back in the '80s and I wasn't sure I'd ever read an issue. Just as I was checking out, my boys decided to play a game of Yu-Gi-Oh! Really? My second oldest son had gotten the cards to complete his deck, thanks to Walter, in the mail today. Okay, so I ordered three cookies, too, while I waited, one for each of us. I forgot to ask the employee how many others had come by for the clue.

After finishing my cookie, I looked around in the other room, set up with tables for gaming. There I discovered another copy of the clue on the wall. But now I noticed, "What they say will lead the way." How had I missed that before? Okay, so it sounded like the clue might be in Simon and Garfunkel's lyrics.

I sat back down with the boys and pulled up the album's track list. They finished their game and we headed out. I used my iPod to start playing an album of Simon and Garfunkel's greatest hits, because I don't have the Central Park album. Walter started reviewing the track list himself and noted we have both "Bridge Over Troubled Water" and "The 59th Street Bridge Song." Maybe the clue is at Bridge Street?

That's not far from our house and there was still some places open there, so why not? We walked Bridge Street. No Steves to be seen. We even checked Barnes & Noble since they sell records. Nope. So we called it a night.

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

The Untouchables

Ever since it first came out, I wanted a copy of Steve Jackson Games' Strange Synergy. This strategy board game gives you a deck of 100 cards with super powers and "gadgets." You are dealt nine cards and have three warriors on which to distribute the powers/gadgets on the cards. And to make it even better, the character art is by Phil Foglio.

The game came out in 2003 and was unfortunately not a hit. It's gone out of print and now costs $100+ in new condition. I only recently found this out and immediately created an eBay search to see if I could snag one. The very first one it notified me of was a used copy with a starting bid of $6.00. No one else bid on it! A week later, the game (literally) arrived at my doorstep.

My first game was against my 12-year-old son. I figured I'd give him a better chance of winning I played the Mad Scientists. Each team has a unique ability and theirs is merely to carry unlimited gadgets. Turns out he didn't need any help. I was only dealt one gadget and little in the way of offensive powers.

He managed to get the abilities Inner Peace, Stunning Beauty, and Acrobatic Evasion. Inner Peace prevents any opponents from hitting the warrior until he attacks someone. Stunning Beauty makes the recipient so beautiful, opponents require a roll of the die just to attempt to attack him. Then you have to roll again to actually land a hit. Acrobatic Evasion lets the warrior automatically avoid one attack per turn. Naturally he gave each of his warriors one of these. By the way, except for Stunning Beauty, these abilities are secret until you attack the warrior with them.

Only because one of my warriors had Flameblast (an initially secret offensive power), Two Heads (gives two attacks per turn), and Trick Shot (allows attacks on diagonals and is secret until used) did I manage to even damage his warrior with Acrobatic Evasion. Unfortunately, that was the first warrior he killed, so after that things went downhill for me quickly. (The only other offensive weapon/power I had was a boomerang.) At least he had a good time and wants to play again.

Hannah update: 9 months

By popular demand, Hannah updates are back. In short, she's doing great. She's running small on most measurements, particularly weight, but developmentally she's exactly where she should be, if not ahead. For the record, the measurements were 27.75" long and weighs 15 lbs. 2 oz.

She's dangerously close to walking. She can walk as long as bigger person holds her up or she can cruise holding on to furniture. In fact, she seems to prefer cruising to crawling. I fully expect her to be walking before 12 months.


She also has gotten her first two teeth. They're the two bottom ones. Hopefully you can make them out in the adjacent picture. She was starting to eat solid food even before the first tooth came in, but still gets plenty of mom's milk, too.

We had a scare over the weekend. Hannah spilled a container full of paper clips. Dorothy thought she had picked them all up, but then Hannah found another one, which Dorothy got away from her. Then, just a bit later, Dorothy thought she saw Hannah put something in her mouth. She checked and couldn't find anything, so she thought maybe she'd imagined it. Just a few minutes later, though, Hannah started choking. She spit up a bit of food and seemed to be fine, but that was scary enough that we took her to the pediatric ER.


It turns out they make teeny little hospital gowns for babies, as seen here. There was a bit of a wait, but it wasn't too bad, and much more pleasurable than going to the regular ER. Finally, we got an x-ray technician who loaded Dorothy and me up with lead smocks, as it was our job to hold her still during the procedure. We had to remove Hannah's cloth diaper, because of the snaps on it. The technician then seemed way too concerned about exposing her privates during the procedure. I mean, give me a break, she's just nine months old and the only people there were him and the three of us!

After another wait, we got the good news that nothing was found in the x-ray. So one $175(!) co-pay later, we were free to go. The cost made us feel a bit silly about the whole thing, but really, the peace of mind is priceless.

In other family news, our church had its music camp a few weeks ago. It was the story of the apostle Paul. Walter played the part of Peter. His main job was to do roll call for the rest of the apostles, which he did well. Andrew—seen here with his friend, Andrew—was in the sailor chorus, but also got to "stone" Stephen, which is what the costume he's wearing in the photo was for.

Children all dressed up

By popular demand, here are photos of Hannah. First, on the left, we have her in a lovely dress picked up at a recent kids' consignment sale. (Click the photos for bigger views.) Totally impractical, as she'll be lucky to wear it more than twice, but too cute and too cheap -- especially considering it still had the tags on it -- for her mother to pass up!

Next, on the right, we have her only slightly more casual and with ballet slippers on. Dorothy recently took her out wearing this outfit and never once got the "boy or girl" question. (Just the "how old is she" question.) This finally proved to me that those bows are completely silly after all.

Finally, we have a milestone for Walter. He is now old enough to serve as an acolyte at church. This primarily consists of lighting the candles before service and putting them out afterwards. Here he is doing the former for the very first time.

Walter's Vocabulary

This post provides a snapshot of Walter's vocabulary at 18 months. These are words that Walter says (or has said) regularly. There are more things he has seemed to say, but since he did not say them regularly, I'll assume it was a fluke. Some of these words have fallen into disuse at the current time.

Walter understands many more words than he says. For example, he knows what "stand" and "sit" mean. He also has learned a few more body parts than he says, but he's working on it.

ball

One of Walter's first words after Mommy and Daddy.

(belly) button

This was amongst Walter's early body part vocabulary. Unfortunately we're now having a hard time teaching him what a shirt button is. (You say button, he thinks "belly button.")

block(s)

Another of Walter's early words, but after "ball."

book

When we first tried reading to Walter, he wouldn't sit still long enough. Now he loves to have books read to him. His current favorites are The Foot Book by Dr. Seuss and Tigger's Big Bounce.

bubble(s)

Walter loves to blow bubbles, but "bubble" can also mean "grape."

bye-bye

Walter started waving bye-bye early on, and then quit. Once he started doing it again, it took a little while for him to also say the word. Now he's a professional.

cookie

Walter refers to any snack food (cookies, fruit chews, crackers, chips) as a cookie. He will sometimes say "cracker" when corrected.

Daddy

I couldn't tell you exactly when Walter started saying this. He just slowly went from "duh-duh-duh" to "dad-ee." One of his first words, along with "Mommy." Early on, he had stages where he'd only say one or the other. Currently, Walter seems to have a problem understanding Lee is Daddy and Dorothy is Mommy. He tends to reverse them most of the time.

doggy

One of Walter's most recent words.

ear

This was the third body part we worked on. He picked it up fairly quickly.

eye

The fourth body part we did. Now we just have to teach to be gentle when indicating it.

French fry

We've unfortunately fallen into the trap of fast food. Walter loves French fries. We have to limit what we give him so he'll eat his other food most of the time. He's even said "French fry" once as we drove past McDonald's now, so we're definitely in trouble (and trying to cut back).

hi

Walter tends to greet me with this when I come home. He'll also answer "hi" when you say it to him.

juice

Any liquid that goes in his cups (juice, milk, water) is juice, although we're working on "milk." Walter uses this word a lot, basically meaning he's thirsty. Sometimes it's hard for me to tell "juice" from "shoes."

kitty (cat)

Walter learned this fairly early, despite the fact our cats always run away from him.

Mommy

One of Walter's first two words. (See Daddy.)

no

For a while, this was Walter's all-purpose answer, no matter if he meant yes or no. But if you tried to give him something he didn't want, he definitely meant it because he'd say "no" and push it away. He's gotten better about it, but "no" still doesn't always mean no.

nose

One of the first two body parts we worked on, and one of Walter's favorites. (See toes.)

potty

Another of Walter's more recent words. He knows what it means. Now if we could just get him to say it when he needs to "go potty."

shoe(s)

When Walter starts saying "shoes," it sometimes means he wants to go outside. Although usually he'll go get his jacket first and then we'll tell him he needs his shoes. Then he starts saying "shoes."

sock(s)

Walter usually says "shoes" when he sees someone putting on socks, but will start saying "socks" after he's corrected.

teeth

One of Walter's more recently learnd body parts. I think it's surplanted mouth, so I guess we'll have to work on tongue, lips, etc.

tissue(s)

One of Walter's grandmothers managed to start teaching Walter to blow his nose at an amazingly early age. He later learned to say "tissue." Usually he starts saying it whenever someone else gets a tissue, indicating he wants one too (whether his nose really needs blowing or not).

toe(s)

One of the first two body parts we worked on, along with "nose." He learned the difference amazingly quickly.

uh-oh

Another of Walter's early words, although I don't remember precisely when he started saying it. He most likely picked it up from Teletubbies. At first, he'd just say it for no apparent reason. Then he started saying it any time he saw Teletubbie merchandise. As of this writing, he tends to use when he spills or drops something.

whee

I started saying this to let Walter know sliding down a slide is supposed to be fun. Now he often says it just as he starts down one. (And he does think they're fun.)

yay

When Walter does something right or good, we try to encourage him by saying "yay" and clapping. He picked up on it and will now clap for himself while saying "yay!" He's also started doing it when other people applaud, including people on TV.

yeah

Walter sometimes says this in response to a question, but I don't think he really understands its meaning.

[This was originally a web page at my personal site. It was created November 10, 1999 and last updated on November 15 of that year.]