Debbie Goldstein

A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away

1Ok. A few months ago in the Bay Area2

One Hunt: Eight CitiesSeptember 13, 2009DASH3Episode I : A NEW HOPE It is a period of an internet revolution. Bay Area Night Games as well as Seattle and Nearby Adventures in Puzzling games are happening at breakneck speeds. Meanwhile, puzzlers across the country are starving for hunts. A rebel woman, inspired by a BANG 22/SNAP 5 simulcast, sets out on a path to expand the puzzle community through social media. She encounters Jesse Morris, who shares her vision. The two of them create a plan to make a distributed game across 8 cities.

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BostonHoustonLos AngelesPalo AltoPortlandSan Francisco SeattleWashington DC

Seattle and Palo Alto sold out at 30 teams in < 24 hoursSF had 26Boston: 13DC: 10Portland: 7LA: Houston had 4 teams with rain!

The event took place on September 13th and took about 6 hours.

Our mission was to make a collaborative puzzle hunt that would make it very easy for a new puzzle GC to host their own hunt (and jumpstart puzzle communities in other cities). We had each city be responsible for submitting 1 puzzle to a collective set of 8 puzzles plus a meta that was solved during a simulcast event of all cities. As a group, we provided advice and guidelines for logistics, but ultimately, each city had autonomy in logistics, registration, playtesting, hint system.

How did we start? First, we used polling software (Doodle) to help us see when all the GCs would be available. Second, Greg DeBeer generously offered to write a meta which helped define not only the constraints and direction for the local puzzles but also our Western theme (note our DC GC dancing girl).

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Each city took their solution word and crafted a puzzle around it aiming for an average puzzle solve of 30 minutes. The puzzles were wonderfully diverse involving wordplay, logic, codes, etc. Again, each city decided on their own how to best present the puzzles so a few cities decided to take the cemetery puzzle one step further and create actual tombstones as seen here. DC had their GCs dress coordinated with the puzzle.

We provided all the players with instructions that they were in a ghost town and they were visiting sites in that ghost town. Every time they solved a puzzle, the solution would enable them to find their next location.

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We provided all the players with instructions that they were in a ghost town and they were visiting sites in that ghost town. Every time they solved a puzzle, the solution would enable them to find their next location.

In order to make a consistent navigation that could be localized for all the cities, we borrowed the crossword puzzle map method from BANG 21. Clue sites and red herring sites were pinpointed on a map. A legend to those points on the map was provided next to it. Once a solution was identified, puzzlers had to find the definition that matched that clue and then ultimately find where the number of that definition was located on the map. For example, derriere was a solution that mapped to #15 on the map, Jennifer Lopezs is coveted. #15 on the map was where the next puzzle was located.

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The ForceCreative Commons: http://www.flickr.com/photos/zeetzjones/562496275We had a force of people! With 8 cities, we had a lot of eyes scrutinizing the puzzle and 8 sets of playtesting which allowed for a lot of iterations and refinement. We planned the entire thing without a single conference call we used Google Groups, Google Documents, and Google Site. We gave each city about 3 weeks to create a puzzle, post it to Google docs, and then everyone playtested internally. A month before the hunt, we had each city perform a local playtest. We had an excellent balance of collaboration with local autonomyPeople collaborating on puzzles they have never worked with/played with before. A few people including Ian and Wei-Hwa played outside their home city. Arielle from Austin drove to Houston and is now running Austin. This experiment made it possible for people new to the puzzling community to learn from seasoned players how to play as well as GC. It definitely sparked interest in new communities so much so that we were hearing inquiries for a DASH 2 across the cities. So, I guess we have to do one now.

Veterans: SF (although Debbie was a noob), Palo Alto, SeattleNew communities: Portland (although Curtis is a veteran), LA, DC, Boston, Houston

8The Dark Side

Creative Commons: http://www.flickr.com/photos/mhilsdale/3958137600Since this was an experiment, we did run into a few challenges.

Since our communication was done entirely over email, consensus it took longer to get then in a face to face meeting. It also was harder to track version control and duplication of the puzzles. For example, not a big deal, but we had 2 similar themed puzzle submissions that involved playing cards.

In addition, maintaining a central website with localized content can be challenging, with each city wanting immediate updates all at different times. This presented a challenge for our webmaster, Curtis, but he handled it with style.

Our timeline might have been aggressive considering the new nature of this hunt. We kick-offed the process in June for a September lost. There wasnt a lot of wiggle room to have cities submit puzzles late or miss any deadline.

Unfortunately, one city got overwhelmed and had to drop out which didnt leave much time to create a puzzle so there wouldnt be an input missing for the meta. Luckily, the Palo Alto team, Coed Astronomy saved the day, turned on a dime, and created a substitute puzzle. Whew!

9Lessons Learned

Creative Commons: http://www.flickr.com/photos/mylesbraithwaite/82639167/Of course, we learned from these challenges and we are incorporating these lessons in DASH 2

We reused Doodle for picking dates, Google Docs, and Google Groups. We are supplementing these tools with a wiki and weekly Conference CallsWe learned that when giving playtesting feedback in an email google will preview the first few lines so you have to enter spoiler at the beginning an hit enter several times or I just created a Google doc for playtesting.We will be using a CMS to manage the website so that local GCs can maintain their own content while keeping a standardized look and feelRather than have people take on roles ad hoc, we wrote up role descriptions and had people take on those roles from the beginning We submitted puzzle claims to a non-puzzle writing puzzle coordinator (ok thats me) to prevent duplicate submissions We split the GCs into 2 groups for playtesting to allow for further iterations. In other words, rather than have the entire group playtest the first version and be biased for the second version, half the group will play the first incarnation and the other half will play the updated version based on feedback from the first group. 10Jedi MastersBoston: Patrick McNealHouston: Phil DaslerLos Angeles: Dann WebsterPalo Alto: Jan Chong , Yar Woo, & Justin Santamaria (Art Director)Portland: Curtis Chen (Webmaster) & DeeAnn SoleSan Francisco: Debbie Goldstein, Sunshine Weiss, Jesse Morris, & Greg DeBeer (Meta-man)Seattle: Jeff & Jessica Wallace , Peter Sarrett Washington DC: Todd Etter and Sam Freund

AND MANY MOREThis hunt could not have happened without all the time, hard work, dedication, enthusiasm, and creativity that all the GCs put into this. The rock stars listed here led each citys GC. There are of course, many more amazing people that served on the GCs. 11Episode 2 : Coming Soon

Twitter: playdash Facebook: DASH Fan Page

So, yes, if you havent heard, there will be an even bigger, DASH 2, with nine cities participating!You can follow us on Twitter and become our fan on Facebook to learn more details as they unfold. What I can tell you is that the event will be April 24th and that our theme has something to do with this picture. I hope you all can come! Dont feel limited to play in your city.

12Questions

Creative Commons: http://www.flickr.com/photos/14508691@N08/3948211065/13Main Theme from Star Wars (Instrumental)John WilliamsJohn Williams Conducts John Williams, track 1/13, disc 1/11980Classical47385.645eng - Amazon.com Song ID: 203911340