Clavis Cryptica

I can’t believe it’s finally DASH time again!  Pretty much since the moment DASH 4 was over, I’ve been ridiculously eager to play again.  Not only did we have a great time last year, we also had a lot of areas where we knew we could do better and couldn’t wait to try again.

I feel like my puzzler’s toolbox must have grown a lot since last year, and I even have an MIT Mystery Hunt under my belt!  But I’m definitely expecting DASH to throw some new puzzle styles at me.  And a lot of our flaws last year had nothing to do with puzzle solving!  Luckily, I wrote down last year’s experience in meticulous detail, so it should be easy to gather all my thoughts and make a game plan for doing our best at DASH 5.

Since we’re in Seattle now, we’ve had to leave our old teammates behind (sadface) and start fresh.  We had a few friends here who were interested, but they all had other plans come up.  Nick and I were certainly willing to play as a two-person team, but it seemed like it would be better if we could find a few other people to join us.  We reached out on the Seattle Puzzlers Facebook group and found Keith and Rachael who wanted to play but hadn’t formed a team.  We met up at Puzzled Pint last night and seemed to do well solving together!  It seemed like we were pretty well-matched as far as experience goes, while still having a variety of skills and specialties between the four of us.  I think we’re going to make a great team on Saturday!  (By the way, if you’re in need of any cool camping/outdoor equipment, Keith’s company has got you covered!)

Now, at long last, I get to go into DASH planning mode!  I’ve re-read all of my re-cap posts from last year and taken detailed notes about the things we learned.  Here are my plans for DASH 5!

 

Objectives:

This year I have two main objectives for DASH.  The first is to have fun, of course.  The second is to finish all the puzzles and the meta within the time limit.  Last year we failed to complete all the puzzles in time, and that was kind of a bummer.  It would be great to have a loftier goal (such as solving 5 minutes under par for each puzzle), but I think just finishing is both realistic and attainable.  The best kind of goal!

 

What to Bring:

Some things were more useful than others last year.  Here’s what I’m definitely bringing again:

• Sunglasses – I know we’re in Seattle, and it’s probably going to rain, but the sun might still show up!
• Umbrella – I know we’re in Seattle, and nobody uses umbrellas, but it’s worth keeping the puzzles dry!
• One Backpack – I was surprised we only needed one last year, but it really was sufficient.
• A million pens and pencils – In the heat of the moment, it’s impossible to keep track of your writing utensils.  This year, they’re going in every pocket of the backpack.
• The Binder – My trusty green binder was invaluable last year for keeping puzzle materials corralled and maps easily accessible.
• Notebooks that double as writing surfaces – Loose paper is pretty useless.  Small, ringbound notebooks are great.  (Some graph paper is good to have though)
• Dry erase markers and clear folders – I was surprised we used these last year.  They turned out to be perfect for a puzzle where we had to fill in some shapes but did it wrong the first few times.
• Camera – I swear I’m going to take more photos this year!
• Tissues – Apparently I got the sniffles last year from the cold temperatures in the morning.

 

Morale / Team Dynamic:

I don’t remember running into any morale/energy issues last year, but they are always a threat!  I’ll do my best to try and make sure everyone is having fun and not feeling stressed.  I think Nick and I have become a lot more aware of when we’re suffering from “hunger grumps,” so we should be able to spot it before it becomes a problem (though I think adrenaline carried Nick straight through lunch and dinner last year!).

Last night, we talked briefly about our attitude as a team.  Our priority is to have fun, but we also like to do our best.  Keith says he has a bit of a competitive streak, and I think that will mesh well with us.  But we should probably agree upon a hint policy before Saturday.

On the topic of having fun, I think it’s important to try and make sure all team members are equally involved.  In my eagerness to do better this year, I’m afraid I might be prone to taking over the puzzle, or not hearing out other peoples’ ideas (a bad habit of mine, and the other person’s idea almost always turns out to be right!).  I want to do my best to take it easy, stop panicking, and approach the puzzles as a team.  Rachael is new to puzzle hunts, and I definitely want her to have a good time and feel that she contributed (though I’m not too worried after watching her crush a logic puzzle at Puzzled Pint last night).  One thing I am good at is delegating, and that happens to be a good strategy for puzzle solving and keeping teammates happy, so hopefully I can keep myself focused enough to make sure everyone is involved.

 

Time Management:

Our biggest downfall last year was TIME MANAGEMENT.  I failed to manage our time in a wide variety of ways!

1. I didn’t keep us on any kind of schedule.  We only referred to our solve time vs. the GAST, but those moments in between (and minutes over par) really added up.
2. I was unaware of the passing of time while solving (I was shocked at one point when an hour had passed, despite Nick’s efforts to keep me informed).
3. I constantly felt panicked and rushed, which actually ended up wasting our time (when I glossed over some vital flavor text, for example).
4. I let us waste time on unimportant things, like the wordsearch that showed us the next location and the collaborative puzzle.

This year, the first thing I’m going to do when we get the GAST sheet is write down a timetable that converts those par times into deadlines to meet.  It’s too easy to spend a few minutes over par on each puzzle and then end up behind.  If I can see that we were supposed to start puzzle 5 at 2:00pm, and it’s already 2:30, then I’ll know we need to ask for a hint pretty early if we’re having trouble getting started.  I might even set some alarms to really keep us on the ball.  Last year, Snooze would start a stopwatch whenever we started a puzzle, which was really helpful.  I think I need to wear a watch this year, cellphone isn’t cutting it.

I’m also going to try and keep calm during the event.  It’s fun to get caught up in the excitement, but going past that and into panic-mode is no fun for anybody.  If I am calm, collected, and aware of our time, we can always adjust our schedule, start asking for hints early, and get back on track.  If I’m freaking out and trying to rush, I’ll lose my awareness and start making bad decisions across the board.

 

Puzzle Strategy:

And as for some general puzzle strategy, I think there is a lot we can do to improve:

• Slow down.
• Read every word of the flavor text.  It might save you 10 minutes of trying to guess the encoding method.
• Assume the puzzle is elegantly designed.  Trust the designer.  It’s a lot more probable that you’re just missing something than a heavily playtested puzzle is broken or unfair.
• If you’re stuck, make sure you’ve accounted for all the elements of the puzzle.  Did you have leftover letters somewhere?  Have you used all the parts of the puzzle yet?
• Take note of any work you do that seems “off.”  If that connection or answer felt like a bit of a stretch, it might turn out to be wrong.  Good to check back on when you get stuck.
• Larry‘s advice from last year:
  • If you’re watching someone work on a possible solution and you don’t understand, watch and learn.
  • If you’re watching someone work on a possible solution and you understand and you can help, then help. (E.g., “Hey, while you work on it from the beginning, I’ll work on it from the end so we crank through it twice as fast.”)
  • If you’re watching, you understand but you can’t help (“Aww, we already have three people crowded around the list of country anagrams, I can’t even see it”), try to guess at the next step.
• Backsolving can save time and confirm the work that’s already been done.
• Perform sanity checks frequently.
• Watch out for tunnel vision.  Step back and look at the big picture.

 

Food Strategy:

Eating is important!  Last year we had a big brunch before the event and that really helped carry us through to our late lunch (and then late dinner).  It’s earlier here on the West coast, so we’ll probably have breakfast at home beforehand this time, and hopefully we can have a proper lunch at a reasonable time.  If possible, it would be nice to take the longest puzzle to lunch and be able to sit, eat, and get out of the rain for a bit without wasting any time.  (Though I guess this depends on there being a place to eat near that puzzle location).  Or maybe we’ll be moving along quickly enough this year that we could actually be safe taking a lunch break?

(Pro-tip:  Make sure any restaurant you choose to solve in isn’t going to close any time soon!)

Having snacks in between puzzles is also a great mood-lifter. =)

 

Organization:

Things got a little messy last year.  I want to make a habit this year of stopping after we turn in each answer and organizing our materials.  Maybe finished puzzles go in the back of the binder, and any pieces we collect will go in a bag in the binder.  Used scratch paper gets torn out or flipped over to a new page.  And so on.  I’m also going to make sure that the GC-provided map goes on the front of the binder, and anything else that needs quick access frequently (like last year’s Mayan calendar) goes on the back.  GAST schedule goes inside the binder, but front and center.

 

Other Preparations:

Studying a map of the area really helped me keep my head on straight last year.  I’m going to do that again.

Last year, there were some non-puzzle materials in the opening packet.  I want to make a point of making sure they get read and filed properly, as last year we kind of just stuck them somewhere and then forgot about them.

 

That’s all I’ve got in mind for now.  Who else is going to DASH this year?  Are you doing anything to prepare?  What do you want to improve upon from last year?  How is your weather looking?  (Ironically, the forecast here in Seattle is almost identical to DC’s last year!)  Are you playing with new people or a well-oiled machine of a team?  Are you unreasonably excited??

Go team Rather Dashing!

Glorious spring is here!  It’s (apparently unseasonably) sunny and mildly warm here in Seattle, and it’s awesome!  There is a lot going on this spring.

 

My JavaScript Game
Well, May 1st has come and gone and I did not even come close to “finishing” my tiny JavaScript game!  I had a lot of other, “more important” projects and tasks come up over the past two weeks and just didn’t stay committed to completing my burndown.  Lately I’ve been feeling like I’m doing too much at once while simultaneously feeling like I’m not doing enough (to get everything done that I want to do).

But there’s no use feeling bad about it, it’s better to look ahead and see what I can do to finish what I started. I have a few deadlines next week, so I don’t think I should set myself up to fail by scheduling anything before May 13th.

This week I tried out The Pomodoro Technique for time management, and so far it’s really working well for me (though it’s a bit hard to tell because it seems like my workload has doubled lately, so I don’t feel as effective as my “done” list says I am).  I’m starting to comprehend the “pomodoro” as a unit of work time (25 minutes of uninterrupted work, followed by a 5 minute break), and it seems totally within reach to commit one pomodoro per day to working on my game.  I can do it!

 

Events!
Springtime means puzzle hunt season is here!  Here’s what’s coming up, see more at Puzzle Hunt Calendar.

Saturday, May 4th – New issue of Puzzles & Answers Magazine
We played our first P&A Magazine last month (feels like ages ago!) with some local puzzlers.  It was enjoyable, but tougher than I was anticipating!  The new issue comes out tomorrow.  (Unfortunately we’ll be busy with no small amount of errands and (fortunately) the Seattle Reign FC home opener!)

Tuesday, May 14th – Portland, OR and Seattle, WA –  Puzzled Pint
Been looking forward to the next puzzled pint!  We took some friends last time.  It was their first puzzle experience and we all had a good time =)  Frustratingly, this is the same night as the So You Think You Can Dance premiere which I’ll be tempted to stay home for (but the first episodes are just auditions, and I can catch up on that later!).

Saturday, May 18th – All over! – DASH 5
It’s almost time for DASH! It’s almost time for DASH!!!  I’m unreasonably excited!!  I’ve been eagerly anticipating DASH 5 since we turned in our answer sheet for DASH 4!  I can’t wait to give it another go and see if our solving and racing skills have improved over the last year.  A good friend of ours from college is also planning to join us (his first puzzle experience!) so it should be a great time all around.  Expect a big DASH prep post!

Saturday-Sunday, May 25-26 – Richmond, VA to Warm Springs, VA – Great Virginia Race
I don’t live in Virginia anymore, but if you do you should go enjoy this weekend-long Ravenchase game!  There is even a beginner track for new players.  Should be a great time!

Saturday, June 1st and June 8th – Bay Area, CA – Shinteki Decathlon 8
I am super pumped to play in my first Shinteki event in June with Boneless Chicken Cabaret.  From what I hear, they are expertly run and a super fun time.  We’re playing the June 8th run and going down early for Escape from the Mysterious Room as well!  There are also some rumblings about a puzzler/gamer meetup/dinner after, which would be great for putting some faces with names of people in the community I’ve become acquainted with/aware of over the past year.  I don’t think I could be more excited about this weekend!

Sunday, June 2nd – Washington D.C. – Post Hunt
I am pretty bummed that we’ll be missing Post Hunt this year.  It was starting to become a reunion of sorts with friends in the DC/NOVA area.  I had a really good time last year despite the frustrations of the hunt itself.  There’s something strange and mysterious about Post Hunt.  They have the means to do really cool stuff (like build giant structures) so you never know what you’re going to find.  And then the electricity of the endgame is like nothing else (even though it usually shorts out pretty quickly when you miss one of the many plausible connections).  You always feel like there is this potential that you, out of those thousands of people, will be the one who “gets” it, who scoured the magazine and noticed just the right detail, who sees the light and follows the path to victory.  Sigh!  Maybe I’ll have a friend re-cap the event for me as dramatically as possible over the phone!

Saturday, June 15th – Brooklyn, NY – Come Out & Play Jam
Come Out and Play is hosting a live-action game design challenge/jam day for teens.  They’ll get to work with professional game designers to create and present a live-action game by the end of the day.   Two games will be featured in the festival in July.  Sounds so cool!  Too bad I’m not a teen or in Brooklyn.

 

Other Stuff

A while back, I wrote about a beautiful and interesting-looking exploration game coming up called Cradle, and it was recently Greenlit by the Steam community!  Alright!  Looking forward to it.

Here is an interesting article about the changing landscape of game design.  Very exciting.

I thought this Reddit post on low tides and high tides was inspiring in a mysterious way.  And this one about unearthing collosseums.  And this one about Panathenaic Stadium, with a comment that had some photos of what it looked like and might have looked like before it was uncovered and refurbished.  What is hiding just below the surface?

 

That’s all for this week!

As promised, I’m going to talk about my experience so far learning JavaScript and attempting to make a tiny, tiny game by May 1st.

I’ve gotten pretty interested in game design lately, and it’s something I want to pursue further.  The best way to do that is to start making games!  I don’t know any programming languages, so I’m sort of having to start from scratch here. Luckily, I’m in the unique and fortunate situation of having a husband who is a very talented programmer and eager to teach me everything I need to know.  Private tutoring for free!  The sooner I take advantage of that, the better.

Although I use HTML and CSS to make websites, the only programming language I have any experience with is PHP from working with WordPress, and not much of that.  I told Nick I wanted to make a small game and learn programming basics, and together we decided that JavaScript would be fairly easy to learn (and HTML 5 will let me easily share the game if I ever get it to that state).

I’m aiming to “finish” the game (and I use that term lightly) by May 1st because I work best on a deadline and we’re hoping to start a larger game project together with a friend around that time, so I’ll be wanting to shift my attention there (hopefully I’ll be ready to learn/help more in the programming department).

You might remember that last year I started a point-and-click escape-the-maze type of game in JavaScript and HTML5.  I actually got pretty far with the mechanics (despite only making one post about the game) but I ran into some bugs, got discouraged, and fell off the wagon.  Other reasons for my failure probably include a lack of independence (I didn’t know any programming at all, so Nick had to hold my hand the whole time) and a lack of a deadline/motivation.  I think I was also trying to make it a better game than it needed to be, without having the skills yet to do so.

This time, I just have a very small concept of a chase game where you navigate a Pac-Man-style map (though zoomed way in) and try to find a thief or spy by following the footprints they leave behind.

 

 

 

The very basics

I think one of the reasons I lost interest last time I tried to make a game was that I was learning way too much at once without any context.  This time around, I decided to try learning the basics of JavaScript first through Codecademy.com.  Codecademy offers a series of free programming lessons that cover the basics of a number of different languages.  They also gamify the experience with points and badges.  (The gamification of some things may be controversial, but I think it’s perfect for tedious work like studying).  So earlier this month, I got started on the JavaScript track and finished up a little over a week later.  I will admit that I found the process boring a lot of the time, but I’m definitely glad I stuck with it.  (And I think Codecademy did a great job finding the balance between teaching and letting me discover and learn things on my own).

 

Getting set up

At this point, Nick helped me make a burndown in Google docs, set up my game environment in Aptana (which is what I was using for my other game), and get me started with a game loop.  It was amazing what a difference going through the Codecademy track made.  Nick was teaching me things he had already taught me back when I tried to make a game before, but I was able to follow so much more this time around.  Before, I would get really hung up on things like semicolon usage, or what a function even was.  It was great to be able to just skip all of that stuff and really comprehend what the code was doing.  We started off using this simple game tutorial as a guideline and then worked from there.  Before long, we had canvas, a sprite that could move with the arrow keys, and some background music!

 

Interaction

Today, I finished implementing collision detection.  Nick helped me write the code for the game to know when my sprite was colliding with (or overlapping in space with) a rectangle that we drew, and I had to come up with a way to make the code interpret that signal in a way that makes it seem like the sprite is colliding with the rectangle.  I made variables for when the sprite is colliding to the right, left, up, and down, and then added if statements to the four arrow key inputs to only move the sprite if they weren’t colliding in their relative directions.  It was satisfying to think of a solution, implement it, and have it actually work!  Nick had to clean things up a bit after me, but it was pretty good at its core.  I feel like it’s the first time I’m getting to problem-solve like this with code, and I’m happy that I’m able to do it (even if I’m at the most basic level).

 

 

Next Steps:  Map building, character AI, camera?

Now that I can make my sprite collide with something on the map, I need to actually build the whole map and get the game to know which areas are obstructions.  Nick says this will be easy, but I can’t really imagine how it will work yet!  Since I want most of the map to be off-screen, I guess I’ll also need to figure out how to make the “camera” track the main player sprite (again, no clue!).  Then hopefully we can add in the suspect character that the player will be chasing.  There’s a lot of work to do before May 1st!

 

Thoughts

I’m having fun with the project and I’m satisfied with my learning so far.  It is a bit hard to find the right time to work on it, though.  During the day, I convince myself that there are more important things that need to be done.  And in the evenings, when it makes the most sense to work on it because Nick is home and can help, I usually don’t feel like sitting at the computer anymore since I’ve been doing that all day.  I think I need to find a balance between doing some game work during the day and finding non-computer things to do (chores are all I can think of, or maybe exercise) to keep me from getting burnt out at the desk.

The other big obstacle right now is that I’m an awful student!  This has been the source of many fights between me and Nick.  I’m really impatient, I’m easily bored and distracted, I take criticisms and suggestions too personally, and I’m not as engaged in the learning process as Nick would like.  I don’t know what it is, and this isn’t the first time this has happened.  I think part of it is a combination of not liking being bad at things and being used to learning independently.  I hope that being more aware of this problem will help me catch it and stop it before it leads to any more fights.  I want to be a good student (and not drive my husband crazy)!

So there are a lot of events coming up that you all should know about!  Here they are:

DASH 5 – May 18th
DASH is a day-long puzzle hunt that takes place in multiple cities around the country on the same day.  This year’s hunt is on May 18th and will be run in the following cities (bolding the ones I care about):  Albuquerque, Austin, Boston, Chicago, Davis, Half Moon Bay, Los Angeles, Minneapolis, New York City, Portland, San Francisco, Seattle, St. Louis, and Washington DC.  I hope our old teammates in/near DC had enough fun last year to go again, I would love to see some fellow mid-westerners make a good showing in St. Louis, and we’ll be competing in Seattle as team Rather Dashing (though we’re only three players strong so far).

It’s only $40 per team, it’s great for beginners, and it’s a whole lot of fun.  Go to DASH!

 

DASH 5 London – May 25th
London is getting its first ever DASH, running on May 25th!  So get on that if you’re in the area.

 

The Eighth Annual Great Virginia Race – May 25th-26th
A Ravenchase race that will take you across the great state of Virginia over the course of two days.  Includes a beginner and an advanced track, so no excuses!

 

Post Hunt – Washington, DC – June 2nd
I’m missing Post Hunt this year, being on the wrong coast and all =(  But if you’re near DC, you should definitely plan on going!  It’s great fun, if a little maddening.  Don’t miss out on your chance to see some really creative puzzles (for free!) and enjoy a fun day in DC with your friends.  I’ll really miss going to this!

 

The Great America Race III: The Quest for the Iron Raven - Pittsburgh to Chicago – August 10th-14th
How does a week-long puzzle road trip sound?  Five days, three states, one victorious team!  The Great America Race is the only puzzle hunt of its kind, running this year from Pittsburgh, PA to Chicago, IL.

 

The 75th Annual Famine Game – Washington DC – September 27th-29th
In case it didn’t show up on your radar, a pre-registration census has been posted for The Famine Game.  If you have any interest in playing, be sure to go fill out the census.  Also, if you’re an individual player looking for a team to join, fill out the census and they will try to match you with other players!

 

In addition to DASH, I’m also officially attending Shinteki Decathlon 8 on June 8th, SEAHOP on June 22nd, and Wartron: Boston on June 29th.  June 2013 will go down as the month I destroyed my brain.

Who else out there is planning on attending some of the awesome events coming up this summer?

This post will have not much to do with puzzles, mysteries, or games, and probably too much to do with me personally!  But it will give you an idea of what to expect from Clavis Cryptica moving forward, so perhaps worth reading.

It’s been a while!  Almost a month since my last post.  The following Monday after that post, we moved into our new apartment here in Bellevue and I’ve pretty much been wrapped up in the move-in process since then.

Throughout that process, I’ve had some time to think about this blog and what my perspective on it will be going forward.  I don’t really feel like I can, or want to, continue to sustain the 3x/week posting schedule that I’ve maintained over the past year.  I think there are a lot of factors contributing to that feeling, which might include:

• I haven’t really been doing a lot of puzzley things lately, so I don’t have as much to write about.  (And for some of the puzzle things I am doing, I can’t really write about them.  Top secret!)
• The pool of new puzzle/mystery/game things for me to discover and write about has become a lot smaller now that I’ve been involved in the community for about a year.
• I’m realizing that three posts a week is a little ambitious for one person’s hobby.  I have a lot of other hobbies competing for that time.

Or maybe I’ve just fallen off the wagon and it only feels less attainable than it used to be.  There were definitely some months last year when I felt like I was struggling to find blog topics every week, but I stuck it out and always managed to come up with something.  And some of those posts ended up being my most commented-upon.

So if I think I’m probably still capable of maintaining the blog the same way I have been, I have to ask myself whether I want to.  It kind of feels like I don’t want to, so I’d like to explore why.  One reason is that maintaining the blog has become a little bit more difficult than before, for the reasons listed above.  I think another is that I probably have different goals than I did a year ago, and I’ve learned a few things about what I do and don’t like when it comes to blogging.

Read more »

I really don’t like taking so much time off from blogging, but being so busy means that not only do I not have time to write good posts, I don’t have time to experience anything worth writing about!  We’re moving out of our apartment on Wednesday and flying to Seattle on Saturday, so unfortunately I’m still going to be on hiatus this week =/

In the meantime, check out The Great Sporcle Puzzle Hunt, a 15-part puzzle hunt built with Sporcle quizzes that was just released yesterday.

Sorry for all the down time here, and I hope to see you all on the other side!