Difference between revisions of "Spiral"

Latest revision as of 16:49, 27 December 2010

Up to <a href="/index.php/Bang_14" title="Bang 14">Bang 14</a> Hail to the BANG. Back to <a href="/index.php/Left_vs._Right" title="Left vs. Right">Left vs. Right</a>. Forward to <a href="/index.php/Executive_Tangrams" title="Executive Tangrams">Executive Tangrams</a>.

Up to <a href="/index.php/Bang_14" title="Bang 14">Bang 14</a> Hail to the BANG. Back to <a href="/index.php/Left_vs._Right" title="Left vs. Right">Left vs. Right</a>. Forward to <a href="/index.php/Executive_Tangrams" title="Executive Tangrams">Executive Tangrams</a>.

<img src="" alt="spiral.jpg" />

Start with a word. Replace each letter with a word beginning with that letter. (CAT → CHEETAH ANTELOPE TIGER.) Take some of the words in the new list and expand them the same way. (CHEETAH AARDVARK NARWHAL TIGER ELEPHANT LION OTTER PENGUIN EMU TIGER.) Repeat until you have as long a string of words as you like. This puzzle is that process in reverse. In this case all the words are presidentish names — most of them are actual presidents, but since there are no presidents with names beginning with I or O (or X or Y) we had to throw in a few other guys: candidates who lost, vice presidents, cabinet members, etc. The flavortext — as well as Corey's speech at the start of the game — tried to make it clear who was in what category was not important; you could treat each name as just a string of letters.

It's written in a spiral just so we don't have line breaks. The alternative would be to print the puzzle on looong strips of paper, which would have been a pain to make 30 copies of.

Throughout the game we tried to steal something we liked from the Puzzle Boat, which is that the flavortext tends to confirm (or maybe foreshadow is a better word) the answer. The "on the brink" bit at the end is meant as a connection to the answer, PRECIPICE. It's not clear how successful or useful it was — the answer sheet rules were probably a better confirmation.

Fun fact: PRECIPICE matches the "three-letter palindrome" rule on the answer sheet, but you may have noticed that it actually contains a seven-letter palindrome. The two puzzles dropped after the playtest had answers of INTERPRET and MISSISSIPPI, which also have seven-letter palindromes. This used to be one of the rules on the answer sheet. When we dropped those puzzles we also dropped that rule because we wanted every rule to be used at least twice, but we didn't change the answer to this puzzle.

• the puzzle sheet This puzzle did not change from the playtest version, except for some minor wordsmithing on the flavortext.
• the hint sheet

Arrival times

• 6:04 Unibangers
• 6:06 Blood & Bones
• 6:06 The Matheletes
• 6:10 Coed Astronomy
• 6:10 Sleep Train
• 6:11 Continental Breakfast
• 6:11 Judean People's Front
• 6:11 Kittens Kittens Kittens
• 6:11 Talkin' 'Eds
• 6:11 We're Doomed
• 6:12 Golden Golems
• 6:12 The Stonecutters
• 6:13 Consumer Recreation Services
• 6:13 Folsom Furlough
• 6:15 Longshots
• 6:16 Desert Taxi
• 6:17 Team Snout
• 6:17 The Platonic Solids
• 6:20 Disorganized Crime
• 6:20 Here Be Dragons
• 6:24 Forks on Fire
• 6:26 Everybody Loves Nutella
• 6:30 The SCSIs
• 6:30 Twainsters
• 6:32 Crazy Cat Lady & the Puzzle Heads
• 6:37 I can't read this
• 6:38 Tag and Release
• 6:39 Arthur! Arthur!