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Post by wgardner on Jul 16, 2022 20:10:46 GMT -5
I'm curious as to why you sent us outside the book to use a Beatles album and songs unrelated to the story for a solution, and did not use the long list of Beatles songs included IN the book? We had to come up with 3 music puzzles... rot13ed partial spoilers below. Copy and paste at rot13.com to see the message. Sbe Ehol'f zhfvpny chmmyrf, jr qrpvqrq gb unir bar chmmyr gung hfrq zrybqvp abgrf, bar chmmyr gung jnf eryngrq gb fbat gvgyrf, naq bar chmmyr gung jnf eryngrq gb thvgne pubeqf, nf gurfr jrer ng yrnfg guerr frzv-frcnengr zhfvpny pbaprcgf. Orgu vavgvnyyl pnzr hc jvgu univat gur Orrgyrf or perngher punenpgref gung jrer eryngrq gb gur Orngyrf, ybat orsber jr pnzr hc jvgu gur chmmyrf. V guvax fur fgnegrq gung cneg orpnhfr fur cebpherq gur 3 orrgyr wrjryel vgrzf naq gura jebgr gur fgbel nebhaq gurer orvat 3 orrgyrf sebz gurer. Jura jr pnzr hc jvgu gur pbaprcg sbe gur Erq Orrgyr chmmyr, V oryvrir gung Orgu jrag onpx naq punatrq Erq Orrgyr'f fcbxra yvarf fb gurl jrer nyy bayl ylevpf sebz fbatf sebz gur Orngyr'f Erq nyohz. Guvf jnf n uhtr pyhr ertneqvat ubj gb oernx vagb gung chmmyr. Orlbaq gung, V qba'g xabj gung jr unir zhpu zber bs na nafjre gb lbhe dhrfgvba bgure guna "jr qvqa'g guvax bs gung." Jr qvq gel gb vfbyngr gur chmmyrf gung hfrq fgbel grkg gb or va gur Abegu/Fvyin/Yvgrengher frg bs chmmyrf gb unir zber pyrne qrznepngvbaf orgjrra grkg chmmyrf naq bgure chmmyrf onfrq ba Neg, FGRZ pbaprcgf, naq zhfvp.
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Post by thedawailey on Jul 16, 2022 21:21:57 GMT -5
Thank you! I was convinced there was a cipher hidden in those songs. It was a fun twist to have beetles speaking in "Beatles"!
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Leveret
Full Member
An enchanting hare
Posts: 217
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Post by Leveret on Jul 16, 2022 22:30:23 GMT -5
I can expand a little on what Bill said...I had seen the jewelry pieces and right away they reminded me of "A Treasure's Trove". I bought one with the intention of creating a treasure hunt one day. Then I bought another...and it turned into an obsession. But I could only get THREE beetles!
Anyway, I just thought it would add an amusing aspect to the story to have the beetles characters speak in Beatles lyrics.
Two of them happened to fall into the music category.
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I know someone will ask next how we decided to put what creatures/jewelry into which category. My answer would be that it was mostly dependent on the location. I tried to match the creatures to the features of a location. For example, for me, there was no question at all where ANT would go. For those of you who have solved that one, you will know what a fitting location that was for an ant. CRAB was another that perfectly belonged where that token was hidden.
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FAVORITES
People often ask me what my favorites are...
In terms of art, I really enjoyed painting WORKER BEE. It was very tedious, but I like doing that kind of work. I also really like the way SILVA turned out. GRASSHOPPER was fun too, because there was a bit of mystery to it. No one knew what that floating square rock was supposed to be, but for those who were BOTG, you know for sure what it is. And that one was my favorite hiding spot, as I think it was in a sneaky spot.
I also like the QUEEN BEE location. Once people know and understand that location, they will understand why it was a VERY different place to hide a token. And the story was fun to write for that one too.
A bit of back-story to the QUEEN BEE location...It is a place I wanted to visit, but have never been there. I thought it would be perfect for a science token. When I proposed it to Bill, who is very techie, he said, "No way. We can't hide a token there!" But he came around and then he even wanted to visit the place too. Bill and I never met, but we met at the QUEEN BEE location.
The ANT location was something I have never seen before, and it was AMAZING. And the park also had some nice waterfalls.
Many of the places that we picked to hide tokens are beautiful locations, and interesting too!
If anyone wants to share photos, I am sure others would like to see them.
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OTHER COMMENTS
When writing and illustrating the story, I wanted to try to represent the creatures realistically. That meant doing some research into what they looked liked, as well as their characteristics---some of which extended into their puzzles. WORKER BEE had a puzzle that involved a dance. SNAIL's rare left-ward spiraling shell hinted at her solution. CRAB's walk, back and forth is a hint to the solution to his puzzle too. Then there are just facts related to that creature, such as FROG eating his own skin, or the BEETLES having exoskeletons, and BUTTERFLY having wings that worked as camouflage. If any children were looking at the book or getting involved with it, I wanted it to be educational, even if on some small level.
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Leveret
Full Member
An enchanting hare
Posts: 217
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Post by Leveret on Jul 16, 2022 22:42:43 GMT -5
This deserves a post of its own:
A BIG THANK YOU!
I am just a member of the treasure hunting community like all of you. My first treasure hunt was "A Treasure's Trove". It is what inspired me to get involved in this hobby. After several years of participating in hunts, I decided to apply my artistic talents to creating hunts of my own. I have had successes and failures and have learned from both.
I want to THANK YOU all for participating in "The Story of Leveret: An Enchanting Tale".
I appreciate everyone's comments and compliments. They mean a lot to me.
And I want to thank Bill Gardner for being my partner in this fantastic adventure of bringing Leveret to life!
---Beth
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Post by susb8383 on Jul 17, 2022 7:15:37 GMT -5
Did you have an expected solve order for the puzzles based on (expected) difficulty? Were there any puzzles you were surprised were solved much earlier/later than expected? My main surprise and sorrow was that Ant was solved quickly from the text and art hints. The Ant puzzle was one of the more intricate puzzles that we were proud of. Bummer that it didn't need to be solved to find the token. One unlucky thing was that an unaffiliated hiker/blogger/photographer happened to post pictures of a hike at the very location where the Ant token was hidden, including one picture almost exactly matching the tree in the Ant artwork. This allowed solvers to verify the location before traveling to it. And I was a tad disappointed that other tokens were solved without solving the core puzzles (Golden Beetle, Queen Bee). But Beth's artwork gave a nice set of confirmers and the text hints were often obscure but not so obscure that motivated searchers couldn't figure some things out just from the text and artwork alone. Bill We also solved Ant just from the story but using a different source. There's a YouTube video that shows a family outing at that location including the exact tree. Before that we didn't realize the story had hints in it. Without the visual confirmation it was still findable by googling rock maze. There are only a couple that come up and this location was the only one I'd consider an easy to moderate hike and was free. I would rather have solved each puzzle but once we realized the story had hints in it we were able to use just the story to solve queen bee and worker bee, That tactic misled us with golden beetle though. We were looking in Michigan because of the Barbed Mountains which we thought were the Porcupine Mountains, gale force winds which we thought referred to the Great Lakes, north and south which could mean the upper and lower peninsula, and a troll because A Troll's Cache was in Michigan and people who live on the lower peninsula are known as trolls--they live under the Macinac Bridge. I agree having people bypass the puzzle was disappointing, even for the solvers. Maybe not having the story match the actual location is the key. After all, if you solve the puzzle which gives you a very specific location, no confirmers are needed. But it was a great idea on your part to offer a bonus prize for the complete solution which insured that people kept working on the puzzle.
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Post by susb8383 on Jul 17, 2022 7:39:41 GMT -5
How were you able to put the engravings on the backs?
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Post by elysethecat on Jul 17, 2022 8:14:03 GMT -5
I just wanted to jump in here and say LEVERET HAS CHANGED MY LIFE! Most of my brain power/contributuons happened while I was in motion, and WOW, WAS I IN MOTION as I traversed Beth's exquisitely designed, magical map, criss-crossing the country in planes, trains, cars, and one massive motorhome; solving puzzles while navigating 22 cities across 16 states until I didn't know where my real life ended and where Leveret's began. It seems a bit like an enchanted dream now...Thank you Bill and Beth for giving me and the Bug Catchers (and the mysterious army I sometimes called upon at strange hours with even stranger requests) a reason to get out of bed for two of the most adventure-rich months in a very, VERY long time. I will miss every one of those frustrating forest creatures. Congratulations on a successful and brilliant hunt!
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Leveret
Full Member
An enchanting hare
Posts: 217
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Post by Leveret on Jul 17, 2022 13:25:44 GMT -5
How were you able to put the engravings on the backs? With something like this and a hammer. Sadly, the 6x6 order is not correct. And what's with the & symbol??
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Post by seanl81 on Jul 18, 2022 17:33:34 GMT -5
I know it's been said many times before, but I want to echo what everyone has been saying - this hunt was amazing and we are incredibly grateful to the two of you for putting it together! My kids and I will have fond memories of this time, and again, a huge thank you to Team Palmford for letting us participate in the BOTG portion of Grasshopper. This wasn't just a tribute to "A Treasure's Trove" - it was a spiritual successor that I found to be even more enjoyable than the first! Your attention to detail throughout was amazing. I hope you took in a lot of pride and excitement as the treasure hunters found the tokens you spent over a year researching and hiding for us to find.
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ddp
New Member
Posts: 13
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Post by ddp on Jul 20, 2022 16:27:44 GMT -5
How long did you expect the Hunt to take? Did you have the hints (content and schedule) planned in advance, or did you adjust based on how the Hunt was progressing?
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Post by wgardner on Jul 21, 2022 5:48:13 GMT -5
How long did you expect the Hunt to take? Did you have the hints (content and schedule) planned in advance, or did you adjust based on how the Hunt was progressing? Speaking only for me: We wanted the hunt to end before the weather got bad in the fall, when some of the token locations might become snow covered and more treacherous to travel to and find. Beyond that, it was tough to know how the hunt would progress. We weren't sure how many people would participate and how many would go "all-in" towards finding the tokens. We were pleased that there were more than just a few people finding tokens and working on the hunt, and we were also pleased that alliances started forming for both puzzle solving and BOTG travels. Hints were not planned in advance, though I did ponder what would be a good hint if, say, nobody got the Poly6 structure (or perhaps worse, only 1 team got the Poly6 structure and then started just grabbing all of the associated tokens). I thought that some of the independent puzzles would be solved, then Poly6 would crack, and then finally some of the last independent puzzles would be solved. OTOH, what really seemed to happen is that virtually all of the independent puzzles were solved first and then Poly6 finally cracked with the last set of hints and the mad dash was on. There were a few pesky independent puzzles in the west that only 1-2 teams solved before the reveal, though that's not necessarily bad. Treasure hunts are supposed to be hard. Sometimes "hard" can be because a puzzle is intricate and clever (yeah!). Sometimes "hard" can be because a puzzle just requires trying 100s of possibilities (boo!). Sometimes "hard" can be because a puzzle is a game of "what was the puzzle creator thinking?" (yeah or boo, depending on if the answer has an "aha" moment or just an "oh, really?" moment). I think the hunt had its share of all types, though we tried to come up with as many "yeah!" and "aha" types as possible.
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jrrag
Junior Member
Posts: 51
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Post by jrrag on Jul 21, 2022 7:27:20 GMT -5
Use map tear helper...
Was that just a necessary contrivance to make the snail puzzle work, or did I miss a legitimate use? Pretty neat to encode 2 message in one.
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Post by wgardner on Jul 21, 2022 9:52:36 GMT -5
Use map tear helper... Was that just a necessary contrivance to make the snail puzzle work, or did I miss a legitimate use? Pretty neat to encode 2 message in one. Primarily a contrivance. Then we added the "map helper" at the end, which if you tore out the middle could be used to see just one grid cell, so it could be used to find mini-maps of the locations around the tokens. But again, primarily a contrivance.
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Post by crawfocl on Jul 21, 2022 9:58:54 GMT -5
That forwards/backwards trick still floors me! That may have been my favorite 'aha' moment of the hunt (though it's hard to pick just one).
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Post by wgardner on Jul 21, 2022 10:10:49 GMT -5
That forwards/backwards trick still floors me! That may have been my favorite 'aha' moment of the hunt (though it's hard to pick just one). I figured that one might get solved a bit earlier, just because I figured folks would ask "why the heck did they bother to use all of these codes in this seemingly random way?" I'd also love to hear how many folks did get the backwards message but then were stuck about how to use that message to get the final decode message for that token's location. I'd also also love to hear more stories from solvers about ahas, frustrations, rants and raves, etc.
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