Free Treasure Hunting Game App coming soon
Aug 20, 2019 13:05:52 GMT -5
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Post by bellosthemighty on Aug 20, 2019 13:05:52 GMT -5
It's up now, with the first three pages unlocked. I just got back from collecting and solving the first two. I have to say, the implementation leaves something to be desired. How it works is: a new page is released each day. These pages are divided into 5 pieces, which you can see on an overhead map of your location. You travel to the indicated point, Pokemon GO style, to tag the page piece, then you solve a puzzle to collect it. You don't need to solve the puzzle on site- the game allows you to tag a location and then work on the puzzle later, back at home. Once you collect all 5 page pieces, you jigsaw the page together and solve a riddle posed on it. then you can swipe to the next page and get 5 new pieces to track down.
One problem here is the linearity of the structure. If you can devote time to a quick stroll around your neighborhood each day, you can pick up the pieces then easily, but if you miss a day because reasons, you can't get all ten pieces at once; you have to grab the first five, solve the pieces, solve the page, and THEN go on to the next five pieces. More seriously, there seems to have been very little effort put into curating these sites. One piece I tracked down turned out to be outside the garage for the local sanitation department, requiring me to weave between parked garbage trucks, enduring both the smell and the gnawing fear that one of them might start up without the driver noticing me. Another piece was up a "road" that turned out to be a university driveway, with security guard standing watch at the entrance. I didn't feel like chancing that one. Fortunately the university's athletic field was open to the public (or maybe the guard THERE just didn't give a rip), which allowed me to get close enough to the piece to tag it. When I unlocked the next page, I saw a new piece up that same driveway, and another in the parking lot of a nearby hospital's emergency room.
I laugh at these snafus, but some of the potential problems are far from funny- I pity the hunter who has to tag a page at a street corner where drug dealers hang out, or winds up pointing their camera around an elementary school playground and getting mistaken for a pedo by the cops. And I have no sympathy for the devs if it turns out that someone finds a page piece at the Holocaust Museum or the 9/11 memorial- after that happened with Pokemon GO, all ARG developers were put on notice.
To the devs' credit, you don't have to actually visit these locations- they allow you to watch a 30 second Google Play ad to collect the page instead. But putting that kind of workaround in makes me question why I was wandering around the town in the first place- watching ads to collect the pages is a much more time-efficient method, and since the prize goes to the first to solve, I can't see anybody taking a walk once the final page is released. The app might have been better off just adding 5 new piece puzzles that unlocked a page on a menu each day.
About those: the piece puzzles are thus far very easy versions of mobile gaming's greatest hits: match-3, sliding blocks, word cookies, and occasionally a ARG-style game where you have to find a page in the environment with your cell phone camera. There's also a "pick the lock" game that never should have made it past QA; It's a reaction test that doesn't register taps correctly, and even when it does there are draconian requirements for a passing grade. The page puzzles are more interesting, requiring you to solve riddles draw from the illustrations. As for the actual hunt, with just two pages unlocked right now, it's too early to say whether or not it'll be any good. Early signs are that the prelude will be easily solved, but the full 30-day hunt may well be more complex.
TL;DR: A decent enough puzzle collection for now, wrapped around an ARG gimmick which adds little to the experience and may, in fact, bring it down.
One problem here is the linearity of the structure. If you can devote time to a quick stroll around your neighborhood each day, you can pick up the pieces then easily, but if you miss a day because reasons, you can't get all ten pieces at once; you have to grab the first five, solve the pieces, solve the page, and THEN go on to the next five pieces. More seriously, there seems to have been very little effort put into curating these sites. One piece I tracked down turned out to be outside the garage for the local sanitation department, requiring me to weave between parked garbage trucks, enduring both the smell and the gnawing fear that one of them might start up without the driver noticing me. Another piece was up a "road" that turned out to be a university driveway, with security guard standing watch at the entrance. I didn't feel like chancing that one. Fortunately the university's athletic field was open to the public (or maybe the guard THERE just didn't give a rip), which allowed me to get close enough to the piece to tag it. When I unlocked the next page, I saw a new piece up that same driveway, and another in the parking lot of a nearby hospital's emergency room.
I laugh at these snafus, but some of the potential problems are far from funny- I pity the hunter who has to tag a page at a street corner where drug dealers hang out, or winds up pointing their camera around an elementary school playground and getting mistaken for a pedo by the cops. And I have no sympathy for the devs if it turns out that someone finds a page piece at the Holocaust Museum or the 9/11 memorial- after that happened with Pokemon GO, all ARG developers were put on notice.
To the devs' credit, you don't have to actually visit these locations- they allow you to watch a 30 second Google Play ad to collect the page instead. But putting that kind of workaround in makes me question why I was wandering around the town in the first place- watching ads to collect the pages is a much more time-efficient method, and since the prize goes to the first to solve, I can't see anybody taking a walk once the final page is released. The app might have been better off just adding 5 new piece puzzles that unlocked a page on a menu each day.
About those: the piece puzzles are thus far very easy versions of mobile gaming's greatest hits: match-3, sliding blocks, word cookies, and occasionally a ARG-style game where you have to find a page in the environment with your cell phone camera. There's also a "pick the lock" game that never should have made it past QA; It's a reaction test that doesn't register taps correctly, and even when it does there are draconian requirements for a passing grade. The page puzzles are more interesting, requiring you to solve riddles draw from the illustrations. As for the actual hunt, with just two pages unlocked right now, it's too early to say whether or not it'll be any good. Early signs are that the prelude will be easily solved, but the full 30-day hunt may well be more complex.
TL;DR: A decent enough puzzle collection for now, wrapped around an ARG gimmick which adds little to the experience and may, in fact, bring it down.