|
|
Post by ronemund on Dec 10, 2020 11:31:17 GMT -5
2) No hints were deliberately put in to fold the pages
Wait, so the partially folded map in the Harley picture wasn't a clue?? Oh boy, that makes it worse
|
|
|
|
Post by catherwood on Dec 10, 2020 17:30:18 GMT -5
My problem isn't so much with the number of "red herrings" but with my definition of the term. If a sideways path looks like a clue and ends with a piece of info which looks like a further clue, but has zero to do with the real solution, then it needs to end at a reveal which indicates that it is a dead end. It needs to literally or symbolically say "red herring" to reward you for finding the bonus material but then reassure you to drop it and go back to looking for the real clues. An Easter Egg can get away with not marking itself as such, but only if the players know the details of the universe being drawn from, so they can see the author's wink. If I don't know any of the artist's family, I won't recognize that he's hidden an homage to a favorite relative or a neighbor's pet. That's fine, too, as long as the tidbit cannot be mistaken for a clue to the larger hunt.
Yeah, this is probably a definition I have built for myself over the decades from working on hunts both good and bad. As I see more people coming out with their first-ever treasure hunt book, I become even more skeptical about their credentials. I don't fault them for trying, but I modify my expectations.
|
|
|
|
Post by morpheus221 on Dec 10, 2020 21:35:13 GMT -5
I agree here. It would have been nice to have a confirmer (like the sigil symbols) to know that DMS coordinates chosen were correct. I do like the solution in terms of originality but do wish the “ones” were more elegantly designed using the pixels.
With regards to the puzzle, are we sure the solution is complete? The methodology used by the author (DMS coordinates) was also used in Treasure: In Search of the Golden Horse). Here though there were additional site instructions including taking 100 paces (SW if I remember correctly) from a memorial marker. DMS only gets you to the general treasure site (within about 60 feet) but does not tell you the treasure location. Are we sure “PACE FORTY SOUTH” and a few other clues weren’t given to provide the seeker with the exact spot at the treasure site. Can ask the author?
Or perhaps we can reverse engineer it. Has anyone been to the location recently? Is there a marker 40 paces North of the treasure location.
|
|
|
|
Post by ronemund on Dec 10, 2020 21:59:01 GMT -5
My problem isn't so much with the number of "red herrings" but with my definition of the term. If a sideways path looks like a clue and ends with a piece of info which looks like a further clue, but has zero to do with the real solution, then it needs to end at a reveal which indicates that it is a dead end. It needs to literally or symbolically say "red herring" to reward you for finding the bonus material but then reassure you to drop it and go back to looking for the real clues.
I agree 100%. The problem is, I think, like ILLUMINATINPS said, is it's a learning experience. Your definition might not match up with the creator's definition, especially if it's their first puzzle and we have nothing to go on. It turns out Fandango was a little naive, puzzle-wise, and it wasn't solved because it wasn't built all that well. And I think a lot of us confused bad design with "it must be a brilliant puzzle to not be solved for this long"
It definitely makes you look at other hunts in a different light. I'm looking at Oracle in that light. Is it a puzzle that will wow me with the solution? Or will I go, "Wait, nobody would have ever gotten that!"
Or perhaps we can reverse engineer it. Has anyone been to the location recently? Is there a marker 40 paces North of the treasure location.
I think from early on Pel said the solution got you in the general area, not to a specific spot. Wasn't there some quote like "the solution gets you to within a hundred yards" or something?
You know what constantly amazes me? Is how Kit Williams put together such a brilliant puzzle, how elegantly put together it was, how he fathered all this stuff. Even the newspaper clue he gave was brilliant in its way of red herring, hidden clue and all. I think we have to realize that the Kit Williams are rare. There are people putting out some brilliant puzzles, but that vein of puzzle is kind of mined out.
|
|
|
|
Post by susb8383 on Dec 11, 2020 7:29:59 GMT -5
I think from early on Pel said the solution got you in the general area, not to a specific spot. Wasn't there some quote like "the solution gets you to within a hundred yards" or something? Not from Pel. That was pure speculation from people, that since 40 paces is approx. 100 feet, the clues must put you to 100 feet away from the key. Coordinates can actually be pretty accurate if you use a gps instead of a phone app. I found a letterbox once where the solution was a set of coordinates. I didn’t have a smart phone at the time so I carried my car’s Garmin set to pedestrian mode. It brought me within a foot or two of the rock. |
|
|
|
Post by ronemund on Dec 11, 2020 9:21:47 GMT -5
|
|
|
|
Post by kbellis on Dec 11, 2020 14:11:40 GMT -5
 The area of uncertainty with a radius of about 100 ft is about .75 of an acre. The misleading information that no laws would be broken, and that the area was not within the boundaries of Acadia National Park only compound matters further. Attachments:
|
|
|
|
Post by susb8383 on Dec 12, 2020 7:05:13 GMT -5
He supposedly said the within 100 feet thing in an interview or something. It was a big thing on tweleve many years ago. Maybe it was just a rumor, not sure what the original source. Yup, it was just a rumor. At one time I went on an extensive hunt online to find if Pel was the source. I tracked down every interview I could find including the Rick’s Treasure World interview. Pel never said it. I did find a post (not going to look through a million posts now for a link) where someone speculated that 40 paces was about 100 feet so I personally think that was the source. |
|
|
|
Post by susb8383 on Dec 12, 2020 7:20:35 GMT -5
One thing he did that he didn’t have to do, though, was include a map and designate on it which parts were Acadia. It’s like he was saying, here are the boundaries of Acadia at the time we wrote the book. So it’s almost like he took into account the fact that the park boundaries might expand over time. As disappointed as I am over the final solution, I can’t fault him for the hiding spot becoming included in Acadia over time when he was careful to give us a snapshot. Now if he hid it in Acadia right from the start, that I’d have a problem with. Unless the rule about nothing allowed to be hidden in the park cropped up after the book came out. Don’t forget this hunt is, what, 13 years old now? I recall that someone claimed to have asked him if ‘no laws need to be broken’ still applies despite changing park boundaries and he said there was no change, but he couldn’t really answer that question truthfully, could he? If he said that rule doesn’t apply anymore, people would just go right to where the boundaries expanded. |
|
|
|
Post by kbellis on Dec 12, 2020 8:04:06 GMT -5
Now if he hid it in Acadia right from the start, that I’d have a problem with. Unless the rule about nothing allowed to be hidden in the park cropped up after the book came out. Don’t forget this hunt is, what, 13 years old now? The property has been held by ANP since 1983.
There are numerous examples of carelessness in Fandango's creation, this is only one of them.
|
|
|
|
Post by pumalion on Dec 12, 2020 9:18:44 GMT -5
4) Old Fop was a character from the original draft.
The original draft.
This strikes me as significant.
I am glad if the author(s) tinkered with things as they went along, improving the hunt and giving each other feedback. But I strongly suspect that this admission that Pel (or Pel and Jeff) modified the "back story" was accompanied by modifications in the clues and solution to the hunt. Maybe they decided the original plan was too complex. Maybe it was too much like Masquerade. Maybe their original hiding place turned out to be unsuitable.
Somewhere in this forum someone pointed out the faint remnants of border stars that had been painted over and apparently replaced with new border stars. Maybe on the fire illustration?
Repainting of border stars originally intended for a different solution could also explain the misspellings in "Numbers Ope Hidfen Treusre Ridlde" and "PAEC FORTY SOUTH."
I suspect other remnants of the old solution include the two unused pages from the six fold-in pages (only four were relevant for the longitude / latitude solution) and possibly the fold-in border stars that were not red / yellow. Were they originally red and yellow but repainted when the artist decided to downsize the fold-in portion of his solution to use only four digits of longitude / latitude?
I hope I am not a conspiracy theorist: I do believe the artist has given us the solution that he intended when the book was published and that the key was at the location indicated. I just think it would explain a few things if there was a different solution - or even a half-baked idea about a solution - in the original draft but the intention changed along the way.
If so, I'd love to hear more from Pel about the process of choosing a solution and how he decided to narrow the clues to settle on longitude / latitude digits divided among the Harley Quinn map, four (of six) folded compass star pages, and the second hands on two of the clocks.
|
|
|
|
Post by thedawailey on Dec 12, 2020 11:09:48 GMT -5
4) Old Fop was a character from the original draft.
The original draft.
This strikes me as significant.
I am glad if the author(s) tinkered with things as they went along, improving the hunt and giving each other feedback. But I strongly suspect that this admission that Pel (or Pel and Jeff) modified the "back story" was accompanied by modifications in the clues and solution to the hunt. Maybe they decided the original plan was too complex. Maybe it was too much like Masquerade. Maybe their original hiding place turned out to be unsuitable.
Somewhere in this forum someone pointed out the faint remnants of border stars that had been painted over and apparently replaced with new border stars. Maybe on the fire illustration?
Repainting of border stars originally intended for a different solution could also explain the misspellings in "Numbers Ope Hidfen Treusre Ridlde" and "PAEC FORTY SOUTH."
I suspect other remnants of the old solution include the two unused pages from the six fold-in pages (only four were relevant for the longitude / latitude solution) and possibly the fold-in border stars that were not red / yellow. Were they originally red and yellow but repainted when the artist decided to downsize the fold-in portion of his solution to use only four digits of longitude / latitude?
I hope I am not a conspiracy theorist: I do believe the artist has given us the solution that he intended when the book was published and that the key was at the location indicated. I just think it would explain a few things if there was a different solution - or even a half-baked idea about a solution - in the original draft but the intention changed along the way.
If so, I'd love to hear more from Pel about the process of choosing a solution and how he decided to narrow the clues to settle on longitude / latitude digits divided among the Harley Quinn map, four (of six) folded compass star pages, and the second hands on two of the clocks.
pumalion,
I agree this is a reasonable possibility and don't think it's a conspiracy theory at all. It would be more unbelievable that changes weren't made during the creation of the book. There must have been multiple drafts before the final one, and many things from the original left in. And they might have even toyed around with different locations before settling on Hunter's Cliff. It would be nice to learn the process he used to determine what he would ultimately use as the clues to the location.
|
|
|
|
Post by ronemund on Dec 12, 2020 11:18:33 GMT -5
I just find it odd that there were misspellings in the master clue and PACE, and he just left it that way
|
|
Deleted
Deleted Member
Posts: 0
|
Post by Deleted on Dec 12, 2020 23:47:04 GMT -5
I just find it odd that there were misspellings in the master clue and PACE, and he just left it that way I think this is probably just because it was overlooked during the creation. I know plenty of software engineers that spend time carefully writing their code as elegantly as possible and still end up with bugs in it; or they send a software update to fix one bug and accidentally create another one in the process. I think it’s just human error. I know I have gone over things I have written or made over and over and don’t always see or catch my mistakes. It seems likely that this was the case considering Pel mentioned in his post how he didn’t tell his brother the solution, just what to put in the stories. That leads me to believe that the only person testing the hunt was Pel and that he accidentally overlooked these things. I have never created a hunt but I have to imagine it’s a fine line between how much information you keep to yourself and how much you have others involved to make sure you didn’t miss anything. |
|
|
|
Post by ronemund on Dec 18, 2020 11:35:47 GMT -5
Website gone. I think we can discount the 'Pel is going to post the real solution there" theory.
|
|
