APP5 Wrap-Up

Hey folks, it's Steven Clontz with the wrap-up post mortem for Auburn Puzzle Party 5: Puzzle Patrol II! Let's get started.

Thanks!
Guys, guys. I feel extremely blessed to have had this opportunity to organize two Auburn Puzzle Parties now - it's a ton of stress, work, and time that I probably didn't have... but in the end it's been worth it. I only hope you had as much fun playing in the game as I had making it happen.

And when I say I made it happen, I don't mean that at all - this could only have happened with the combined efforts of at least 25 different people (and I hope I didn't forget anyone). I don't know how Eric does it, but this ain't no Steven's Puzzle Party.

But more than anything I should really thank the players who showed up, suffered through a few opening glitches, and made this competition worth our while.

Survey
If you have some time, we'd really appreciate your feedback on the game. Log back into the APP5 website at this link and you can rank puzzles based on difficulty and enjoyability, and provide written feedback. We'll be adding your responses anonymously to this wiki along with our writeups for each of the puzzles.

http://app5.jdabbs.com/dashboard/survey/

Speaking of which, I hope to see Eric and future APP organizers use this wiki for cataloging their own puzzles so we can show off the cool stuff we're doing in Auburn, and help inspire future Puzzle Partiers to join or organize in the future!

Videos and Music
I probably put more effort into the silly Puzzle Patrol videos than the game itself, but I hope you enjoyed them! I've compiled a YouTube playlist of all the story videos, along with the two Puzzle videos.

http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLooILs0YfKkEWPeFpZdDis2GuQ2aP-weO

You have our permission to share these; especially the Puzzle Rock Anthem. Thanks to those of you who emailed me complaining/thanking me that "Every day I'm puzzling" was stuck in your heads. In case you're wondering, yes, the entire Puzzle was made for that single line.

Super special thanks goes to Ronald Jenkees and Andrew "Zircon" Aversa for allowing us to use their music in APP5. RJ's tunes were a big hit at APP4, and it was another RJ tune "Remix to a Remix" that served as the Matire D's theme this year. Meanwhile, Zircon's "Severe Reaction" was a perfect fit for the TechnoNerd's character, which we debuted in the Fall 2012 A.M.P.'d Challenge. If you enjoyed their music, please head to their respective websites and consider supporting them by purchasing an album or MP3!

Upcoming Events
There will be a third Puzzle Potluck this winter. I'm tentatively organizing this, but I highly encourage anyone who's interested to take it off my hands if you want some experience getting your hands dirty organizing a puzzle competition. Shoot me an email at steven.clontz@gmail.com if you want to take this on. Eric's already written up some helpful rules on the second Puzzle Potluck wiki page that could easily be used to run another competition - I think they're pretty solid!

Eric's Puzzle Party 13 is tentatively scheduled for April 13, 2013, and presumably has some sort of "luck" (or lack thereof) theme. I'm certainly excited for it! Eric uses his own website to organize EPPs but I'll be keeping this wiki up-to-date myself if you want to keep an eye here too. No details on the format (short puzzle party or longer puzzle hunt) but I know it'll be a blast either way.

And finally, there will be an APP6 - but details on that will be made available this spring at EPP13. I'd expect it to happen about a year from now (and organized by someone else, ha!).

Kryptos
Puzzle Party regular Tracy Cobbs suggested that we combine our talents to tackle one of the largest open puzzles out there: Kryptos.

If you want in, shoot him an email at bobcatscry@gmail.com to let him know. In the meantime, here are some helpful links:


 * Elonka Dunin's collection of Kryptos links: http://www.elonka.com/kryptos
 * Aerial view of CIA HQ: http://www.thekryptosproject.com/images/cia.bmp
 * Jim Gillogly's pictures: http://www.voynich.net/Kryptos/
 * North Morse strata .gif: http://www.sfu.ca/~nicolea/kryptos/MorseStrataGraphic.gif
 * Morse w/ compass & lodestone .gif: http://www.sfu.ca/~nicolea/kryptos/CompassStrataGraphicFacingNorth.gif
 * Gary Phillips' observations about the Kryptos font: http://realmoftwelve.net/archive/toolbox/kryptosfont.html
 * A page of quotes by the artist, Jim Sanborn, and his cryptographic mentor, Ed Scheidt: http://realmoftwelve.net/archive/intimation/informants.html
 * NYT article about Sanborn's announcement that NYPVTT=BERLIN in K4, and his release of his coding charts for K1 and the first lines of K2: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/21/us/21code.html?_r=0
 * http://realmoftwelve.net/
 * Monet's Kryptos Observations: http://www.sfu.ca/~nicolea/kryptos/
 * Jew-Lee's Kryptos Project: http://www.thekryptosproject.com/
 * Kryptos Fan: http://kryptosfan.wordpress.com/welcome/
 * Apex of Kryptos: http://www.freeverse.com/apexofkryptos/apexofkryptos/Home.html
 * Yahoo!Groups Kryptos mailing list: http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/Kryptos/ (People considering joining that mailing list should take careful note of their policies about giving the group credit and allowing the group to announce the solution.)

The Auburn Puzzler
It's about three years overdue, but I also want to thank all the players of Auburn Puzzler Games 1 and 2 from Summer 2009. We announced at the closing of APP5 that Charles McPillan and I created the Auburn Puzzler back then so we could design puzzles in secret and run an Alternate Reality Game here in Auburn. Plans to continue with the Puzzler were discontinued when we won APP3 and got the opportunity to plan Auburn Puzzle Party 4, and were never picked up afterward. Man, it's so much more fun to plan puzzlehunts without being secretive about our identities!

I expect the Puzzler character to show up in a future Puzzle Patrol III when/if that happens, since we introduced him to the story at the end of our game last weekend. I guess that's how we'll continue on that tradition. :-)

Puzzle Party Console
James Dabbs and I are very proud of the web application we created to run this event: the Puzzle Party Console. I'll try and get some more details up on this wiki about it, but know this: it's open source, and we would love for you to help us hack on it or use it for a future Puzzle Party! Contact us if you want more details.

Final Words
If I've forgotten anything, let me know and I'll add it here. I'll be (slowly) populating this wiki with all the puzzles, hopefully with your feedback via the survey. I'll be back in touch with details on Puzzle Potluck 3 and Eric's Puzzle Party 13.

Let me close with a paraphrase of the Commissioner's final words in APP5: I hope to solve puzzles with you all again soon, so until that time comes, happy puzzling everyone!

-Steven Clontz 2012/10/23