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[lego606]

Icefly Owner's Board of Icefly-ness

[punxtr]

I believe I got Tampa icefly number 1 or 2... honestly, I forget. I have some video of it on my tumblr. "punxtr.tumblr"

I asked to join that group.

[Aesculapius]

Phoenix 2's drop.

It's treasure. I love it. It's a conversation piece that I will have a story about for a very long time. It represents a win and an adventure, along with the whole experience.

I am so lucky to have the people I did backing me. =3

[tagruato123]

I picked up the 2nd drop in Dallas! They are arranging for a replacement though because the black stick the Icefly rests on is bent, making the Icefly lean up against the tube and its putting pressure on the wings. I want to take care of the problem now rather than a month down the road when the wing falls off. I agree with Aesculapius, this is a conversation peice with a story behind it that I will remember forever!

[punxtr]

For the record, most of my friends don't even care about it unless I suggest it may be worth money... so I don't talk about it much.

[CalebH2010]

I got DC #2. What an exhilarating experience, OMG! I had class the morning of the drop and got out at 12, just as the countdown ended. My phone and laptop were on their way to being dead and I had no support. Luckily I was able to get to my university's computer lab and continue watching the countdown page for DC to go live. It happened around 1:30 or a little after. As soon as it was live, I printed the PDF and typed the coordinates into Google Maps. I was 10 minutes away from the drop point.

I quickly logged out of the computer, picked up the papers from the printer and sprinted out to the streets of DC. I caught the first bus I saw, nearly getting hit by two cars in the process as I had to cross the street. I rode the bus for a few blocks and hopped on the Metro which would get me to the drop point a lot faster.

When I exited the subway, I was at the exact place I needed to be, but not on the right side. I knew that I was looking for a disabled parking sign on a corner next to a left turn only lane. I then studied the picture again and noticed that I needed to be near a grassy slope. I happened to see a security guard walking toward me and he stuck his hand into a gate, I thought he had found whatever I was looking for. Turns out he was just checking a lock.

I approached and asked him if he recognized the ice fly symbol on the clue sheet. He didn't. I then asked him if I was 611 7th street. He said I wasn't (but I was). I said thanks, and darted up the street, only to find the slope and sign I was looking for.

Looking around to see if the object I was looking for was laying on the ground or attached to the fence surrounding the building, I decided to check the disabled sign. The sign itself was sitting off of the fence so I slipped my hand behind it. The envelope was hidden, attached to the back of the sign. I pulled it off and held it in my hand for a few moments.

I proceeded to open it, trying to look like a spy lol. I followed the instructions on the paper inside. I then looked across the street and noticed a man standing looking down at what I thought was a small video camera. I then noticed it was an iPhone. The texts came in and I was directed to the Museum of Crime and Punishment which was adjacent to the location of the envelope.

When inside, I saw the box. A lady at the front desk looked up at me and asked "are you the person? The scavenger hunt or whatever?" I replied "yes". She giggled and picked up a walkie talkie "George, he's here. The scavenger hunt person." Then to my surprise, the iPhone man from across the street entered and said "This is what you're looking for bud."

I pulled the envelope from my pocket and freed the key from the tape. The sound of the key penetrating the lock resounding through the acoustics of the wooden box was mesmerizing. The lock popped as George (I guess he was a curator), entered the room along with a security guard. I pulled the ice fly from the box and unsheathed it to "ooos" and "aahs". It was mine and I couldn't believe it.

The ride home was challenging as the box was kinda heavy and I had to take the Metro, DC's subway system. Surprisingly I wasn't stopped by station managers or Metro police. However I did get some looks, mostly curiosity (I think).

I've been playing ARGs since 2008 and this is probably the most rewarding experience I've ever had playing one. The feeling of accomplishment and the sheer joy is just priceless.

[punxtr]

Okay, I should go into detail myself.

[UCFmopar]

Tampa 2 Icefly

[Bizzaro]

A friend turned me onto this ARG (he had to work the day of the drop or we would be fighting over custody of it probably ha ha).

I got the first Vegas one (no clue who got the second) and I had a good idea where it was going to be considering the previous ones were around museums and there was only one open late enough at that point to go inside (the Atomic Testing museum). If I had a laptop with net capability I woulda sat in the parking lot waiting I was so sure.

Anywho, I got there about 1 minute before someone else came running up to find the envelope but I was already headed to the museum. Eventually the three others who got there after me wandered to the museum too. We all chatted and the museum staff wanted photos because they wanted to know what was in the box. (sadly the top half of mine only lights and it has only ever started blinking once but it's still damned cool)

It was a good time and I made a little video of the experience http://youtu.be/f4vObzbFcb4

[EarthBoundX5]

I got the Icefly from Minneapolis during the 3rd drop. Luckily I was up late and say the time jump (originally it was going to be 2pm CST, but it changed to 11am...) My friend and I got up and drove out to Minneapolis, parked at his uncle's shop and went down the street to wait in a coffee shop around 10:40am CST. Once the first clues for the first cities released at 11:00am we got discouraged because we didn't know how long it'd be till ours were up, but we kept waiting. About 1 1/2 hours later (don't remember exact time any more, too much of a rush) Minneapolis clue dropped and the first thing my friend said was that he knew where it was and started running. I got all our things together and ran after him. We got split up and an intersection light change, but a minute or two later he called me and said he'd found the envelope! It was literally 3-4 blocks from our base location. We met back at my car and texted the number. We were told to pick up the Icefly at the concierge's desk of a hotel. We got there and the rep had already gotten it for us so we didn't have to pay any parking . We both opened the box with our key and got to the amazing Icefly in all its glory! Rep took some pictures for the flicker account. After reviewing all of em, I think my friend and I were the only ones pictured with out Test Subject badges. Anyways, here is where the story takes a turn...

The rep said we couldn't keep the crate and that he had to return it. I didn't know that everyone had kept theirs, so I assumed he knew what he was saying. We went home to realize that we didn't have the power cord and that we were supposed to keep the crate. Luckily a person on the IRC channel helped us out, contacted the company. A day later (or even later that night, I am not sure) an unmarked box was at my door step. No mailing address, just a box. And inside was the Icefly crate!

[UCFmopar]

[GuestUser17]

Here's the ATL#1 Icefly surrounded by the gum I purchased on behalf of those living outside the US. I figured I'd take a photo before I donated all the gum.

[Paul_Atreides]

[Selie]

I got the Austin drop (from last week). Yay! I didn't think they'd do one in Austin, since they got Dallas and Houston and those are pretty much the big cities in Texas, even though Austin is kind of a techie hub...

Anyway, I've been talking to my boss about ARGs since I got hired here last year (note, I work at a university in marketing, and my boss knows nothing about video games, but she's very tolerant!), so when I got the HPP envelope from E3, I had to tell her all about it. And then I told her all about being oracle for the first Dallas drop, although I pretended that I'd been oracle that night and not in the middle of the work day... >.>

I'd actually set the game aside due to personal crisis after crisis, but then I got an email before the last drop and noticed that AUSTIN WAS INCLUDED. So I ran back here to the forum, committed myself to trying to get that icefly, and even got permission from my boss to take my lunch break whenever the drop went live.

Except I had a hell of a time finding an oracle. My husband said he would do it if he could text me from work, but he wasn't sure. Another friend last-minute said he'd try. So I had two uncertain people.

I actually left at 11 local time so I could be on the road when the coordinates went live, but then I came back to the office because my husband texted me to say he didn't think he'd be able to do it. Good thing, too, because Austin didn't actually go live until like 2 pm local time. I was actually seated at my desk, obsessively refreshing the page, until the PDF finally went up. Printed it, printed the Google Maps page of the coordinates, and fled.

I was pretty sure it would be either South Congress or downtown, since they're very central and populous but not impossible to park on. (They're also very close to me.) But NO! It was on stupid UT campus. I don't know if you know anything about Austin, but UT campus is like hell on earth. There is almost no public parking (none that I knew of at the time) and there are a ton of students who jump out in front of your car. I drove through that miserably, even drove right past the location where I knew the drop point was, but I couldn't get out and get it.

Fortunately, I have a grad student friend who lives JUST NORTH of campus, so I parked in her apartment parking lot and raced down through campus to get to the drop point. I ran as much of it as I could. I think I was having asthma problems, though

Finally, I got to the right intersection. I was getting conflicting info from my oracle, so I just wandered around with my printed PDF out until I found the building that matched the picture. Then I searched around and THERE WAS THE ENVELOPE taped to the top of a newspaper rack! (I don't know how they managed to keep students from taking it.) I was so excited, because that meant I was going home with an icefly. <3

Unfortunately, then my phone kept dying. It has problems. Dropped too many times. I was standing there on the steps of a dormitory, swearing a lot, and a nice janitor asked me if everything was okay. I told him that I was in a scavenger hunt (that seems to be the explanation we all fell back on!) and I needed to text for the next clue and my phone was broken. But FINALLY it started working again, I texted, I waited, I texted my oracles, I waited, I sweated - and BAM! I got a response.

I'd actually thought about starting to run back to my car, but fortunately I didn't, because the icefly was two buildings over from my location! My oracle guided me, and I asked a million students to make sure I was going to the right place, but FINALLY, I found it - the empty abandoned theater in the student mall.

The HPP rep was wearing his icefly, but he didn't seem too terribly into the whole thing. He was nice, though. He told me about some other events he's done where people showed up even before the coordinates were announced. I asked him how he got into doing this and he said he wasn't allowed to talk about the mission. And then he gave me a ride to my car so I wouldn't have to carry the icefly across campus.

Of course, then I came back to work at MY campus and walked across campus with the icefly to show my office (and my very patient boss). So my arms and back were sore all the next two days because it is a big box and I am not a big person. But I set it up next to my desk and my coworkers all oohed and aahed over it.

And now I have an icefly, and it's pretty much the coolest thing ever. I just wish the story had been more directly involving us (talking to characters, etc.) but you can't have everything and it's been a damn fine show from 42e.

[StreetKnowledge]

I have been following this game since the first icefly drop, and got my icefly in the most recent denver drop. I set an alarm on my phone, so I would wake up in time, and immediately got to the computer to watch for drop info.

The second the coordinates went live, I put them into google maps, figured out the area and bolted out the door. I knew where the last icefly drop was, and this one was in the same general area.

Get to the spot, look for the bench in the pic, but wheres the envelope? I look at all the benches and dont see it or anyone in an icefly shirt. I take another look at the benches and see it! it is on the underside of the bench! I follow the directions and get sent to the second location where I tell the lady at the desk I am here for the package, I have the key. She pulls the box out from behind the desk and a woman in an icefly shirt pops out and starts taking pics on her iphone, congratulates me and tells me how fast I found it.

The woman beind the counter asks "So what is this for?" and the lady in the icefly shirt shoots her a look and she stops asking questions.

I was ill prepared to carry this heavy ass box through downtown denver back to my house.

My icefly hasnt ever blinked, and while it isnt broken, one of its front wings is bent down and pressing against the glass, almost like its trying to escape!