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[Crescent]

 Howard Fair and FFEYT-Venice - discussion

[Crescent]

first question

[inkflamewriter]

Well, I think it might have been a combination of both. We had four people by the end and it was a little weird that it turned into every other post being from me. However, I do know that I didn't really know what to look for until I had the color to work with, so maybe it was a little too hard to see the connections...

Alright, I definitely have some questions, but I'll start with just one. In the 52-petri-dish puzzle, the letters in green didn't really spell anything. I think there was also an email with capitalized letters that never seemed to be used. What was the purpose behind those?

[Crescent]

the green highlighted letters SHOULD have spelt out 'green' - they didn't.
I TRIED to work in the error into the game as something meaningful' but never did. This game definitely taught me to watch out for font and formatting errors - it was green originally but became adapted when I translated from one form to another so ended up being gobbledegook.
As for capitals - you'll have to be more specific - not every capitals had something - can you specify please.
re four players - IRL life affected a few which is a shame - wondering if people lost interest as well?
As for the final solve and hints - what would have been a good in the middle hint - the opposite colour was too hammer-home the point IMO, but perhaps I could've used the opposing colour form the outset and talked about opposing the green throughout and then hinted and colour codes later? ah indsight - how we welcome thee...

[inkflamewriter]

I believe the capitals were from this:

[ddl]

I think one of the main things about ARG in general is that the PM needs to make sure he keeps the players interested, but I think the main issue wasn't loss of interest but real life distractions. I know that's why I wasn't able to work on some of the puzzles, both the final and the other various ones throughout the games.

I also would like to say that your characters were brilliant. The Watchman was exactly who he needed to be, I also liked Forest as a person and his child-like tendencies seemed to fit. As for Father, I liked him, and feel bad that he had to die. And that last line from The Watchman, it made me feel sorry for Howard's loss of humanity. I never really got to know his character, but I have a feeling that if he and Forest had ever met they would have hit it off immediately. Rambles on....

One thing that I found an issue/distraction was that somethings were left open-ended in the course of the game, which ended up confusing me later, like Father's reference to the bridges in Venice on the Youtube video description.

How were you intending for us to solve the last puzzle?

[Crescent]

ah - now realise - the CAPS were HB VANCE in reverse - it was published on the 95th birthday of Jack Vance - have any of you looked at "vance" and "immortality" in google...?
hb vance was what both forest and the watchman posted at the same time - but, as we know, the watchman liked doing in reverse...

hope that clears that one up...

it also misses the line about the stars throwing down their spears...

[punxtr]

I wonder what happened to almost everyone else from Howard Fair before the Forest crossover. I mean, you promised that you would contact us again (three of us), during the time of balance. Yesterday. Was it going to end like that then, or was something changed along the way?

[Crescent]

with many people dropping out, and my real life kicking in lots recently I had to start wrapping it up - players were also getting hit heavily with their real lives so wrapped up the plot overall. Felt I was letting people down and such by continuing when i couldn't continue the same service as i had before.
ultimately - wasn't fully enjoying having to push as much as required due to limited numbers [NOT judging the players who were playing, but with more people there is more discussion and more brain waves etc.]
this with the auto posting not working AND being really busy in the Friday suddenly meant end of game was not as 'punchy' as desired...
hope people weren't TOO pissed with it though.

any more plot questions?

[ddl]

Yes, I know you might not want to give to much away, but when you start up the next chapter what will happen to the lottery?

[Crescent]

the lottery - as Forest became more inclined to his own wants and not to his Fathers, became dissatisfied with the lottery.
The lottery prize he thus gave to one who helped him out most.
To continue the story just to award the painting seemed insincere - thus hoping people don't mind me awarding it to the one who solved the ultimate puzzle [ie the immortal game - which plant].
I felt a little disheartened with people not being able to participate - but, overall [asie from the ending - did people enjoy it? what worked / didn't work?]

[Lystella]

I'm a big fan of the puzzles that weren't solely based on cracking ciphers, including the riddles from F.F.E.Y.T. and cipher-riddle mixes from the Green.

One thing I noticed is that it was sometimes difficult to determine what to mainly focus on. For example, the Green's ultimatum regarding Father and Forest seemed to shift focus toward a choice for the ultimatum and away from a solution to the energy problem.

[punxtr]

I will admit, this ARG was definitely out of the box in terms of the puzzles. The interaction was very integral between players and IG characters. Many must have shied away from the game due to the level of lateral thinking required for the later puzzles. You definitely made me look at poetry again.

Perhaps some better planning for certain puzzles? The petri dish puzzle was lost on me due to random highlighted letters not forming GREEN. Little things like that seemed to throw me when the puzzles were actually quite logical. I felt like I was thinking laterally for logical puzzles, and logically for lateral puzzles. Maybe I'm just a fool (The Watchman would say as much), but it really discouraged me sometimes.

Also, I hope you get better. I've gotten my footing again, in case you were wondering.

[inkflamewriter]

Yeah, I loved the style of your puzzles, as well as the interaction and the writing style. You did a beautiful job with that, though I agree with both Lystella and Punxtr...a little more planning and clarity on what the puzzles are about and you're all set. To add to them, however, I found it difficult to tell what was a red herring and what wasn't. You made some things very clear and others were still a bit vague, which is why we had a problem of going over the same things over and over again and getting nowhere.

About the only suggestion I have is to try to adjust the puzzle difficulty to the number of players. For example, the Roald Dahl one was fairly simple and couple be solved by one person, however the immortality puzzle was too difficult for four players who couldn't spend as much time on it as they'd like. I think a few more obvious hints earlier on would have saved us a lot of time spent going down the wrong path.

On a brighter note, one thing I was especially pleased with was how you handled my late start to the game. You got me deeply involved right away and, as a player, that meant a lot.

I'll be looking forward to the next one!

[Crescent]

thanks for all comments everyone.
Will start panning for the next...until then...
PM