Folk Music (AKA American Asylum)

Owner:

Bennett Ellis (beelli)

Solution:

HAKUNA MATATA

GC Notes:

GC to update day-of-game.

Presentation:

Teams arrive at a large room, which has an area for the stage (either an actual stage or just an area of the room that has been separated out as the stage area). From the audience area they can see a large screen where karaoke lyrics play. The stage has a similar (though probably smaller) screen that can be seen by the performers. Only members from one team are allowed on stage at a time. Other teams are in the audience area.

A staff member greets the newly arrived team and tells them something along the following:

"Welcome, I'm glad that you could make it here. You've faced many trials for this fairy tale, but your greatest test is yet to come. Because as we've learned from movies, there's one thing that every good story needs: a sound track. Can your voice charm a flock of birds or strike melodious fear into the hearts of peasants? Well, we're about to find out.

"Here is a list of available songs along with their lyrics. When you're ready, pick a song and get in line with as many team mates as you want to sing on the stage. Only one team's worth of singers will be allowed on stage at any time. Good luck."

They are handed a stapled set of pages, containing the available songs and lyrics in alphabetical order by song title, and directed towards the queue of people waiting to sing. A staff member at the head of the queue is serving as the MC and taking requests as members get to the front of it.

Walkthrough:

Data is gathered by singing the songs. The last word in every fourth line of every song has been substituted with the name of a character from an animated Disney movie. Which character is determined by first letter of the word that is being substituted. So if the line from the original song ended with a word starting in A, then the disney character that is substituted for that word is always Scrooge. The lyrics that teams are given when they walk in have the original, unaltered lyrics, which means that once they notice that substitutions occur every fourth line they can use them to search for songs that will show them letter to name mappings that they do not yet have. Once you have all of the letter to name mappings, arrange the starting-letter-to-name pairs alphabetically by the starting letter read the first letter of every character name to spell out ISOURPROBLEMFREEPHILOSOPY.

For reference, here are all of the starting-letter-to-name mappings in alphabetical order by starting letter:

  • A - Iago

  • B - Simba

  • C - Olaf

  • D - Ursula

  • E - Rapunzel

  • F - Pacha

  • G - Rafiki

  • H - Onus

  • I - Bambi

  • J - Lilo

  • K - Esmeralda

  • L - Maleficent

  • M - Flynn

  • N - Rajah

  • O - Elsa

  • P - Eeyore

  • Q - Pocahontas

  • R - Hercules

  • S - Ichabod

  • T - Lumière

  • U - Oswald

  • V - Scrooge

  • W - Oliver

  • X - Pumbaa

  • Y - Hiro

  • Z - Yzma

Hinting:

  • The interns don't notice anything interesting when singing the songs

    • What do you see when songs are being sung? (Lyrics, the words, etc.)

    • Have you tried comparing that to the lyrics you were given earlier?

  • If the interns are rat-holing on the movies that each of the characters come from, trying to use that as data in some way

    • Maybe you've gone too far.

    • Have you tried seeing if you get anything from the character names themselves?

  • The interns are having trouble finding songs that will give them character names to go with specific starting letters that they have yet to see. They need to realize that the last word of every fourth line is being replaced, and that they can use that along with the lyrics they were given in the beginning to find appropriate songs

    • What words are being replaced?

    • Does this happen regularly?

    • Can you look at the lyrics you were given and tell how regularly?