Golden Eggs (AKA Old McBowman Had a Farm)

Owner:

Bowman

Solution:

GC Notes:

GC to update day-of-game.

Presentation:

This puzzle takes place in 3 parts.

Part 1:

Teams meet a "Tour Guide" (MSIG staff member #1), where they receive a 6 section 'pamphlet'. Solving this progresses them to Part 2

Part 2:

Teams meet a "Security Guard" (MSIG Staff member #2), who shows teams a cage where the golden geese are kept. He then ushers them out, and gives them golden eggs as a souvenir. The golden eggs have mini puzzles inside. Teams solves the mini puzzles, allowing them to steal a goose, moving them to part 3.

Part 3:

Teams have acquired a (stuffed animal) goose by stealing one from a cage. They eviscerate it to retrieve the answer inside: chrysophilia

Walkthrough:

Part 1:

Teams are given a pamphlet with 6 sections on it. Each section produces one word:

• Section 1 Replace the number with the missing letter (1 is in the place of 'I', for instance)

• Section 2 is fairy tale trivia ("Who is Gretel's Brother?" Hansel.)

• Section 3 highlights musical note 'A' on a treble clef musical staff.

• Section 4 is just solving sudoku, but with letters. (Red: M, Yellow: I, Green: L, Pink: D --> MILD)

• Section 5 is a Rebus (Go + OS + e).

• Section 6: Each title is off by one letter from a famous book title (Tinderella --> Cinderella, so letter C)

The teams are told both in flavor text and by the "Tour Guide" (MSIG Staff Member) to ask the "Tour Guide" if they have any questions. The pamphlet produces the question: "Is this a Mild Goose Chaste?"

Upon asking that question, the tour guide directs the team to the "Security Guard" (MSIG Staff Member).

Part 2:

Teams are shown a wall of cages, arranged in 4 rows of 4 columns. Some cages have geese inside, some are empty. The guard quickly ushers them out, and gives them golden eggs. The golden eggs have a number of slips of paper inside, which are a smorgasbord of encodings (Number to letter, ASCII, Morse, Semaphore, NATO Flags, Baconian--letters are accented, WinDiff two poems)

Teams solve these slips of paper to get:

1) # to Letter: "The Golden Goose is in"

2) ASCII: Row & column pair (varies depending on team)

3) Baconian: "You will have 30 seconds" (Consider all the letters with diacritics)

4) Morse, Semaphore, NATO: Periodic elements (e.g., BR) which should be converted to atomic numbers (e.g., BR == 35) as per flavor text

5) Windiff: (One egg's version of this poem has several words that aren't in the other) "One can Distract the guard by rhyming against his sentences"

6) Flavor text gives them a check sum that they have the correct numbers

Teams use this information to split up to steal the goose. Some team members distract the guard, while others go to the correct cage, open the master lock, and then remove the goose. They have to do all of this in 30 seconds, or the guard interrupts them, and makes them leave.

Part 3:

Teams that have successfully stolen the goose will now have a goose with a bandana on it that reads

"An answer lies within THIS anser."

Anser is latin for goose, and even if they don't figure that out, they will know something is inside the goose because if they squeeze it they can tell there is more than just cotton in it. So...

...they cut open the goose, and get the answer from the last (non golden) egg within: chrysophilia.

Hinting:

Part 1: (Still with the tour guide)

To date, zero teams have been stuck here.

Part 2: (Still with the Guard)

Teams get stuck here in only two places:

1) Identifying the correct combination to open the lock

• i) Confirm they know which row and column their goose is in? (This comes from the ASCII slip)

• ii) Confirm they got several letters out of the golden eggs (E.g., from Semaphore, morse)

• iii) Confirm they know how to open a Master Lock? Three clockwise rotations to #1, two counter clockwise to (and on the second revolution stop at) #2, then clockwise directly to #3.

THEN...

• If no data error & they know how to open a master lock: ask them what letter(s) to number mappings they have and haven't tried? To solve, they'll need to use periodic symbols to numbers. Have they tried that? If not, ask them "If one of these were AU, instead of what you have, would you know what number that maps to? Why?"

  • It maps to 79, the periodic number for gold (AU)

• Not sure about their numbers? Ask them "Does the math in your flavor text work out?"

E.g., Team 1 gets (#1) * (#2) * (#3) = 28665 in their flavor text. Their numbers are 35, 21, 39, which of course multiply to get 28665.

• They say they don't know what order to try the combination in? There are only 6 possibilities. But you can give them the order from below if they are struggling/not having fun.

2) Getting past the guard

• Teams need to solve the poem to know how to get by the guard. Confirm they have solved it. Unlike the other pairs of mini puzzles, the poems are not identical. Their differences give "One Can Distract The Guard By Rhyming Against His Sentences"

• If they haven't solved it:

  • (Bigger hint) "You should have two copies of this poem, can you count the number of words in the first sentence for each copy?" Should be 7 and 6. "So one word is different? Huh. Is that true of every line?" It is.

  • (Smaller hint) "Have you tried reading both poems out loud in unison?"

• If they have solved it: Have you tried splitting up; one person rhyming the final word of the guard's sentence when talking to him and the others trying to steal the goose?

Part 3: (Have the goose)

1) If teams get stuck ANYWHERE here, FIRST confirm that they know that 'anser' is latin for goose. And then confirm they have a goose. "How do you get inside a goose?"

2) Teams may ask permission to rip apart the goose:

GC: "Why would you want to do that?"

Team: "Because it says an answer lies within THIS anser, and anser is latin for goose, and we have a goose. Also I feel something inside the goose..."

GC: "Disembowel that sucker!"

Data:

[Golden egg mini puzzles -- This is for Team 1, for instance]

082 111 119 035 050

067 111 108 117 109 110 035 051

-... .-.

** **

20 08 05 00 07 15 12 04 05 14 00 07 15 15 19 05 00 09 19 00 09 14

Do ỳồṻ know ẇhy gold’s atomḯc symboḸ is AU [79] instead of GO? It comes from the Ḹatin word for gold, which is aurum. Tḣis stems from the sȃme ṽḕry root which ӞỎ00 yearṧ ago gavḗ rise to another word you may know: Aurora. Aurum’s anḉestral wṍrd meaňt "to glow", much as an Aurora ḋoeṧ!  How neat is that!?

Poems:

You are one now in a race!

If you can help yourself, you could earn first place!

Don’t let red herrings affect, distract, or throw off your pace!

I can see the proverbial want of victory on your face.

Now keep up your stamina—do guard it for glory!

And nearby here you can revel in your story.

For it’s tiring me to keep encouraging, rhyming and praising you studs.

It is against my better judgment that you may prove to be duds.

Now, the goose resides inside—his life fettered by the wickedly bold.

Such situations are criminal sentences, for a bird that dares to lay gold.

You are now in a race!

If you help yourself, you could earn first place!

Don’t let red herrings affect or throw off your pace!

I can see proverbial want of victory on your face.

Now keep up your stamina—do it for glory!

And near here you can revel in your story.

For it’s tiring me to keep encouraging and praising you studs.

It is my better judgment that you may prove to be duds.

Now, the goose resides inside—life fettered by the wickedly bold.

Such situations are criminal, for a bird that dares to lay gold.