Ghost Stories

Owner:

Shane

Solution:

MELANCHOLY

Partial Answers

None at this time

GC Notes:

The puzzle can be summed up as this: teams are pantomimed actions to perform, and must perform them in the correct order. Staffers will need to watch for the team performing each action, and unlock content for them via a website for each correct action.

In more detail; the puzzle has 4 ghost characters (simplified as A, B, C, and D) that are projected inside of a tent and silently act out a series of actions. Each of these actions can be performed with something lying around the campground (e.g., the first action of the first ghost is flipping a frying pan, indicating that someone must pick up the pan by the fake fire and pretend to cook with it).

There is a website proctors will be able to access that will show a button indicating what the next action is supposed to be. If a player does the right action, click the button for it and their book should beep, giving them a new page that acknowledges they got it right and gives them data for the puzzle.

Upon completing each ghost's "story," a new ghost shows up in the projector with a new set of actions. These must occur in parallel with all previous ghosts, building on the previous story until all 4 ghosts have been unlocked.

The puzzle in the book reveals 4 hidden actions that must be performed. When all 4 ghosts are unlocked, if a team performs all 4 actions then they are given an ending page with the answer. If any of the actions failed to occur, they are given a bad ending and the last chapter should be reset. None of these special actions have a corresponding real-world object, so teams only have to act it out and can pretend to do it however the proctor sees fit (e.g., one action is setting an alarm, if they simply yell "I am setting an alarm," that is fine).

Some more important notes:

• Some actions need to be performed in parallel. For example, when the second ghost is unlocked, one camper should be cooking over the fire while the second plays cards at the table. There is a keep going button for this scenario to give the teams a chance to realize they both have to do something.

• There is also a text field for sending custom hints in case we need to push teams along. Some common/standard hints are:

  • Charlie didn't set the table until later that night… (if they figure out C is setting the table but do it too early)

  • …but the campfire was no longer burning … (if they can't figure out to start the fire for D)

Presentation:

Teams will walk in a large room and find a fake/abandoned camp ground with various camp items strewn about (fishing pole, marshmallows on a stick, etc) and a large tent that they are instructed not to touch. One item is a book, when teams pick this up, a projection of a ghost appears to pantomime several actions.

Walkthrough:

TODO:

Detailed solving steps / diagrams / anything needed for GC to know exactly how the puzzle is solved.

Hinting:

Hints can be sent as temporary pages in the book via the submission website. Some common hints from RC:

• Charlie didn't set the table until later that night… (if they figure out C is setting the table but do it too early)

• …but the campfire was no longer burning … (if they can't figure out to start the fire for D)

Changes Since Beta/RC:

Apart from the software there have been no substantial changes since RC.

Data:

Put links to files on the Sharepoint and any other raw data.

Actor table

Staff Notes for Intro Email

You're receiving this mail because you are currently staffing Ghost Stories at the hub. I plan on doing walkthroughs of the puzzle in person, but thought it would be helpful to run through what staffing the puzzle will be like. Apologies for getting this out so late.

For those who haven't seen the puzzle before, we will have rooms set up as a fake campsite. There will be a tent, a table, and various areas marked off with blue tape to represent other things (e.g., a lake, beds). On the table will be an Amazon Fire tablet on a special webpage. Inside the tent is a projector, where a 'ghost' will give teams instructions on what to do.

Your role as staff is to watch the teams perform these actions and either acknowledge/accept that they did the right action in the right order, or to hit a fail button that causes them to reset to the current 'story' they're on. Here is a screenshot of the staffing webpage on the left and what teams will see in the book on the right:

In this example, the players just performed the "cooking" action, and the next one they need to perform is "Eating." The actions they perform are mostly linear and all involve interacting with set pieces, with one notable exception I will explain in detail later in this mail. If one of the players sits at the table and pretends to eat, you should click the "A: Eating" button, and a new page will appear for them as well as a new action for you to watch for.

Part of the puzzle is bolded text in the storybook instructing the players to perform 'secret' actions that do not have set pieces. In the example above, "Make" is the first word in a sentence "make sure fire extinguished," instructing teams that one of their members should make sure to put the fire out before going to bed. This can happen at almost any time, though proctors should use discretion when unlocking it (i.e., they shouldn't put out the fire early on, as one action is roasting marshmallows).

As teams finish each story, a new ghost appears with new actions that must be performed with the previous ghost's actions (i.e., when ghost B is unlocked, teams now need two players performing actions in order and sometimes at the same time). This continues until there are 4 ghost characters, at which point the administration software should track whether they have completed special actions and given them either a "good" ending (with the puzzle answer), or a "bad" ending, where upon hearing that they've read it you should click the "Fail" button to reset them to the beginning of the 4th story.

I recommend you bring a laptop for this; the administration page does work with phones, but it could be easier to have it and the book up on the same screen (as with the screenshot above), just so you have a sense of what teams are seeing.

Below is a table with the list of actions each ghost performs. Each row is a ghost, and the columns represent a time slice (i.e., an item on the left should happen before an item to the right of it, items in the same column should happen simultaneously. So below, when B is unlocked, camper B should fish first, then actor A cooks while actor B plays cards)

Blink