All Quiet on the Puzzle Front

It's been quite a while since I last posted here, and I think that's largely due to a lack of puzzle events that I have either been playing in or working on. The lack of BANGs has largely meant there are no puzzle events in the "off season". Fortunately, things have been starting up again with Iron Puzzler a few weeks ago, a Midnight Madness themed game in early April, and a BANG-esque game from coed astronomy coming later that month.

Iron Puzzler

Iron Puzzler was a blast, and despite initial worries about changes to the scoring system, I think it actually improved the quality of the puzzles we saw. Despite having no direct penalty for making a puzzle that was way too hard, the double-counting of fun scores assigned by other teams gave a strong incentive to make puzzles that most teams would solve. 4 teams actually finished all of the puzzles before time was called, despite having 2 more puzzles than last year.

coed astronomy did quite well in the event, and we used our winnings to obtain some quality merchandise from Endgame. But, what made me most happy was that both of our clues did so well in the fun category. "Funness" is always so difficult to measure, but it's something we always strive for in our clues.

I'm always amazed at what my fellow puzzlers can come up with in 24 hours. Since only 7 teams were fortunate enough to play in Iron Puzzler, Greg is thinking about using the puzzles in a future event. Unfortunately, this means I can't talk about them, but there were some real gems in there.

San Francisco Game

coed astronomy will be running a walking game in the city on April 19th. I probably won't be too involved in this one due to wedding planning and whatnot, but it should be fun. More details to come later.

Midnight Madness

Midnight Madness, an *awesome* movie, as well as Michael J. Fox's debut film, is also the catalyst that started the game. Or not, if you believe wikipedia. Anyhow, an anonymous team will be running a Midnight Madness themed game on April 5th, and I know I can't wait to play. More info can be found on Curtis' blog.