Donate to Remove ads

Got a credit card? use our Credit Card & Finance Calculators

Thanks to johnstevens77,Bhoddhisatva,scotia,Anonymous,Cornytiv34, for Donating to support the site

Online treasure hunt

Novoiceleft
Lemon Pip
Posts: 98
Joined: March 15th, 2017, 8:14 pm
Has thanked: 37 times
Been thanked: 10 times

Online treasure hunt

#411274

Postby Novoiceleft » May 12th, 2021, 9:38 am

Dear All

I did an online treasure hunt in Zoom recently. Turned out to be a lot of fun. Eight teams, all racing to win. Have a go if you want.
You will use Google, Google Maps and Google Street view. All teams took between 100-120 minutes. But you don't have to do it all in one go.

You have to work through the stages in the order 1 to 9.
At each stage, the clues lead you to a CODEWORD which you must then use to open the link for the next stage.
Every CODEWORD is a single word in lower case letters.

The very final answer is a reference to a local Quiz pub, so you won't recognise it. But it doesn't matter - just need the word.

I'm not sure what the etiquette is here for posting Answers. I'll wait to be advised on that.

Good luck

NoVoice

Stage 1

Thin Lizzy sang about the Irish Version. But I prefer the Scottish Version. I’ve been drinking so much of it, I’ve scrambled its name to “ABBA HANNI HUN”. You are on the Island where it’s made and you are at the gates of where it is made. There’s a lorry parked there. Where’s it come from ? You are going to hitch a ride there next. This is your CODEWORD

Stage 2
https://drive.google.com/file/d/17ELMsX ... sp=sharing

Stage 3
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1wit38v ... sp=sharing

Stage 4
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Ys_d1q ... sp=sharing

Stage 5
https://drive.google.com/file/d/14V_3eT ... sp=sharing

Stage 6
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1YSSjBA ... sp=sharing

Stage 7
https://drive.google.com/file/d/13Et6fu ... sp=sharing

Stage 8
https://drive.google.com/file/d/146aN42 ... sp=sharing

Stage 9
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1ORUu4c ... sp=sharing

What is the final CODEWORD

Gengulphus
Lemon Quarter
Posts: 4255
Joined: November 4th, 2016, 1:17 am
Been thanked: 2628 times

Re: Online treasure hunt

#411306

Postby Gengulphus » May 12th, 2021, 11:28 am

Novoiceleft wrote:I'm not sure what the etiquette is here for posting Answers. I'll wait to be advised on that.

Generally:

* Leave plenty of time (I reckon at least about a week before even posting hints, and more before posting full answers - assuming that it's possible to find hints that aren't essentially the full answer).

* Say that there's a 'spoiler' coming up.

* If possible, conceal the spoiler by matching its font colour to the background colour as closely as you reasonably can. It's not possible to do this perfectly, due to the posting software using two different pale blues alternately for the backgrounds of posts within a thread and a pale yellow for quotes within those posts - but one doesn't have to do it perfectly, just well enough to make the spoiler text very hard to read directly. Generally, a pale blue will do the job well enough - as an example, see cinelli's post viewtopic.php?p=402868#p402868 and my following reply. We've selected two slightly different pale blues and it's only just visible that there's something there at all against the pale blue background of the posts... It's a bit more visible that there's something there against the pale yellow background of my quote of cinelli's post, but even there there's not enough contrast to make the text at all easily readable. (Someone who wants to read it should select the text, which makes it show up readably as near-white text on a fairly dark blue background.)

* That method of concealing the spoiler doesn't work well with a number of posting features which make use of colours: other uses of the font colour facility itself, links, tables and images. So try to avoid using them within spoilers - e.g. say "see the Wikipedia entry on the eight queens puzzle" rather than "see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eight_queens_puzzle". If you cannot avoid them, leave plenty of vertical space between the warning that there is a spoiler coming up and the start of the spoiler (and remember that what looks like plenty of space on a mobile phone screen may be totally inadequate on a desktop screen!).

* Preview the post in which you give the spoiler and check that it's adequately concealed (or warned about). If it's at all long, by the way, I find it worth previewing it twice - once before adding the tags to change the font colour, to check that the post reads well and makes sense, then add the font colour tags and preview it again, this time to check that it's well-concealed. It's very easy e.g. to put a link into one's post without realising one has done so, and end up with the attempted concealment actually drawing attention to the link, as for instance in:

This puzzle can be solved by a double application of Pythagoras' Theorem to the two right-angled triangles in the diagram.

Hope this helps. And on your puzzle itself, so far I've worked out most of stage 1 - I know what you're drinking, where it's made and therefore where the lorry is parked, but unfortunately not where it's come from. I think I'll have to wait for inspiration to strike...

Gengulphus

Novoiceleft
Lemon Pip
Posts: 98
Joined: March 15th, 2017, 8:14 pm
Has thanked: 37 times
Been thanked: 10 times

Re: Online treasure hunt

#411315

Postby Novoiceleft » May 12th, 2021, 11:46 am

Google Street View !!

Novoiceleft
Lemon Pip
Posts: 98
Joined: March 15th, 2017, 8:14 pm
Has thanked: 37 times
Been thanked: 10 times

Re: Online treasure hunt

#411319

Postby Novoiceleft » May 12th, 2021, 11:50 am

If anyone's working on this, maybe just post "I've done it" .... when you get to the last word. Then we will see who "Won".

I will wait a few days to post the Answer.

Hint: There is a lot of work to do in Google Street view - walking around, turning and zooming in !!!

NoVoice

Gengulphus
Lemon Quarter
Posts: 4255
Joined: November 4th, 2016, 1:17 am
Been thanked: 2628 times

Re: Online treasure hunt

#411320

Postby Gengulphus » May 12th, 2021, 11:53 am

Gengulphus wrote:... on your puzzle itself, so far I've worked out most of stage 1 - I know what you're drinking, where it's made and therefore where the lorry is parked, but unfortunately not where it's come from. I think I'll have to wait for inspiration to strike...

Just to say it has now struck and I've moved on to stage 2 - so no hints needed!

Gengulphus

Gengulphus
Lemon Quarter
Posts: 4255
Joined: November 4th, 2016, 1:17 am
Been thanked: 2628 times

Re: Online treasure hunt

#411905

Postby Gengulphus » May 14th, 2021, 12:52 pm

Novoiceleft wrote:If anyone's working on this, maybe just post "I've done it" .... when you get to the last word. Then we will see who "Won".

I've done it, assuming that the "last word" is the answer to stage 8, which lets you into stage 9. I also have a strong suspicion about the name of the local Quiz pub that's the answer to stage 9, though there's a possible alternative solution. In each case I've no idea where it's located, presumably because I lack relevant local knowledge, as you indicate.

I have to admit to not having worked out what the second paragraph of the clue for stage 7 is about - the one that mentions a depository and the weather. Fortunately, it's pretty easy to pick up the trail again in the following paragraph.

As evidence that I've done it, here are my answers, spoiler-concealed:

The answer to stage 8 which lets one into stage 9 is "robinson".

My strong suspicion about the answer to stage 9 is "Flames", though "Casey's" is a possible alternative.


Gengulphus

Novoiceleft
Lemon Pip
Posts: 98
Joined: March 15th, 2017, 8:14 pm
Has thanked: 37 times
Been thanked: 10 times

Re: Online treasure hunt

#411917

Postby Novoiceleft » May 14th, 2021, 1:39 pm

Well done Gengulphus.

Yes I can see the problem with the last stage if you don't know this area. If I told you we are based in Camberley, Surrey, you should be able to get the correct final word with just a little more Googling.

Hopefully it was fun.

Gengulphus
Lemon Quarter
Posts: 4255
Joined: November 4th, 2016, 1:17 am
Been thanked: 2628 times

Re: Online treasure hunt

#411931

Postby Gengulphus » May 14th, 2021, 3:18 pm

Novoiceleft wrote:Yes I can see the problem with the last stage if you don't know this area. If I told you we are based in Camberley, Surrey, you should be able to get the correct final word with just a little more Googling.

Hopefully it was fun.

Got it:

The Crabtree Pub, so presumably the last word is "crabtree"

And I've worked out how I got on to the wrong track: I worked out what the name of the organisation was, googled that name and the city you'd told me it was in and was presented with a list of branch locations. One obviously fitted the extra clue, so I clicked on that, and the resulting page had a "Get Directions" link on it. That brought up a Google Maps page for apparently the right address. It was a bit disconcerting that the place didn't have the organisation's name prominently displayed on it when I used Streetview, but there was an eatery the right distance away in the right direction, at least on one interpretation of the distance. But what was actually going on was that the organisation's "Get Directions" link brings up a similar address a bit over a mile away along the same road!

And yes, I enjoyed it. The one comment I would make is that such puzzles probably work better for teams than for individual competitors - an individual competitor can easily develop a blind spot that holds them up for hours, while members of a team have a much better chance of filling in for each others' blind spots. Certainly most of the reason why I took over two days (compared with your teams' ~2 hour times) was that I got stuck down about 4 or 5 blind alleys and needed to drop the puzzle and come back some hours later, after my mind had cleared. That didn't spoil the fun, though - it's basically just a comment about how long one should realistically expect such puzzles to be solved here... And actually, people here have occasionally expressed frustration about puzzles here being solved before they've even seen them, so quickly-solvable puzzles aren't necessarily a good thing!

Gengulphus

Novoiceleft
Lemon Pip
Posts: 98
Joined: March 15th, 2017, 8:14 pm
Has thanked: 37 times
Been thanked: 10 times

Re: Online treasure hunt

#411963

Postby Novoiceleft » May 14th, 2021, 6:09 pm

Yes - well done. That's right.

Lets see how any others fare.

You are right, its a team sport. We had 8 teams in different Zoom breakout rooms. There were 4 or 5 people per team.

Every team had one Captain who had beforehand volunteered to be the "driver." The Captain shared their screen on Zoom with the whole team. Each team evolved its own way of working. At the beginning, people were contributing ideas to the Captain. But quite quickly, others jumped onto other devices to be googling at the same time. The fastest teams worked together as a team. Two of the teams were ready to kill each other by the end !! Teams were able to ask me for help if they got really stuck.

The fruit word seemed to be the hardest clue. A couple of teams got Pomegranates and Grapes - I have no idea how.

I'm running another one next Friday at 8pm. Its billed as a Virtual Bar Crawl, but the same idea. Here's the invitation:

"Join your Friends to Zoom around the world in our virtual Bar Crawl. Sample the strangest food and drink in the most unusual bars and restaurants around the world and beyond. Even better, arrive home without jet lag or a hangover. In your teams, you’ll solve the clues to get the ticket to your next destination. Zoom around the world using Google + Maps + Street View + Translate. Our valiant IT helpers will be your team's tour guides - the rest of you can be backseat drivers ! "

If you'd like to muster a team of 4 from this board, I'll see if I can arrange for you to join us a guest team !!

moorfield
Lemon Quarter
Posts: 3523
Joined: November 7th, 2016, 1:56 pm
Has thanked: 1546 times
Been thanked: 1402 times

Re: Online treasure hunt

#412020

Postby moorfield » May 14th, 2021, 11:36 pm

I got stuck on Stage 8 I was in the right place I think but couldn't see the codeword, but good fun nonetheless.

Gengulphus
Lemon Quarter
Posts: 4255
Joined: November 4th, 2016, 1:17 am
Been thanked: 2628 times

Re: Online treasure hunt

#412084

Postby Gengulphus » May 15th, 2021, 11:09 am

moorfield wrote:I got stuck on Stage 8 I was in the right place I think but couldn't see the codeword, but good fun nonetheless.

I got stuck for quite a while on that one - I found a place sort-of-just-outside the previous location where Streetview showed a man with something fairly brightly glowing the right sort of colour very close to him in the picture and spent quite a long time trying to make it fit the rest of the clue, without success. It turned out that I needed to be quite a lot further outside the previous location... And when I did find a location that fitted the rest of the clue fairly well, I couldn't see the 'glowing' man - but spotted a repeated word with the right final letter, so tried that, and it worked. On revisiting it to confirm my memory for this post, I've discovered that I had been one Streetview 'step' away from the right place to see him...

Not certain whether any of that will jog you out of being stuck, but hopefully I haven't made anything it says too much of a spoiler!

Gengulphus


Return to “Games, Puzzles and Riddles”

Who is online

Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 11 guests