2 Tone Game: Inside Baseball

The 2 Tone Game is a puzzly treasure-hunt game. You can find out more about it on its "About page." But this here page is for folks who have already played some puzzly treasure-hunt games and want to know how this one differs and/or is the same.

This game might remind you of conference-room games; you mostly interact with a computer instead of with live Game Control. But the 2 Tone Game's much shorter and you'll spend a higher fraction of your time out and about.

This game might remind you of the excellent San Francisco leisurely mini-game; you'll go to a few places in San Francisco instead of walking around a neighborhood or driving around the bay. But the 2 Tone Game allows you to drive and lets you take a few weeks to finish.

This Game's Pace is Off

This game does not have live "Game Control". You interact with a web site. You "unlock" puzzles. Some of these puzzles, you can solve in the comfort of your kitchen while wearing bunny slippers. Some of these puzzles, you will need to go to some site in San Francisco to find "environmental" information.

Bad news for out-of-towners, maybe If you don't live in San Francisco, this might be a hassle. If you have to drive 40 km back and forth every time you want to get a hint, print out a puzzle, or check an answer, that's annoying. Sorry about that. You might want to play with a San Franciscan who's willing to use their home as "home base."

Take your time The advantage of no-live-Game-Control is that you can play when you want. If you "unlock" a puzzle which sends you to the beach and you notice it's raining out, you can go do something else and try again tomorrow. If you have babysitter issues, maybe it's easier for you to get out of the house for a short jaunt each day for a few days instead of one twelve-hour walkabout.

Bring your Gadget Freak Pal Along

You're going to interact with this web site a lot. And you're going to look up trivia on the internet. If you're out of the house and want to ask for a hint or check an answer, it'll be darned handy to have some internet-capable device. If you don't have an internet phone, maybe you want to drag along a friend who does. You might want to bring along your laptop and solve in wifi cafes.

This Game is for Small Teams

A good team size is 1-3 people. (I watched a team of four playtesters. Sometimes, everybody on the team had something to do. But not all the time.) If you're playing over the course of a few days, you might not be able to drag along the same group of people all the time, anyhow.

We're out-of-towners Who Want to Get through this in a Day

If you're coming in from out of town and want to play the whole game in a day (because going back and forth to home is such a hassle), you probably want to bring along...

Typical playtesters took 8-10 hours to finish (but didn't stop to print out puzzles).

Really? So, if we want to catch a movie...

You don't boost your score by solving puzzles faster. Really. If you want to take off for a couple of hours to catch a movie, that's fine with me. Really.

OK, I guess you want to finish within a few months. That environmental data won't last forever. I'll probably have to shut the game down at some point. But... you can take this game slower than you take a BANG, for example.

Playing At Night

Maybe you miss the night games. You wonder how well this would work as a night game. We didn't run any playtests at night. So... the answer is unclear. If you try it, your comments would be welcome.

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