Untamed with the Lester Tang Conjecture: Briefing

Tobias studies the baby alligator.

Teams made their way from the parking lot to a little outside theater within the zoo. The game would begin here. One of the Just Passing Through people, Linda Holman, was a zookeeper. Perhaps she'd used some pull to get us in here while the other zookeepers were still getting the zoo ready for regular visitors. Or maybe she just knew the ropes on arranging for large group visits to the zoo. The neat thing was that someone had arranged for zookeepers to have an alligator and an armadillo. Thus, I was able to get a photo of Tobias consulting our biology textbook while studying the baby alligator.

Greg deBeer was passing out magnets publicizing Iron Puzzler. It sounded interesting. It also sounded like it was happening during my first weekend at a new job--not a good time during which to plan mentally taxing activities.

Some guy came running up to me, asking me where Team Mystic Fish was. I pointed them out. He said he was playing with them, and ran over. I looked over--including this guy, there were four Mystic Fish there, but no Alexandra Dixon, the usual team captain. What was up? I wandered over to get the scoop. Liberty Belle, Alexandra's dog, was dying of cancer, and had taken a turn for the worse. Alexandra was staying home to tend her. That was a downer, so I was glad for a distraction: it was time to get started on the game itself.

The Just Passing Through folks issued us equipment: a "bag of crap" and a WOLF. The bag of crap contained miscellaneous things we'd need over the course of the day: a coded message, pencils, badges, a black-and-white photo. The WOLF was a Palm handheld electronic device running a custom application: this application would handle the workhorse game control duties. When we found a clue, that clue would come with a code word. We were to enter that code into the WOLF application. If/when we solved the clue, that would give us an answer word to enter into the WOLF--if we had the correct solution, the WOLF would display information on how to find the next clue. If the WOLF's timer noticed that we spent a lot of time without solving the clue, it would provide hints.

Tom and I had worked on plenty of little handheld devices. There was the temptation to get this WOLF hooked up to a computer, get that special application under a debugger, extract its secrets... but that would be less fun than playing the game straight.

According to the instructions in the Bag of Crap, we should do our best not to show the bag's badges to anyone, but we would soon be required to wear them. There was an identical badge for each member of the team, printed with the team's name and a secret word for the team. During the course of the game, if you could spot the secret word on the badge of someone from another team, you should remember that word. Later on, those secret words would be useful--the more you knew, the better. It would be a spy game.

Wesley from Team Mystic Fish wandered over to talk with me. Did the Lester-Tang Conjecture want to trade secret words with Team Mystic Fish? Wesley was just the person to figure out how to turn this spy game into a trading game. I liked the idea of trading--it would be a pretext to schmooze with other teams. I looked around. Not all of my team was present. I promised Wesley I'd let him know after I'd talked the idea over with the rest of my team.

The Just Passing Through folks briefed us on the WOLF, gave us an outline of the hunt (about 13 hours in San Francisco and the North Bay), encouraged us to have fun, and told us that our first hint was in the zoo's playground. And we were off.

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