New: Puzzle Hunts are Everywhen, even before Midnight Madness

I have finally seen the movie Midnight Madness. Well, not quite all of it. I just paused it in the end credits. I'm looking at this:

Certain Game Techniques inspired by

DON LUSKIN     PATRICK CARLYLE
CHERIE CHUNG

Midnight Madness was, of course, the movie that inspired Joe Belfiore to start up treasure-hunt/puzzlehunt games. I want to know whence sprang the Bay Area culture, so I watched Midnight Madness. But of course something else inspired Midnight Madness. Nothing has a beginning or an end. It's turtles all the way down.

I Googled for ["don luskin" "midnight madness"], and the second result is a forum chat in which someone calling themselves "y2kbozo" says

Posted: Sun Aug 01, 2004 7:43 pm   Post subject: The REAL Midnight Madness!

Ahh...this brings back memories!

The movie is based on a series of real games put on in the 1970's by Don Luskin and myself. (By the way, neither of us resembles "Leon" in any way!)

I've attached the L.A.Times article about the third game, the invitation to the fourth, and one of the clues that was in the form of a religious tract that we handed out on Hollywood Blvd.!

Where is the attachment? It's not immediately obvious. Maybe if I sign up for the forum, I can see it? Will I sign up for this forum? Will I keep researching this? It's turtles all the way down. Will I chase this turtle?

* ~ * ~ *

I have a great plan for a next writing project, but it's warping. Games start at a place and time. Before a Game starts, the players mill around, chatting. Often, they talk about other teams. Some folks like reading things that I wrote about my experiences with Mystic Fish. So I thought--maybe I should write about how other teams operate, too. Players seem curious about that. Lately, there's been more than one game a year. Maybe I could play one game a year with some team I'd never played with before. After a few years, I'd have written up a few teams, shown the, uhm, spectrum of Game culture.

So I sent out a plea to team captains: Let me join your team for the Hogwarts game--and I'll write about it. I got a couple of nibbles. One team captain is interested--but his team might fill up with regulars. (This game is going to be pretty small; people are scrambling to get in.) Another team captain is interested--but the application scramble for this game happened so quickly that his team ended up on the waiting list. And his team is likely to fill up, too. Meanwhile, that fast application scramble had an effect I hadn't counted on--Mystic Fish didn't get in. Ergo, my backup plan is gone.

I had one more nibble--from Game Control. This is Team Snout, veteran game organizers. Anyone who wants to run a game wants to know how Snout does it. That sounds interesting. That sounds like a lot of effort. That sounds like it would interfere with my plans to travel in late August. Maybe those plans aren't as important as I thought.

I am stream-of-consciousness blogging like a teenager.

Must mail team captains, find out their team status. Must figure out what my plans are. Ignore the mysterious Don Luskin and y2kbozo for now. Must focus.

Wait, wasn't I meeting some of my non-Game playing friends for something today? I think I'm supposed to be in Berkeley for something.

Must unpause movie. Must get act together. Must. Soon. Where are my shoes?

Labels: puzzlehunts