2 Tone Game: Checkmate Design Notes

 

SPOILER WARNING

This page contains spoilers from the 2-Tone Game. If you haven't already played the game, you might want to do so before continuing reading this page.

Checkmate is a a darned tough collection of common puzzler codes: Morse, Braille, and binary, half of which have been flipped upside down.

It started out smaller, with no upside-down gimmick:

Go to Haight and Central and walk around (within a block) until you find Checkmate. Then make sense of this:

10111 01000 01001 10100 00101 00010 01001 10011 01000 01111 10000 00010 01100 00001 00011 01011 01011 01001 01110 00111 00010 01100 00001 00011 01011 01011 01110 01001 00111 01000 10100 10111 01000 01001 10100 00101 00010 01001 10011 01000 01111 10000

.-- .... .. - .   -... .. ... .... --- .--.     -... .-.. .- -.-. -.-   -.- .. -. --.     -... .-.. .- -.-. -.-   -.- -. .. --. .... -     .-- .... .. - .   -... .. ... .... --- .--.

-... .-.. .- -.-. -.-   .--. .- .-- -.     -... .-.. .- -.-. -.-   .--. .- .-- -.     .-- .... .. - .   .--. .- .-- -.   .-- .... .. - .   .--. .- .-- -.   .-- .... .. - .   .--. .- .-- -.

(If you're looking for a nearby cafe in which to sit and solve, Coffee to the People on Masonic (a couple of doors up the hill from Haight) has a chess set.)

 

A cute coincidence during playtesting: while playtesters solved the puzzle, some folks were playing a real chess game.

The first batch of playtesters got through this OK, but said that by the time they'd figured out the puzzle's schtick, they pretty much finished it. Couldn't there be a longer message to get?

With only the letters available right-side up, I couldn't form any great answer message. Then someone thought of the upside-down board as seen by Black. Nice, but yet another mental leap that players had to make. The final version of the puzzle was darned hard, requiring many mental leaps. I worried that it was too hard. But though playtesters struggled with it, they liked it. Maybe they felt satisfied in having wrestled with something so difficult.

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