Category: Opinion (Page 1 of 19)

Taylor Swift Loves Puzzles More Than You

May 28, 2024 / Michael Andersen

The author, visiting a secret puzzle piece for The Tortured Poets Department release in Brooklyn

Back in the late 1960s, rumors started to circulate among Beatles fans that Paul McCartney died in 1966, and was replaced by a lookalike. While official sources refuted the rumors, fans poring through the Beatles’ discography started picking up on clues that seemed to support those theories, ranging from backmasked audio hidden in songs to secret messages inserted into the album covers for Sgt Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band and Abbey Road.

Fans even managed to find a secret phone number written in the stars, if you held the Magical Mystery Tour album up in front of a mirror. According to some rumors, calling that number would trigger the cryptic message, “you’re getting closer…” The theory came to be known as Paul is Dead.

The Magical Mystery tour in its original form, and mirrored (with an emphasis on the “phone number”

Of course, Paul McCartney was (and still is, at the time of this article) very much alive. And there is minimal evidence to even support the Paul is Dead 2.0 theory, arguing that even though Paul was alive, the band intentionally sprinkled clues alluding to his death. The connections were likely a series of apophenic coincidence – with fans creating meaning out of nothing.

Paul is Dead may not have been a “solvable” game, but it still plays a formative role in the creation of alternate reality games. According to an interview with The Beast‘s lead writer Sean Stewart, The Beast‘s creative director Jordan Weisman was heavily influenced by Paul is Dead as he constructed what came to be credited as the first alternate reality game:

Jordan from the time he was very young had been obsessed with, among other things, the Beatles mystery…if you looked at the cover of Sgt Peppers there were clues on it that indicated that Paul McCartney was actually dead….Almost certainly none of that was true, but it was a very powerful urban myth and with the advent of the internet he was thinking, “I think we could do this now…but for real.”
No Proscenium Podcast, ep. 156

Alternate reality games would return to musical themes a number of times over the years, most notably with the release of Nine Inch Nails’ concept album Year Zero, which started with “leaked” USB drives left in the bathrooms of concerts and culminating in a secret concert raided by a (fictional) SWAT team. But one of the more impressive answers to the question “what if Paul is Dead was real” comes from outside the alternate reality gaming arena. Instead, it comes from the musical career of Taylor Alison Swift.

Taylor Swift Learns to Play the Puzzling Long Game
Taylor Swift’s lyrical puzzles started out relatively simple: for her first five albums, the song lyrics featured in her liner notes were all presented in lower case. The only exception to that rule? A handful of capitalized letters that spelled out secret messages. For instance, the message spelled out in the lyrics of Long Live spells out the phrase “for you”, drawing attention to the song’s role as a love letter to her fellow band-mates, and to her emerging fandom.

Speak Now liner notes, with capitalized letters (highlighted in red) for Long Live spelling out “FOR YOU”

Taylor Swift may have started with hidden messages in liner notes, but things quickly spiraled into deeper “easter eggs” hidden throughout her works. In an interview with Jimmy Fallon, Swift explains:

That’s when it started [with the liner notes]…but when it got out of control was when I started to realize that it wasn’t just me that had fun with it, that they had fun with it too, and I should never have learned that. Because then I couldn’t stop, and all I started thinking of was how do I hint at things? How far is too far in advance? Can I hint at something three years in advance? Can I even plan things that far…

…and look. I think that it is perfectly reasonable for people to be normal music fans and to have a normal relationship to music. But…if you want to go down a rabbit hole with us, come along.
The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon

Under that guidance, the puzzles started getting more considerably more varied and expansive. The music video for Me! wasn’t just filled with easter eggs when it dropped in April 2019…it also snuck in the title of her next studio album, which wouldn’t be formally announced until two months later.

Swift even started dabbling in more traditional puzzles through a series of “Vault Puzzles” in support of her album rereleases. Solve a puzzle, and unlock information about the coming release. For Fearless (Taylor’s Version), the vault puzzle was a relatively straightforward anagram. Red (Taylor’s Version) continued the tradition of anagrammed puzzles, but this time rewarded players to complete it with an image overlay to celebrate their accomplishment.

One of 90 Vault Puzzles leading up to the release of 1989 (Taylor’s Version)

The Vault Puzzles for 1989 (Taylor’s Version) ramped up the complexity to a whole new level. Swift’s team partnered with Google to hide a series of 89 different anagrammed puzzles in various Google search results. Fans needed to collectively solve those puzzles 33 million times to unlock news about the new album.

But even the Vault Puzzles pale in comparison to the long road to the release of Reputation (Taylor’s Version), and the surprise announcement of The Tortured Poet’s Department. But to explain that, it’s first necessary to provide a brief primer to the Lover House.

It’s Okay to Call Strange Phone Numbers…Sometimes

December 1, 2023 / Michael Andersen

A Missing poster for Buzz the dog (phone number redacted)

While scrolling through TikTok yesterday, I came across a video where an unseen cameraman stumbles across a Missing poster for an adorable dog named Buzz, sporting what appears to be a New England Patriots jersey (although we can’t blame him too much for that). There’s a reward for finding Buzz, although the specifics of that reward aren’t explicitly mentioned.

Even though I haven’t actually stumbled across an adorable puppy named Buzz (with or without a football jersey), I still called the phone number, just to make sure Buzz was still okay. Ordinarily this would be a bit of a jerk move – you don’t get someone’s hopes up when their dog is missing. However, I have an excuse this time – and that excuse provides an example of how to practice responsible alternate reality gaming etiquette.

Tracker and the Lucrative Reward Seeking Business
A detail I neglected to mention in this article’s introduction is that the TikTok account I found this “Missing” poster on was called @TrackerCBS, teasing an upcoming drama on the network. The channel follows a handful of aspiring “Reward Seekers”, eager to chase real life mysteries with cash payouts for rewards. One of the people running the channel tracked down a friend’s watch that was lost in a Los Angeles area park, for $30.

An under current throughout all of this is an extremely “hot, mysterious Batman in a SilverStream RV” named C.S., who tracked down a missing girl and likely recovered a stolen 1989 Porsche 911, as well. C.S. is likely Tracker protagonist Colter Shaw. But we’re here for the missing dog poster.

One of the standalone videos on the channel featured the scene of a man approaching the Missing poster in question, lingering on the phone number before moving along. While prior videos focused on fake 555 numbers or obscured identifying details like license plate numbers, this phone number was real.

Morrison Game Factory Delivers Gripping Story, Right Off the Assembly Line

October 17, 2023 / Michael Andersen

While combing through the ruins of an abandoned game factory, an urban explorer stumbled across a box sitting on the factory’s conveyor belt. Curious, they tried to piece together why the box was sitting there, but couldn’t puzzle out what was going on…so, they forwarded the box over to you, the player. Can you figure out what happened at the Morrison Game Factory, and complete the task hidden within?

The Morrison Game Factory is PostCurious’ newest puzzletale, with a crowdfunding campaign that went live on Kickstarter earlier today. ARGNet has reviewed a number of PostCurious games in the past, featuring stories ranging from alchemical experiments, a tarot-driven journey through the woods, and an ethereal journey through a dream world. And while the visual aesthetics and themes of each game change, PostCurious games revel in delivering an intensely tactile experience, both as a puzzle-solving experience, but also as a vector for storytelling. When playing the tarot-based Light in the Mist, players uncover what happened to their missing friend by laying out tarot spreads. When Adrift directs players to engage in oneirology, players pore over artistic renderings of dreams to find meaning in chaos. And after playing a review copy of the game, I can enthusiastically say The Morrison Game Factory continues to deliver on that promise.

Morrison Game Factory Delivers Modern Puzzling with a Classic Aesthetic
That commitment to delivering an intensely satisfying tactile experience follows through with The Morrison Game Factory. Gameplay revolves around board game components and ephemera pulled from a nostalgic board gaming past that hearkens back to heated game nights of Parcheesi with the family. And that translates mechanically in the puzzling: placing tiles, rolling dice, and rifling through a deck of cards all factor into the experience. But you might also find yourself flipping through handwritten maintenance logs, the company’s product catalog, or…other elements, that unfold over the course of the game.

The fact that The Morrison Game Factory continues to deliver such a satisfyingly tactile puzzling experience is notable because this is the first PostCurious game with a different lead designer at the helm. While company founder Rita Orlov was the lead designer on past PostCurious games, Lauren Bello was at the helm on The Morrison Game Factory: and while it is clearly a PostCurious game, the unique spin Bello takes on that theme is also evident.

Excuse Me, There’s A Puzzle on Your Jacket: The Wearable ARG Experience

April 19, 2023 / Michael Andersen

Puzzle shirts featured in *Hung Out to Dry*, via Edoc Laundry co-founder Shane Small

During its third season, CSI: NY aired the episode Hung Out to Dry, revolving around a series of grisly murders. Each victim was found wearing a mythologically inspired t-shirt, with the logo Kodecon emblazoned on the collar. Solving the puzzles embedded in the shirt’s design would reveal information about the motive for murder, both through the hidden meanings woven into the shirt’s design and through a video clip unlocked on the Kodecon website.

Hung Out to Dry was inspired by the real world company Edoc Laundry, founded by a number of 42 Entertainment veterans to use a line of designer clothing to introduce players to the band Poor Richard, and unravel the mystery of who killed its lead singer. And while Edoc Laundry’s narrative puzzle shirts may be over a decade out of print, there’s been a recent resurgence of experiences that hide stories in fashion.

Solve Our Shirts’ games *Escape From the Maze of the Minotaur* and *The Treasure Trove of Pirate Cove*

Solve Our Shirts: This T-Shirt Comes With Its Own Sea Shanties
When the pandemic shut down escape rooms and immersive theater companies across the globe, designers explored different ways to recreate the escape room experience for players in the comfort of their own homes. Many rooms translated their existing rooms into online Zoom experiences, where players instructed in-person avatars on how to navigate the room’s challenges. Some experimented with audio escape experiences, mashing up escape rooms with tabletop gaming. Still others effectively re-invented alternate reality games, by asking what an escape room experience would look like if the narrative was no longer enclosed within a single building.

While Illinois escape room company CU Adventures also created their own series of more traditional “play-at-home” escape games, their foray into fashion with Solve Our Shirts is what really sets their at-home offerings apart.

Introductory postcards from Solve Our Shirts games, along with unlockable envelopes

To play a Solve Our Shirts game, “wish you were here” postcards themed to the game provide login instructions to CU Adventures’ at-home player portal, where players are tasked with a series of tasks that ask them to more deeply interrogate the secrets hidden within the shirt. After completing certain puzzles, players might also be instructed to open a series of marked envelopes to aid them in their journey through the shirt.

Immersive Nutcracker Show “Club Drosselmeyer” Gives WW2 Puzzling a Swing Dance

January 12, 2023 / Michael Andersen

Ginger Lamarr (Elise Roth) performs on stage at *Club Drosselmeyer*, backed by the house band

The year is 1939. The United States of America has yet to officially enter World War II, but those who are in the know suspect that it’s only a matter of time. Particularly enterprising corners of the private sector recognize the military-industrial complex is likely to pay top dollar for technological innovations that can deliver an edge in the coming conflict. In Cambridge, two companies are leading the charge: Drosselmeyer Industries seeks to push the boundaries of science with its research in artificial intelligence, while Rattibus Labs is exploring more paranormal lines of inquiry, attempting to use mind control on Earth’s smartest creature: the noble rat.

Of course, none of this should matter at Club Drosselmeyer: the local nightclub planned a big night of music, dancing, spirited performances, and even more spirited libations to provide a needed distraction from the increasingly dire state of the world. To be sure, there’s rumors of an escaped test subject from Rattibus Labs on the loose…and a curiously strong yet naÃ¯ve man known only as “our cousin Alan” says the most curious things while wandering the nightclub floor…but none of that should be important. Not at Club Drosselmeyer.

“Cousin Alan” (Devon Courtney) performing a series of lifts with his handler Carla (Madeline Song)

Club Drosselmeyer is an annual immersive show by Green Door Labs that transforms the holiday classic tale of The Nutcracker into an evening at a World War II era nightclub. And while it’s possible to treat Club Drosselmeyer as a fancy night on the town with live performances and swing dance lessons, the show can go in a surprising number of directions. Fans of puzzles can help the night’s adventures unfold by solving a series of puzzles, while attendees more interested in live action role-playing can adopt a persona to interact with over a dozen character actors scheming their way through the night. Club Drosselmeyer offers up a buffet of immersive possibilities, and it’s up to each attendee to decide what balance of dancing, puzzling, and character interactions they want to chase to fill their plates for the night.

The Main Course: Picking Sides Through Puzzles with a Side of Roleplay
The events of Club Drosselmeyer open as Herr Drosselmeyer receives an encoded telegram from his mentor. The message is encoded in what should be an unbreakable cipher…luckily, the artificial intelligence his company has been working on, “Project Nutcracker”, should be capable of translating the message after assembling a module from five component parts, and installing it in the Nutcracker. At the same time, Erasmus King is looking for help with his mind control experiments…some of his experiments escaped from their cages, and he needs help tracking them down.

Players interested in helping with either of these challenges were directed to check in with characters at opposite ends of the ballroom floor to receive puzzle packets to assist in the respective investigations. For instance, the Drosselmeyer puzzle track revolved around solving pen-and-paper variety puzzles to determine the names of the five components.

Project Nutcracker’s fully assembled translation module, ready for installation

Just knowing the name of the component, of course, was not enough to help out. Armed with that knowledge, players could start chatting with the characters scattered throughout the event to find where those components could be found. For instance, Club Drosselmeyer host Fritz Stahlbaum was sitting on a suitcase full of one particular component. The only problem? He had a bit of a gambling problem, and owed Erasmus’ son Rhett King a sizeable chunk of money. Players would have to find a way to help him out in order to get the MacGuffin. And while some of these tasks involved the accumulation of in-game currency, others challenged players to join a character for a short dance, or collect signatures for a birthday card a character neglected to prepare for his mother.

The largely pen-and-paper puzzles would have felt right at home at a Puzzled Pint event in both variety and difficulty, and were particularly good at blending the flavor of the challenge with the puzzle’s structure and design. The puzzle that led to Fritz Stahlbaum’s first component, for instance, involved reviewing research notes from a scientist who inadvertently took faulty readings: correcting the mistake and tracking the real results would spell out the component’s name.

After assembling all five pieces of the module through a combination of puzzle-solving and character interaction, Herr Drosselmeyer guided players into a back room to confirm it was in working order. After that, players were instructed to head up to Drosselmeyer Industries’ safe to recover Project Nutcracker’s blueprints so the module could be installed properly.

Missing blueprints in the Drosselmeyer safe leads to a mind-controlled Erasmus King

Once players entered the safe, they discovered that Erasmus King arranged for the theft of Project Nutcracker’s blueprints: luckily, the rats’ irradiated paws meant that a trail of blue prints could be seen under UV light, leading players to Erasmus King…or rather, an experimental rat who mesmered Erasmus King’s body into reenacting Ratatouille. The blueprints would help the rat take control of an even more powerful body: Project Nutcracker, who was “cousin Alan” all along. Realizing what he’d done, Erasmus briefly regained control of his senses and handed off the blueprints and told the group to flee.

PostCurious’ Adrift Transforms Puzzling into Artful Poetry

December 15, 2022 / Michael Andersen

PostCurious’ newest narrative puzzle adventure, *Adrift*

Everything started when Jasmine Perodine’s grandfather passed away, six months ago. While wading through heaps of old maps and newspaper clippings Jasmine stumbled across a series of four satchels marked with sigils, and felt compelled to take them home. That’s when the dreams began. Without fail, the same sequence of dreams would haunt Jasmine’s nights: four ethereal creatures, tied inextricably with the elements: one for the sky, one for the earth, one for water, and a final one for the woods. Upon waking, Jasmine would feel compelled to document those dreams: but like a being possessed, the words came out through poetry and through art…tapping into skills she didn’t know she had. That’s when she reached out to an expert in dream interpretation for assistance. That’s when she reached out to you.

Adrift is PostCurious’ latest narrative puzzle adventure, casting players in the role of expert oneirologist, unraveling puzzles embedded in poetry as a close proxy for dream interpretation to receive instructions on how to find meaning in the four artifacts left by Jasmine’s grandfather. The resulting game can be finished by experienced puzzlers in 2-3 hours and delivers one of the most physically satisfying puzzling experiences I’ve had. This, more than any other at-home puzzle game I’ve played, is an experience designed to be held and perceived.

The four color-coded Adrift satchels, and their corresponding envelopes containing depictions of Jasmine’s dreams

A Satisfying Structure That Won’t Leave You Adrift
There is no official starting point for Adrift: any one of the four elemental satchels can serve as the beginning of players’ investigation into the world of dreams. After selecting one of the envelopes and its corresponding satchel, players are presented with a series of three poems, a piece of artwork depicting the dream’s central elemental figure, and a physical artifact to manipulate.

Correctly “interpreting” the first poem provides information or instructions essential to solving the puzzle hidden in the second poem. Similarly, interpreting the second poem provides information or instructions that feed in to the third poem, which provides instructions on how to manipulate the round’s central artifact to reveal a fragment of a message. After properly manipulating the contents of each satchel, players unlock a message from beyond that helps explain why Jasmine has been plagued with these dreams in the first place.

Because Adrift relies on sequential puzzles within each elemental chapter, poems are clearly labeled to indicate their position in the puzzling narrative: a single sigil marks the first poem, paired sigils mark the second poem, and a ring of three sigils marks the third.

Poems from each of *Adrift*‘s four chapters: Sky, Earth, Woods, and Water

However, relying on this puzzle-centric explanation of Adrift‘s structure does the full experience a gross disservice. The poems at the center of Adrift don’t merely serve as hollow vehicles for puzzle delivery: they also paint a lyrical picture of each elemental figure’s domain as vividly as the lush artwork does. And that gradually unfolding creation myth is as compelling as the puzzle experience itself.

WARNING: while this article does not spoil any of the puzzles or surprises in Adrift, after this point the article will show one of the pieces of artwork and one of the artifacts in its unsolved state. If you would prefer to save that as a surprise for your playthrough, now would be a good time to stop reading and order Adrift.