My Weekend With WarTron

It all started a few months ago with a contest/competition from a fictional software company.  Skip back to my post on the application if you need background on that piece of the story.  There is a great amount of worldbuilding and foreshadowing in the application that wove into the weekend quite well.  This is how … Continue reading My Weekend With WarTron

Is that a WOPR in your pocket?

As a kid, I may have watched War Games a few too many times. In all my re-watchings, though, I do not believe I consciously noticed the incidental scene at about 1h:11m in which the camera pans around the WOPR computer. During a recent rewatching at a friend’s house, I noted that scene where the … Continue reading Is that a WOPR in your pocket?

ARG/Puzzle Tools: The Next Generation

When this post goes live, the new 1.5 version of my ARG Tools iPhone app should also be live.  What is ARG Tools, you ask?  It is a collection of tools and reference material for people who routinely solve puzzles: alternate reality games (ARGs), puzzle trails, The Game, and whatnot. The app (or, rather, my … Continue reading ARG/Puzzle Tools: The Next Generation

Dictionary files: are they all created equal? [updated]

Over the weekend, some friends and I got to apply for playing WarTron. You can read more about this in the previous blog post. This particular blog post is about research into Unix dictionary files. It is related to the WarTron application puzzles, in that it is the result of a postmortem conversation, but is … Continue reading Dictionary files: are they all created equal? [updated]

How I failed the WarTron application and the fun I had in so doing [Updated x 2]

It looks as if WarTron will be the next incarnation of “The Game.” If you are not familiar with The Game – no, not that movie with Michael Douglas – it is, in brief, a weekend-long road trip in which you solve puzzles to reach particular destinations. “Race” is probably a little more apt than … Continue reading How I failed the WarTron application and the fun I had in so doing [Updated x 2]