Pitfall Contest Conclusion & Results

[slapdash]

Ben, it's fascinating reading, so please keep going. There isn't much to comment on from my perspective, as it's too late to say "I got that" or "I didn't get that".

 

However, if you're looking for general comments etc, I should say that it's very intricate -- impressively so -- and I have to ask if you built this with a lot of sweat and retrying things, or if it all kind of popped into your head at once (the way JMS claims the Babylon 5 story came to him)...

[Room 34]

Ben, please continue with the explanations! To me, figuring out the clues was just as fun and challenging as the contest questions themselves!

[Pitfall Harry]

Ben, it's fascinating reading, so please keep going.  There isn't much to comment on from my perspective, as it's too late to say "I got that" or "I didn't get that".

 

However, if you're looking for general comments etc, I should say that it's very intricate -- impressively so -- and I have to ask if you built this with a lot of sweat and retrying things, or if it all kind of popped into your head at once (the way JMS claims the Babylon 5 story came to him)...

 

The idea for this contest was born almost three years ago. One day, I was drifting with Harry on his balloon in the Lost Caverns when I wondered, "What is the name of this tune that plays as he rises?" I knew I'd heard it before, years before Pitfall II had come out, so I knew David Crane could not have written it for his game. I checked the manual for a song credit. It wasn't there. "Hey!" I thought, "This would make a great addition to the Pitfall! Trivia Quiz I have posted to on my website. I fired up my trusty web search engine to seek the answer.

 

It didn't take me too long to find a couple of Atari videogame websites which spoke of the Pitfall II balloon tune. Both websites identified it as The Blue Danube Waltz. However, I am very familiar with The Blue Danube Waltz, as the score has been a part of my music library since before Pitfall II was even written. Although the balloon tune bears striking similarities to The Blue Danube Waltz and to other works of Johann Strauss, I knew the websites I'd found had misidentified the song.

 

After almost a year of searching and asking everyone I knew who knew anything about music, I received a phone call from a friend in the middle of the night. He informed me, rather excitedly, that he was watching an old movie and he just heard my Pitfall song! The movie was The Great Caruso, a 1951 flick starring Mario Lanza. In the movie, Lanza sings a song titled, "The Loveliest Night of the Year." The song put words to the melody written by Juventino Rosas a half century earlier, the same melody which plays for Harry as he rises on his balloon. Mystery solved!

This is much too good a trivia question to toss in with the relatively easy ones I already have posted on my Pitfall Trivia Quiz web page, I thought. I should save this and make some kind of a contest out of it. But nothing occurred to me at the time. A single question trivia contest samed kinda lame.

 

A year ago, I decided to make a complete and ACCURATE map of Pitfall! I had seen the well-circulated ASCII Pitfall! map created by Tom Clancy, and I knew it contained two critical errors, the most serious of which was the omission of an entire jungle scene. I was also dissatisfied with the map which was first published in issue #9 of the 2600 Connection Newsletter and continues to be displayed on the Digital Press website, as I had noted several discrepancies between what that map shows and what I had observed and recorded from playing the game. I decided to play Pitfall! in an emulator, visit every scene, explore every tunnel, and take snapshots of the entire game from which I could finally create the web's first detailed and ACCURATE, publicly available online map of Pitfall!

 

As I was creating my map, it occurred to me that Pitfall! was about to turn 20. I thought I'd honor the 20th anniversary of David Crane's masterpiece by adding a little something to the map, an easter egg. Carefully, I encoded and hid my Pitfall balloon tune trivia question within the map. The hidden question would be like a treasure lost in a jungle, awaiting an intrepid explorer to come along and discover it. My original idea was simply to leave the number codes hidden there, post the map and say nothing more about it. Whoever found the code and solved it would eventually email me and receive the prize I had offered, a Pitfall Explorer's Club patch and a boxed copy of the original 2600 game, Pitfall!.

 

I posted the loaded map to my website in December, 2001. AtariAge picked up a copy of it too, unaware that the map contained a hidden trivia question contest. Over the course of the month that followed, a month in which NOBODY noticed there was anything unusual about the map, I dreamt up a couple of additional trivia questions -- really tough ones -- which I wanted to integrate into the map to make it an even better challenge. Coming up with an encoding scheme and deciding where to hide the additional two clues in the map came to me almost immediately. Making sure that I encoded the questions correctly, especially the double-encrypted question hidden in the left and top borders of the map, was extremely exacting and tedious work, but nevertheless straightforward. After revising my map to include two more questions, I let AA in on the secret. They uploaded my new map in January. Scott Anderson (room34 on AA) was the first to discover there was a hidden, unnanounced contest associated with the map, about a month before anyone else discovered it. One month later, I started dropping hints to the contest's existence out of fear that nobody would solve it within the Anniversary year of Pitfall!

 

The hardest and most time consuming part involved in crafting the map contest was the clues which help you find and solve the trivia questions.

A CLUE ENCODED IN BRAILLE BLAZES A SUBTERRANEAN TRAIL. It took me countless hours to invent a schema for writing that message along the borders of the jungle scenes, such that it is difficult to find, challenging to read and somewhat challenging to interpret. The text of the clue had to be limited only to letters which could be written along the jungle scene edges, a requirement which eliminated nearly half the alphabet. Finally, the clue -- like ALL of the clues embedded on the map -- had to rhyme. After I solved all of those difficulties, there still came the tedium of centering the clue onto the jungle scene borders and verifying that in now way did it's presence diminish the readability or the accuracy of the map.

 

Personally, I thought the clue A LOG IS A DOT A TRIO IS NOT was my finest inspiration. Succinct, rhyming, easy to hide, the perfect clue to alert the explorer that Morse code had to be factored into the challenge somewhere. I needed a clue to rhyme which esssentially said, "Look at the jungle scenes. Every scene where you see a single log, that scene represents a morse coded DOT. And every scene where you see three logs, that represents a morse coded DASH." The duration of a morse coded dash is three times as long as a dot, so it all works out quite well, logically. I spent at least a dozen hours of deep contemplation distilling the essence of the clue into that short little rhyme.

 

I knew that the LOG IS A DOT clue was so important to cracking the double-encrypted trivia question, that I'd better hide the clue extremely well. I was going to hide it so well (so I thought), I felt the need to embed yet another clue into the map which helps you to find the LOG IS A DOT clue. The clue to the LOG IS A DOT clue had to be hidden in the same manner as the clue it points to, so that the technique used to unravel the secondary clue was all the clue really gives you. And the blasted thing had to rhyme. Another day was spent coming up with a hiding scheme which synchonized these two clues and made it all work out.

 

As for posting additional clues, I wrote all of them on the fly, after the map contest had been discovered, and in response to the contestant confusion posted on the AA website. I tried my best to make each clue logical but with an element of deception. Soon after I began posting additional clues, I overreached by attempting to coordinate the clues into a parallel adventure, wherin a story unfolded which walks Anna Graham and Pitfall Harry Jr through the Lost Caverns to rescue Pitfall Harry Sr. I soon realized that creating clues of this sort, elaborate as they were, was a planning fiasco. The idea should have been thought out and integrated with the puzzle from the ground up. As a result, there are a few gnawing logical missteps in the posted clue stream. Please forgive me. I should have done my homework a little better before I launched the contest and thought that through, but I was too eager to get it up and rolling.

 

Did anyone ever wonder who the mysterious Q*bert was... the guy who periodically surfaced to post timely insights into the possible meanings of the clues? That was me.

 

 

Ben

[NE146]

all i got to say is.. wow

 

good reading there P.H.

[Room 34]

Did anyone ever wonder who the mysterious Q*bert was... the guy who periodically surfaced to post timely insights into the possible meanings of the clues?  That was me.

Ben,

 

The story of how this came about is fascinating. But I have a question about "the mysterious Q*bert."

 

Did he become "Dave Crandall" when the new forum conversion took place? I just looked back through the "Crazy Climber and Texas Chainsaw Massacre" thread, and can't find any of Q*bert's posts, but the ones from Dave Crandall fit the bill. (Plus, the name is curiously similar to "David Crane.")

 

An ingenious use of misspelling in those Q*bert posts... Some are perhaps deliberate references to the "tail/tale" homophone clues, while others may just be intended to throw us off your trail (i.e. "Ben would never spell this poorly").

 

I have to know though... was the frequent use of "meybe" a clue to the "grey ink" hint (since most people in the U.S. spell the word "gray")?

[Atarinvader]

I wish I'd had the time to compete. I looked at the solution to the 3rd question and relised I was sort of on the right trial for a while. I stress the 'sort of'

 

That was a truely great competition, thanks Ben.

[Pitfall Harry]

The story of how this came about is fascinating.  But I have a question about "the mysterious Q*bert."

 

Did he become "Dave Crandall" when the new forum conversion took place?  I just looked back through the "Crazy Climber and Texas Chainsaw Massacre" thread, and can't find any of Q*bert's posts, but the ones from Dave Crandall fit the bill.  (Plus, the name is curiously similar to "David Crane.")

 

I'm not really sure what happened there. But right after the UBB to phpBB conversion, Q*bert became Dave Crandall. My guess is that the user profiles for the old system offered a logon name and a separate user name, and that they somehow got confused during the conversion. Dave Crandall is and was Q*bert. Though somewhat similar, the name was not derived from David Crane. Dave Crandall is a real person. In fact, he's the one who called to inform me that the Pitfall balloon tune turned up in the movie, The Great Caurso.

 

An ingenious use of misspelling in those Q*bert posts... Some are perhaps deliberate references to the "tail/tale" homophone clues, while others may just be intended to throw us off your trail (i.e. "Ben would never spell this poorly").

 

The misspellings and dubious grammar were chosen soley to obfuscate my identity.

 

I have to know though... was the frequent use of "meybe" a clue to the "grey ink" hint (since most people in the U.S. spell the word "gray")?

 

Nope. The consistancy of the error was deliberate, an attempt to lend authenticity to the pseudo-identity just in case someone really, really smart decided to investigate Q*bert more thoroughly.

 

Ben

[Albert]

I'm not really sure what happened there.  But right after the UBB to phpBB conversion, Q*bert became Dave Crandall.  My guess is that the user profiles for the old system offered a logon name and a separate user name, and that they somehow got confused during the conversion.  Dave Crandall is and was Q*bert

 

Oops! Yes, UBB uses a separate login name and a name that is displayed publically. phpBB2 only uses a *single* name, so your login name is what is displayed to everyone publically. Because no one would have been able to figure out how to login after the conversion if we used the display name for the logins, the converter did away with the display names. We did post about this after the forums were converted, so people could go and change their login name, but I'm sure not everyone saw that.

 

..Al

[Pitfall Harry]

Thanks for the explanation. I'll now notify a mystic and have him change Dave Crandall back into Q*bert.

 

Ben

[Room 34]

Though somewhat similar, the name was not derived from David Crane.  Dave Crandall is a real person.  In fact, he's the one who called to inform me that the Pitfall balloon tune turned up in the movie, The Great Caurso.

Interesting, because I know (or more accurately, knew, nearly 25 years ago) a guy named Dave Crandall as well. He was the father of my childhood best friend, who lived in the house directly behind mine. They moved to a different part of town when I was about 6. (Definitely not the same guy though, unless his Chicago residence is a ruse and he in fact lives in Austin, Minnesota.)

[Thomas Jentzsch]

Actually, I was wondering about Q*Bert, because I didn't know him before. But I thought he was a lurker, that now had stepped in to solve the contest.

 

After reading the first of Ben's clue pages, I must admit, that I didn't understood a lot of them and that I misinterpeted them quite often.

 

I found the Meta-Tag clue quite soon (before most of the other stuff) and thought it had something to do with Ben's daughter. So after finding the number code (easy too) and having no success with using it directly on Harry's tips (because I included the spaces when counting ), I tried desperately to use it somehow together with the text and numbers that are written on the baby page. Mixing in the key at 82 gave even more possibilities and made the thing much more complicated. Obviously I had no success that way.

 

Another thing was the "Elder Chat" stuff that, somehow lead me into the complete wrong direction. In the end, I was trying to find secrets in the 2nd map of Pitfall 2.

 

And until I had solved the third question, I was still trying to use the "Roses are red" clue, because I didn't realize, that I could have used it for the "A Log is a dot..." clue (BTW: For me and others, the word "Log" was not "clearly" readable. ).

 

Finding the hidden graphics was quite easy for me (except the ring), deciphering/decoding was a different story. E.g. the word "srcutinize" was unknown to me, so without the help of others, I wouldn't have got the exacty meaning of the sentence (though Matthias and I already got an idea before).

 

And I think, I discovered the hint for the Braille code very early too (but after the code itself and it's meaning ), but I had big problems with the word "BLAZES", because I didn't know that word before and couldn't decipher the Z.

 

Finding the answeres of the morse code and the number code was quite easy (well, almost).

 

For the number of scorpions, I wrote a little Turbo Pascal program, based on my knowledge from disassembling the game last year. That was done in less than an hour.

 

I also thought to have the answer for the question about the waltz quite soon, but after I could compare that with the real music, it turned out to be wrong. So I searched the web again (using Google) and found that identical page with a different and correct answer. After veryfing and submitting it, Ben told me, that he had placed the page in the web for the contest. Without that, I don't think I would have found it. Thanks Ben!

 

The third question was working completely different for me. Here I had the correct question very early, but I couldn't find an answer, so I tried to reorder the anagram over and over. Then the last hint of Ben came just before an important Worldcup football (aka soccer) match of the German team, so I had to choose (and IMO choose right ). During the 15 minutes halftime break, I decoded that hint (thanks to the AtariAge database), but I had to return back to the game, which was very exciting. One hour later I found, that Jeffy's already had solved the last question. I was a bit disappointed first, but then I realized, that I would have needed quite a lot time to find the answer even by having that clue. Only the tip of Jeffy made it so easy.

 

Now I am really interested to know about Ben's feelings, while he was following us struggeling, sometimes so close to the correct answers and then moving away into completely wrong directions.

[Pitfall Harry]

Okay. I have posted an exhaustive explanation of all of the contest clues and their intended meanings. If you're interested, you can read all 11 pages of it here.

 

If after reading that you still have unresolved questions about the contest or the clues, post them here or email me. I'd be happy to answer them.

 

Ben

[slapdash]

Whoof, 11 pages...

 

Can't read them now, but will soon.

 

Kudos Ben, this must have been TONS of work, but it was fun to play along.