(no subject)
Current rankings with percentage participation (from the currently active members of the gang, mind; this isn't even including all of the vaguely inactive people; I took them as well as the number of gang members into account when calculating scores), if you guys are interested in that information:
Black Dragon Fighting Society (82; you guys were awesome on this challenge!)
Waves of Wooden Legs (73)
True Believers (73)
Demolition Lovers (62; what happened?)
Church of Hot Addiction (88; great participation! you guys are catching up -- remember that there was a pretty intense four-way tie)
Car Crash Hearts (68; try to get back some of the magic you had during challenge 1!)
Everyone who has not participated in a single challenge (not even the mini-challenge in the beginning) was removed from this game's contact information as well as their gang communities, if they were in them. If you want back in, just shoot me an email! (ysosrsfandom[at]gmail[dot]com)
I had tons of fun creating this challenge! I know it had a few glitches, but I hope it was enjoyable.
In the order of the number of points they earned you: Legendary, bazinga and original, affidavit - then all of the rest (shenanigans, dynamic, Richard Smith, distinguished, three, and Victoria Petersen). There wasn't too great of a difference - a couple of points, maybe - but it existed.
This was based partially on what actions led to the words (if you went towards the screaming twice, that was worth fewer points, plus the easy puzzle balanced out the possibility of joining up with survivors; also, crowbars >>> flamethrowers [you'd just have a bunch of zombies running around aflame!] and wooden stakes [these aren't vampires]). I also recognized that the track leading to "original" was nearly impossible. I'm glad that quite a lot of you ended up getting it!
I basically winged it while writing up this challenge (I BSed my way through creating all of the puzzles and built the plot up challenge by challenge), so I'm also glad that a lot of you got the common narrative correct! Most of you ended up getting 10-15 individual points for complete summaries. I may be a little rusty, but here's the gist of it plus other information that wasn't readily available in the game: Victoria Petersen's father died of a genetically mutated strain of AIDs back when she was only a little girl. This forced her into the study of biochemistry with a single-mindedness that eventually landed her a CEO position at Phoenix Genetic Labs - or perhaps she was the founder, considering the name? Richard Smith and Ken Phillips both worked there - Richard was a fairly new employee. They noticed that something was wrong and began researching Ms. Petersen's background, leading to the discovery of that newspaper clipping.
PGL is a Biosafety Level 4 organization -- it handles a lot of sensitive biological material, though its main research is in retroviruses, which are viruses that are able to replicate and produce DNA from its RNA genome. Through a little engineering and a bit of a creative push from the newly-hired Richard, they were able to complete research on experiment 4589, which was supposed to bring a human back to life. This experiment was implemented on a human patient on June 4th. At first, it worked! The subject had a heartbeat with only a little arrhythmia. But then something happened with the retrovirus; it damaged the subject's brain or interfered with the nervous system or something and that person became a zombie. The condition spread through bodily fluids, rapidly infected the employees of PGL, even though they issued a red alert and a quarantine.
Out of nerves, Richard Smith stayed home that day. Ken Phillips sent him a panicked email telling him that the experiment went horribly awry and that he should get out while he could since his home was so close to the laboratory. He didn't follow the instructions and his wife - and perhaps his daughter - got caught up in the aftermath. This is where you came in! The slightly crazed man in the living room was Richard Smith himself and you were exploring his home, picking up the clues from various PGL-related sites and other pieces of information. At this point, it was a little too late. PGL burned their laboratories to the ground in an attempt to stop the zombie infection, but it didn't really do anything. The zombies can be "killed" by a complete and accurate head wound (decapitation would do the trick; too bad there wasn't a machete!) but whacking them in the head only stuns them for a few minutes. Pleading with them occasionally does some good as well, but it's hit-or-miss and that's too dangerous of a risk to take.
A group of survivors formed, though! They're at 458 Oak Street (I didn't even notice the "458 Oak Street", "experiment 4589" and "room 458B" connection until one person pointed it out!) and the person passing out pamphlets was absolutely stunned to find survivors. He's passing them out in Spanish because he ran out of English ones (also, I used an online translator for that and I did purposefully put the "four windows" clue in just to throw people off if they were looking for a number to use). What I found interesting was how many people instinctively trusted him and thought that the group of survivors was for real! What if they had an ulterior motive? How do you know that he can be trusted? Plus - none of the other "routes" specifically stated that you died, except for one.
In any case, I hope you enjoyed! If you didn't have time to go through the entire thing and you still want to do the "choose your own adventure" part, I'm leaving the website and all of the email addresses (gmail vacation responder, I love you) up if you want to play around with it some more. I'll stop rambling now.
As I mentioned before, that burnt me out a bit, so there won't be another challenge until this weekend at the earliest. It'll be less puzzle-oriented and will probably be posted early in the morning, just for a little variety in times. A Page One News is coming, if I can get my brain working properly, but I'd also keep an eye on the Tumblr and the Livejournals (which, by the way - if you see a comment, you can reply to it, even if you just want to say "OH SNAP" or "the hell?" or ask a question). Things are picking up in pace!
Everyone who has not participated in a single challenge (not even the mini-challenge in the beginning) was removed from this game's contact information as well as their gang communities, if they were in them. If you want back in, just shoot me an email! (ysosrsfandom[at]gmail[dot]com)
I had tons of fun creating this challenge! I know it had a few glitches, but I hope it was enjoyable.
In the order of the number of points they earned you: Legendary, bazinga and original, affidavit - then all of the rest (shenanigans, dynamic, Richard Smith, distinguished, three, and Victoria Petersen). There wasn't too great of a difference - a couple of points, maybe - but it existed.
This was based partially on what actions led to the words (if you went towards the screaming twice, that was worth fewer points, plus the easy puzzle balanced out the possibility of joining up with survivors; also, crowbars >>> flamethrowers [you'd just have a bunch of zombies running around aflame!] and wooden stakes [these aren't vampires]). I also recognized that the track leading to "original" was nearly impossible. I'm glad that quite a lot of you ended up getting it!
I basically winged it while writing up this challenge (I BSed my way through creating all of the puzzles and built the plot up challenge by challenge), so I'm also glad that a lot of you got the common narrative correct! Most of you ended up getting 10-15 individual points for complete summaries. I may be a little rusty, but here's the gist of it plus other information that wasn't readily available in the game: Victoria Petersen's father died of a genetically mutated strain of AIDs back when she was only a little girl. This forced her into the study of biochemistry with a single-mindedness that eventually landed her a CEO position at Phoenix Genetic Labs - or perhaps she was the founder, considering the name? Richard Smith and Ken Phillips both worked there - Richard was a fairly new employee. They noticed that something was wrong and began researching Ms. Petersen's background, leading to the discovery of that newspaper clipping.
PGL is a Biosafety Level 4 organization -- it handles a lot of sensitive biological material, though its main research is in retroviruses, which are viruses that are able to replicate and produce DNA from its RNA genome. Through a little engineering and a bit of a creative push from the newly-hired Richard, they were able to complete research on experiment 4589, which was supposed to bring a human back to life. This experiment was implemented on a human patient on June 4th. At first, it worked! The subject had a heartbeat with only a little arrhythmia. But then something happened with the retrovirus; it damaged the subject's brain or interfered with the nervous system or something and that person became a zombie. The condition spread through bodily fluids, rapidly infected the employees of PGL, even though they issued a red alert and a quarantine.
Out of nerves, Richard Smith stayed home that day. Ken Phillips sent him a panicked email telling him that the experiment went horribly awry and that he should get out while he could since his home was so close to the laboratory. He didn't follow the instructions and his wife - and perhaps his daughter - got caught up in the aftermath. This is where you came in! The slightly crazed man in the living room was Richard Smith himself and you were exploring his home, picking up the clues from various PGL-related sites and other pieces of information. At this point, it was a little too late. PGL burned their laboratories to the ground in an attempt to stop the zombie infection, but it didn't really do anything. The zombies can be "killed" by a complete and accurate head wound (decapitation would do the trick; too bad there wasn't a machete!) but whacking them in the head only stuns them for a few minutes. Pleading with them occasionally does some good as well, but it's hit-or-miss and that's too dangerous of a risk to take.
A group of survivors formed, though! They're at 458 Oak Street (I didn't even notice the "458 Oak Street", "experiment 4589" and "room 458B" connection until one person pointed it out!) and the person passing out pamphlets was absolutely stunned to find survivors. He's passing them out in Spanish because he ran out of English ones (also, I used an online translator for that and I did purposefully put the "four windows" clue in just to throw people off if they were looking for a number to use). What I found interesting was how many people instinctively trusted him and thought that the group of survivors was for real! What if they had an ulterior motive? How do you know that he can be trusted? Plus - none of the other "routes" specifically stated that you died, except for one.
In any case, I hope you enjoyed! If you didn't have time to go through the entire thing and you still want to do the "choose your own adventure" part, I'm leaving the website and all of the email addresses (gmail vacation responder, I love you) up if you want to play around with it some more. I'll stop rambling now.
As I mentioned before, that burnt me out a bit, so there won't be another challenge until this weekend at the earliest. It'll be less puzzle-oriented and will probably be posted early in the morning, just for a little variety in times. A Page One News is coming, if I can get my brain working properly, but I'd also keep an eye on the Tumblr and the Livejournals (which, by the way - if you see a comment, you can reply to it, even if you just want to say "OH SNAP" or "the hell?" or ask a question). Things are picking up in pace!