MouseAdventure Basic - May 2010 [SPOILERS / Discussion / Results]

[Tisha]

Man! We went with 25 cents because we couldn't find those darn last 3 windows either. We were cutting it so close to 3:30 at that point... Where WERE those 1st 3 windows???



And if "A song" was the answer - what was the product/service?

The first window was really hard. We never wrote it down, but did look at that one many times. Since it didn't say lawyer or attorney at law anywhere, we didn't think we could use that. And since we used a hint on that one that didn't help, we wished we'd been told it wasn't marked. Ron Dominguez was I think near that one. They were both halfway down on the locker side. Dr. Gilmore's partner was across from them but kind of around the corner, by the restaurant.

We didn't end up with an answer to this one since we couldn't find the first window. But right after the game we saw that window and instantly knew that "a song" was the answer.

[DisneyFanKat]

The answer was on the Sherman Brothers tribute window:

"We'll write Your Tune for A Song"

Dangit! I bet you got a lot of 25 cent answers! Sneaky I tell ya!

The first window was really hard. We never wrote it down, but did look at that one many times. Since it didn't say lawyer or attorney at law anywhere, we didn't think we could use that. And since we used a hint on that one that didn't help, we wished we'd been told it wasn't marked. Ron Dominguez was I think near that one. They were both halfway down on the locker side. Dr. Gilmore's partner was across from them but kind of around the corner, by the restaurant.

We didn't end up with an answer to this one since we couldn't find the first window. But right after the game we saw that window and instantly knew that "a song" was the answer.

MAN! Was the 1st one with "ESQ" on the window? We saw that one too - but didn't use it since it didn't say "attourney at law" either....

[niklj]

Checking in for the Emperor's New Crew here. SOOO tired, so sore, but ultimately satisfied with the whole experience. Thanks a lot to the crew who put this one on, it really was a nice celebration of all the years of fun MA have offered to us Disney nuts.

LOOOONG post ahead (as always):

We are pretty sure we got the quests we answered right, but we didn't even get to four of the quests. We all thought the event seemed WAY too short. I know the game was supposed to start at 9:30, but all the anniversary retrospectacular stuff (which I liked - but which I think could have been done while teams were gathering) really ate into our time. We stayed for the trivia because we figured we'd get more points out of that than we'd get out of any other 15 minute chunk of time during the day... but we didn't get into Disneyland until about 11am. Four and a half hours to do twelve (?) quests was a tad overwhelming. I know we're not EXPECTED to get all the quests done -- but looking at a half-empty answer sheet with an hour to go is not a good feeling.

We didn't get to Toontown at all. We skipped the true/false-based NOS quest, but completed the other one. We did the Pinocchio one, but didn't make it to the other Fantasyland quest. We got the postcard one, the Innoventions one, the Frontierland one, and the Adventureland one. We completed one Main Street quest, but got stuck on the windows one. We didn't venture to Tom Sawyer's Island because we thought we'd waste a lot of valuable time getting there and back for "just" 20 points (though we did guess an answer). Didn't get many eye spies as we were so frantically running around trying to complete quests. Having the game end at 5:30 rather than 3:30 would have been a great big help. I know it would make it pretty much impossible to have all the answers graded same-day -- but I, for one, would be happy having more time to play & finding out results a week later.

Are you from my team secretly??? Ha ha this was basically our experience in a nutshell!!! Everything from the trivia (which we suuuucked at but every year we keep thinking that we'll do well...definitely going to skip it as well next time) to not even getting to half the quests at all because of the time...LOL. Ending at 5:30 PM is definitely a good idea. As a team who know we won't place because we play MouseAdventure more for the fun than the competition, getting same-day results is not a priority for us. I'd rather spend that time solving quests and feeling proud of ourselves. (If you're wondering why we don't do Day in the Park instead, it's because we like being around the competitive teams, getting all the quests, and the general atmosphere...we also like to pretend that we have a shot at winning XD) We also never go to the end-of-the-game ceremony because the time we went, we were sort of bored out of our minds because we knew we wouldn't place and would rather spend our time playing around Disneyland (which we did and got 11 rides in! INCLUDING Captain E.O. haha). We also found a few Eye Spies without trying that we had originally missed hehe.

We did go to TSI after we spotted Tracy's bright green t-shirt from Frontierland After a five-minute debate, we decided 'ah heck with it' and get a guaranteed 20 points than nothing. It was a good decision because we had a nice chat with Tracy; whenever we encounter him, it's always when we're feeling defeated but after we talk to him we feel a lot happier I stopped watching Lost after the first season so I couldn't get the answer by myself though.

The weather was SOOOOO gorgeous!!!! The fluffy white clouds in the blue, blue sky with a slight breeze blowing in and out as we walked down a not-too-crowded Main Street made our spirits a whole lot brighter. SO nice. I wish that it were like that all the time.

I wasn't a big fan of the postcard quest, only because of the need to find 11 other teams; most of the teams were awesome about trading info but we ran into a few teams who either already had our postcard so weren't willing to share (we gave up our postcard regardless of if we needed the other teams info) or were finished with the quest and just not willing to share. Don't get me wrong, that's fine, I understand that it's a matter of choice if you want to share info if your team isn't benefitting (because you're already done) I'm just saying with that finding 11 other teams willing to trade info was increasingly challenging as the day wore on. We ended up with 3 missing postcards but I was able to fill in blanks.

Ahh...the post card quest. That was one of the very first quests I ever did at MouseAdventure (when they were Pirates of the Caribbean post cards...I forgot what the quest was though). I thought the pin trading of the Reindeer Games was a lot more fun than the post card game only because you didn't have to wait for the other team to write down the post card. You could trade really quick and leave and also see which teams had what you needed right away instead of having to go up to team after team asking "which post card do you have?" And it got REAAAAAAAAL frustrating when it seemed all the teams around you had the same exact card as you had XD At the end I was trying to call out the cards we needed but I don't think it worked very well hehe. And my little sister was holding up the card in her hands like she was one of those chauffeurs that pick up people from the airport and have a sign in their hands. Didn't work very well either, hehe.

I hope we weren't one of the rude teams everyone's talking about After our first encounter with a team that gave us information when we already had a card they had, we also tried to pay it forward and let about five different teams copy our postcard even when they had one we already had. The rare postcards for us were: the Matterhorn, the Black and White Mickey, and Tomorrowland. Lots of Sleeping Beauty Castles. Some teams did get very grabby though, like they started to copy from our paper even though we didn't really allow them to. If it is possible that I was rude to any team, though, I apologize!!!

The staff of the store was NOT amused by how many people were in there, cramming together and blocking their aisles. At one point, there were two cast members more or less running traffic control and not pleased about it. I tried to stay out of the way since I didn't think an extra body would help my team, but not so far out of the way that I could be accused of splitting up.

I have to give MAD props for the CMs here because even though they were probably very frustrated with us, they were still incredibly nice. Must be all that experience with crowd control.

I was very sad that we had to split up though, because I couldn't give the teammate that was doing the quest any help or moral support. Also, trying to find the answer in South Sea Traders was a mess too, because the store is so small and everyone's wandering around the tiny aisles looking up at the ceiling and trying not to run into anything wearing huge backpacks. However, I was happy there was an event there because I always thought that place would be a destination for a quest but never was (until now!)

BTW--the Publick House quest was tricky but in the end ultimately satisfying. It was a little hard figuring out the instructions, and we actually used some clarification from MA Central and a crew member who was in Fantasyland.

We didn't use any of our hints, and in the end I think that was a mistake. made it nice.

Good to know we weren't the only ones initially confused by the directions, haha. First I thought that the story was actually real (that the architecture really was inspired by some place in the UK) before I went OOOHHHH features of the architecture hahahah!!! We ended up not solving this one though.

And we also didn't use any of our hints, even though they're offered EVERY YEAR. Haha. This year we were like "We're gonna use our hints" and then never did!

Someone came up to me and traded cards -- I didn't even look up to see who it was. After a few minutes, I realized she had taken off with ours so we just kept theirs. Were we expected to hang onto our own cards, or did it matter? I wonder if the postcard thing would have been easier if we swapped for good & then swapped with the next person who asked.

I was confused by this first and when that first team took off with our postcard I was like "Hey! You took my card" and then went "OHHH I guess that makes sense so you don't have to wait for each other to finish copying things down before you can go."

We were very bummed that we didn't find the hidden quest! Don't tell me where it is yet, I'm still searching for it.

Next came Main Street - 1965 and "A Song" were our answers. On the windows quest for quite a while we had _ _ _ RTUNE and we almost guessed "a fortune" for 25 cents. Glad we finally found the last 3 windows!

We pretty much skipped the Eye Spies - we really didn't enjoy this letter version at all. And I think we did fairly well at Trivia, but we really hated it. No fun at all! It was super hard and super fast, and so 3 members of our team sat there totally bored while I filled in answers. After sitting through a rather long and boring 10th anniversary presentation, it was really not fun for them to sit though trivia, not able to really participate in it at all.

I want to know where the hidden quest was!!! One day we will find it...maybe...

Wait wait wait...so it ISN'T fortune??? DARN IT! I also had those letters, we couldn't find the Attorney, the doctor's partner, or...I forget. I was like, "Did they spell 'fortune' wrong?" Now I want to know what it is...

Edit:

The answer was on the Sherman Brothers tribute window:

"We'll write Your Tune for A Song"

OH MY GAWWWWWWD XD

We also left the eye spies alone and gave up toward the end. For "L" I think we just put down "Ovaltine, please" Blahhhh... And same thing with trivia, I was the only one doing trivia because my other teammates are not into Disney trivia, but even I couldn't do some of them and it just went by so fast that I couldn't think about them so in the end just had to guess. That's why next time we'll just skip it. We did like the trivia when it took place in the park though (Mark Twain for the School-in-Session MA, Critter Country for the Reindeer games) because at least we were in the park and I had time to ask my teammates what they guessed thought.

I didn't think the 10th anniversary presentation was too boring (we were in it wearing our dust masks ) it did seem a little inclusive, however. My two teammates who were only on their second MA were pretty bored, though, because they didn't really know who these people were and just wanted to go play ball. But I thought it was a well-done presentation and I LOLed at the pictures on a floppy disk part.

One more quick post for my suggestions!

- Something you really did right in this game: Most quests had a clear answer, in that when you finally solved the quest, you knew you had the solution. Much more rewarding than some quests in the past, where you wrote down an answer and really had no confidence at all that it was right!

- Get rid of trivia in the ballroom. It's just not very much fun, especially when everyone is dying to get out into the park.

My suggestion for Trivia would be to make it a quest. Tell teams they can choose between easy, medium, or hard trivia. Easy might be worth a maximum of 50 points, medium 75 and hard 100. Each version of Trivia would be at a different location in the park, and you can only choose to do one.

To do the Trivia quest, you go to the location you choose, a crew member marks your scorecard so that you can't do trivia in another location, and they give you the sheet of trivia questions. Then you have to hand in your trivia questions (with your answers) before you can leave the area. I know this might not work well in terms of trying to get everything scored by the end of the day - but maybe we're moving away from that anyway.

- The best trivia makes you feel like the answer is on the tip of your tongue, but you can't quite pull it out of your brain. Obviously multiple-choice answers make this impossible, which is why you usually don't get multiple-choice in good trivia games.

- Finding out the answer eventually makes it more fun, especially when it was on the tip of your tongue and you couldn't remember.

- Discussing the trivia with your team makes it a LOT more fun. Especially when you don't agree on the answer! Unfortunately the ballroom format makes this completely impossible.

I agree with all of this (except I think they said before they don't want to give out answers because sometimes they like to reuse questions). But the tip-of-the-tongue suggestion is entirely right. I think everybody had fun with those, because you could hear the most chatter when those came up.

And the rest...

I liked the Innoventions one because I like Innoventions I really like the Dream House and we even stayed for the Peter Pan room presentation The host was hilarious and we had a good time because none of us had seen it before. We couldn't find the darned DOCTOR'S BAG though, and so we guessed. First time doing Project Tomorrow though, and me and my teammate died laughing seeing our faces in the future. This is the kind of eye-spy we like! Also, the CMs were once again awesome. To me: "I see you have your scavenger face on!" And we even took the time to get some pictures taken by the PhotoPass people since we can't take pictures on our own hahaha!

The Pinocchio one was SOOO cool. I don't know how you guys keep doing these awesome things with the quest materials...from stickers, to mini photo books, to awesome detective notepads, to evidence bags, to scratch-offs?!!?!?! AWESOMEEEE!!! So innovative. We ended up scratching one too many and scratched off "Happily Ever After" only to get a not-so-happy ending (-10 points) d'oh! Haha.

Spirits of America was a nice little quest. I love the new Disney Gallery, it was my first time being in it and it was so serene and peaceful and was a nice little relaxer...just sitting on the ground solving the puzzle while patriotic music plays in the background...I didn't want to leave, haha.

Didn't try to do any of the NOS ones, the Toontown one, nor the Frontierland one (didn't really get the instructions to the Frontierland one).

Overall, I had a good time. Thanks again to the wonderful crew that put this event together!!! "Our Biggest Event Ever!!!!!!!!" LOL

[AVP]

The Pinocchio one was SOOO cool. I don't know how you guys keep doing these awesome things with the quest materials...

It usually goes something like this:

Joe or I see something somewhere, and say "how could we use this?!?" Often, it's when I'm at Target or Dollar Tree or something and come across something Disney-related. In fact, last week it was "Joe, can you think of a quest that would use Lightning McQueen lunch bags? Target has them 20 for $1!" (No, he couldn't...) That's exactly how the socks we used in the Advanced Game came about, only Joe was in the middle of the Atlantic and not reachable, so I just bought them and said "well figure out something to do with these some day..."

We ended up scratching one too many and scratched off "Happily Ever After" only to get a not-so-happy ending (-10 points) d'oh! Haha.

That was deliberately added to the quest to prevent teams from trying to work backwards. Teams that worked forwards AND counted the stars would have known to stop at 10 stars...

AVP

[AcceptablyJen]

Teams that worked forwards AND counted the stars would have known to stop at 10 stars...

That would work if we got the correction of 10 stars instead of 9 BEFORE we did the quest!!

[MovieBoy]

That would work if we got the correction of 10 stars instead of 9 BEFORE we did the quest!!

Did you not get the errata sheet in your packet?

[Mostly Anonymous]

We ended up scratching one too many and scratched off "Happily Ever After" only to get a not-so-happy ending (-10 points) d'oh! Haha.

One of our team members is actually a professional game designer, and I think this was one of his favorite parts of the whole game. He couldn't stop talking about what a genius move it was to put in "Happily Ever After" and make all the arrows point in to it, as if it just had to be the end of the maze!

He was also extremely impressed with the Down in New Orleans quest, and the way it was designed so that you couldn't solve it by working backwards!

[AcceptablyJen]

Did you not get the errata sheet in your packet?

We were in the Advanced division, so we didn't find out until after we tried (and failed)... No worries, though! We got other updates before we needed them so it all evened out!!

[MovieBoy]

We were in the Advanced division

Oh sorry, I was only posting based on the thread name. Advanced teams got one -10 for free due to the error.

[shna]

I'm not sure how feasible it would be ... but one other thought I had was that it would be nice to have an eye spy sheet for each player on the team rather than just one for the whole team. Not having to pester other teammates for the sheet (or be pestered by them) walking from place to place - especially if the person who happens to have the eye spies is frantically working on a puzzle as we walk - would make things soooo much easier.

Of course, that would mean a lot more copies made on the color copier...

Maybe teams could indicate how many eye spy sheets they'd want. For teams that really don't bother with them much at all, one might be plenty. Other teams might want one for each player, or perhaps just one for each player who has a knack for eye spies.

Ooooh - one mroe thing just popped into my head. What about someday having a "Day in the Park" event but with Advanced quests instead of Basic? I'm sure we're not the only Basic team who has toyed with the idea of doing Advanced, but has been a bit intimidated thus far. Two of our people would have willingly done Advanced this time around, but the third didn't feel we were ready. Even if we had placed poorly, I think we would have had a really good time. That said, we likely wouldn't want to change divisions if we found out we had no hope of doing reasonably well (i.e. middle of the pack-ish). Being able to do a trial run of sorts might help with that decision.

[AVP]

What about someday having a "Day in the Park" event but with Advanced quests instead of Basic?

I am NOT promising anything but...

• How many Basic teams would be interested in something like this? You'd have to register for the Day at the Park event.
• Would you still be interested if the "bonus" elements of the game were not included (MP3 players, Legos and glow-in-the-dark socks?)
• What are you doing on June 5th / 6th?

AVP

[vegaspixie]

Sounds like more people got 267, no one else has said they got 257...

We also got 257...fingers crossed, it would nice to have earned "some" points (we didn't finish many of the quests)

We also couldn't figure out the hidden quest! I'm assuming it had something to do with the dates printed on the tops of most of the sheets. Did it also have something to do with the categories from the trivia quest? Perfect, boiling, freezing...

Thank you...we thought so too, that combined with the fact that our tags were pointing to 1994, we kind of thought it might have to do with Roger Rabbit Car Toon Spin (naturally I spaced the name and wrote "ToonTown" instead of "Car Toon"). But then at the ceremony they said it had to do with the italicized word on the Pub Quest.

[ntz4bbl]

I am NOT promising anything but...

• How many Basic teams would be interested in something like this? You'd have to register for the Day at the Park event.
• Would you still be interested if the "bonus" elements of the game were not included (MP3 players, Legos and glow-in-the-dark socks?)
• What are you doing on June 5th / 6th?

AVP

Yes
Yes
My calendars open.

[vegaspixie]

I am NOT promising anything but...

• How many Basic teams would be interested in something like this? You'd have to register for the Day at the Park event.
• Would you still be interested if the "bonus" elements of the game were not included (MP3 players, Legos and glow-in-the-dark socks?)
• What are you doing on June 5th / 6th?

AVP

I think if we could make another trip so soon, we would be interested...in fact, I think we would be more interested in a Day at the Park event more so than the regular event anymore. We're a family team, and we just aren't that competitive (against other teams). We see it more as a "race against the clock" to see how well we do...after the way some things went yesterday, I feel like maybe the Day at the Park event is more our speed? But we still want to be challenged. Does that make sense?

[Julie Mouse]

Had a blast, thanks again to all the people who make this event possible!

I agree that trivia is more fun when you can work with your team. In the morning, you are just so anxious to get in the parks and start!!

My team would love more time for the Quests, we were very disappointed not to get our packet until just after 11am back in ToonTown, knowing we had to have it turned back in by 3:30. We usually don't attend awards anyway, so we would love an 8 or 9 hour game.

Being a 2 person team, we didn't get to a lot of the quests, so we turned in our sheet, had some food, and then went back to solving quests! It was fun, and we finally figured out the Pub quest, which had driven us crazy!!

[Julie Mouse]

Forgot to ask...we never did figure out "Crowned Knight" I saw here that it was Mr. Toad's Wild Ride...what did we miss on that building??

[stophabean]

Also to the team that brought a granola bar....thanks!!!!! I hope AVP is ok with me doing that.....if not? Might not be able to find me again.......

You are welcome for the granola bar, sorry we didn't have anything more interesting.

[DisneyFanKat]

Forgot to ask...we never did figure out "Crowned Knight" I saw here that it was Mr. Toad's Wild Ride...what did we miss on that building??

I believe it was right on the crest? There was a knight's head with a crown. We saw it after we saw a knight with a crown in the healdry shoppe window. But we assumed Toad's was correct since it's ON the building...

Not that it helped us overall - didn't finish that quest correctly! LOL

[DisneyFanKat]

I am NOT promising anything but...

• How many Basic teams would be interested in something like this? You'd have to register for the Day at the Park event.
• Would you still be interested if the "bonus" elements of the game were not included (MP3 players, Legos and glow-in-the-dark socks?)
• What are you doing on June 5th / 6th?

AVP

• I would!
• Sure, why not - would be interesting to "sample" the Advanced quests!
• Dangit, busy!

[Janis and Aaron]

I am NOT promising anything but...

• How many Basic teams would be interested in something like this? You'd have to register for the Day at the Park event.
• Would you still be interested if the "bonus" elements of the game were not included (MP3 players, Legos and glow-in-the-dark socks?)
• What are you doing on June 5th / 6th?

AVP

We'd definitely be interested. Those Advanced quests sounded so neat when we heard bits and pieces about them at the awards ceremony.

[kbushue]

I am NOT promising anything but...

• How many Basic teams would be interested in something like this? You'd have to register for the Day at the Park event.
• Would you still be interested if the "bonus" elements of the game were not included (MP3 players, Legos and glow-in-the-dark socks?)
• What are you doing on June 5th / 6th?

AVP

1. DEFINITELY INTERESTED!
2. Still interested
3. Count us in!

[Janis and Aaron]

We also got 257...fingers crossed, it would nice to have earned "some" points (we didn't finish many of the quests)

I'm pretty sure the answer was 267. In fact I think they even said that at the awards ceremony when someone asked. The math is: 55 + 55 + 75 + 75 + 7. At least, that's what we got. We didn't finish many quests either!

[niklj]

I am NOT promising anything but...

• How many Basic teams would be interested in something like this? You'd have to register for the Day at the Park event.
• Would you still be interested if the "bonus" elements of the game were not included (MP3 players, Legos and glow-in-the-dark socks?)
• What are you doing on June 5th / 6th?

AVP

Since half of the advanced quest was the basic quests, would we be doing the same quests over again? So would it still be a two-day event or what?

[Janis and Aaron]

First of all, thanks to the MA staff for all the hard work you put into the event. That being said:
* We felt like there were WAY too many quests for the time allotted. I think I've heard on previous MAs that they are written with the expectation that you won't be able to finish everything, but this was the most extreme example of this I've seen. Please give us MORE TIME or FEWER QUESTS.
* Trivia was hard, hard, hard. That alone isn't a bad thing, but there just wasn't enough time for each question. The answers had hardly been read before it was on to the next question. Either give us fewer questions with more time per question, or ease up on the difficulty so we don't NEED time to think up an answer. Having trivia be a quest sounds intriguing, too.

We like the same-day awards ceremony, but we'd be willing to have it dropped if it meant more time for quests. (As long as it doesn't mean MORE quests, too.)

[Janis and Aaron]

Something we've always wondered: Does the museum area that doubles as a waiting area for "Great Moments with Mr. Lincoln" count as a queue? Can you enter the museum area without staying for the show, and not be penalized for "leaving a queue"? I had actually memorized the spirit statues in preparation for MA, so I did the Spirits of America quest from memory, but then we had to enter the museum area to get the answer. We felt like that obliged us to stay for the show, so we did, but not without some debate amongst ourselves.