MA DATP/ Basic/Advanced Thoughts from MA Card Games

[Jodi]

I won't be sorry if I never see and NOS or Critter Country quest again, ever!

Haha! We felt the same way! I even told my kids, "next time you want to ride Splash Mountain, ask your dad, because I never want to come back to critter country!"
My mom said the most important lesson she learned is to not wait til the next land to make a restroom stop! She had to go in CC, but waited to NOS, then later we were back in CC and found the "good times are "a bruin" right by the restrooms! If she would have made us stop when we wanted to, we would have found that MUCH sooner!

I will also be content to live the rest of my life without hearing the music from Tiana's stage show ever again.

[Alex S.]

If I had my druthers, I'd never write a quest on the west side of the park. Critter Country is just too far away for too small a land. And NOS and Adventureland are just impossibly crowded once there are more than 16 people in the park. If I could I would write entire games in the plaza/walkway around Small World/Toontown, just for the wide open space.

A couple goals accomplished this time:

1. Finally did something that required communicating across Rivers of America. AVP will be able to confirm that the first time I suggested something doing that was about 10 years ago. She did talk me into doing the charades where we did. Originally I had everybody doing them on the Fantasmic stage. I had visions of the entire Frontierland water front shouting "Ariel!"

2. Finally making people count the traffic cones in the bus area. That one was probably not as fun, but now you don't have to worry it'll happen again. And I'd like to applaud the dedicated players who successfully counted them around a woman giving birth (not, really, I don't know if any teams did that, but I like to imagine someone saying "excuse me, when this contraction is over could you move a bit? You're blocking something I need to see").

I am glad everybody seemed to have a good time with the Queens as those are the things I doubt most, but everybody always has a better sense of fun than I do. Way back when, when I did the quest that involved teams letting the general public spray them at the S.S. rustworthy, I was sure nobody would ever agree to that.

So far as I know, nobody arrived an hour late because of the time change (there was one late team, but not because of that.

As always, i can't thank enough the MousePlanet staff and volunteers who crew the game. It has grown since my last time writing and I was sure there was no way 35 people could be used, but I really did end up using everybody, and they all did a great job. If you agree, be sure to let them know if you agree. And if there was anything bad, let me know because most of the time if they give bad instructions or confusing advice it is because I did it to them first.

Thanks again for the kind words and ending my temporary return to writing these things with a nice ago boost. I'll be happy to answer any questions I can, but I otherwise turn MouseAventure back to your regularly scheduled masterminds.

(And don't necessarily take talk of a Leap Day MouseAdventure too seriously. First, it is four years away and we all know the world ends this year. Second, when that was mentioned my first response was "think how nice it would be to have enough time to write a quest that requires riding Pirates six times in a row" so you may not want that.)

[bennette]

I will also be content to live the rest of my life without hearing the music from Tiana's stage show ever again.

You and me both!

[katiesue]

We survived. Massive kudos to Alex this one was - wow - above and beyond. Slightly overwhelming and a ton of walking but I'm crossing fingers that in the final breakdown we're middle of the pack I know already we blew one Jack. We finished 3 Queen quests and they were awesome!

Huge thank you to all the staff who were super helpful without giving anything away and encouraging when we were just about to give up on the whole shebang!

[disneymamaof3]

We had a great time! Thank you again MA for all the work you do. At first, I didn't know what I thought of this format. After thinking about it today (and having some coffee and relaxing), I really liked the format and the longer play time. We definitely would've done things differently and focussed on the A-10 cards and not worried about the J/Q/K. It seems like we always manage to get the difficult quest questions, but can't find the answer. We never could find the answer to Bear K. Also never found the $1's and 5's or Tigger's House for Bear 7. Thanks for a great day! Looking forward to the Fall

Originally Posted by Jodi

I will also be content to live the rest of my life without hearing the music from Tiana's stage show ever again.

Agreed!!!

[Shortpix77]

We never could find the answer to Bear K. Also never found the $1's and 5's or Tigger's House for Bear 7.

The answer to Bear K is on a crate that you have to kind of be off to the side of the Mark Twain loading area looking over the railing to see (or in the loading area, but we didn't want to "enter" the attraction and be required to ride the boat all the way around). It says the name of the company, city/state where its located, and the year. We actually knew about the crate from a previous MA (thank goodness) -- it's a pretty obscure location.

For Bear 7, "$1's and $5's" was on a penny machine just outside Pooh Corner. "Tigger's House" was the one that didn't exist, so you didn't miss that one!

[vegaspixie]

I'm always worried at MA because sometimes teams ask me questions and I just blurt out responses without a lot of filter because I want to give good information without wasting a lot of time. I'm always worried that I come off as condescending or patronizing when I say things like "Why are you asking me that? Let's read the question..."

Thank you to all the teams who are so veteran that they "Get" me and appreciate that I'm really trying to be helpful and friendly.

Your response cracked me and my husband up!! Mine was such a "duh" question...and we were having so much fun anyways, so you were perfect!!!

[cintheworld]

My mom said the most important lesson she learned is to not wait til the next land to make a restroom stop! She had to go in CC, but waited to NOS, then later we were back in CC and found the "good times are "a bruin" right by the restrooms! If she would have made us stop when we wanted to, we would have found that MUCH sooner!

We had two bathroom visits that turned out very well for us this time. The first was the CC bathroom (my daughter did decide to go before "the next land" and we found good times a 'bruin') The second was when we were "recon-ing" the park on Saturday, i convinced the team to take a stroll through Thunder Ranch. Again my daughter had to go to the bathroom, and i waited outside, where i took note of the "splinters". We didnt even have to go to "the Ranch" to find that one during the game...(every step saved is much celebrated)

All in all a fun day for the Miners...loved the format, cant wait for fall!

[AVP]

(And don't necessarily take talk of a Leap Day MouseAdventure too seriously. First, it is four years away and we all know the world ends this year. Second, when that was mentioned my first response was "think how nice it would be to have enough time to write a quest that requires riding Pirates six times in a row" so you may not want that.)

Actually, your first response was "I'd help write that one..." So teams who really like an "Alex game," either experiencing it for the first time or fondly recalling past events, will likely line up to see what you could come up with for a 24-hour challenge.

If One More Disney Day 2012 had not been 11 days before our already-scheduled event, we would probably have come up with something this year, but it was just too close. Assuming the world does NOT end this year, and assuming Disney decides to hold another 24-hour event in 2016, and assuming we're all still crazy enough to be running this thing in 4 years, it's ON.

AVP

[LavenderBlue]

Actually, your first response was "I'd help write that one..." So teams who really like an "Alex game," either experiencing it for the first time or fondly recalling past events, will likely line up to see what you could come up with for a 24-hour challenge.

If One More Disney Day 2012 had not been 11 days before our already-scheduled event, we would probably have come up with something this year, but it was just too close. Assuming the world does NOT end this year, and assuming Disney decides to hold another 24-hour event in 2016, and assuming we're all still crazy enough to be running this thing in 4 years, it's ON.

AVP

Wow. This fills me with dread and joy.

[Gone2Disneyland]

Wow. This fills me with dread and joy.

But we'll be there!

Finally adding to what my teammate LB shared about the game. I had a great time at the event, and not just because we won. It's definitely among the best MouseAdventure games I've participated in. The quests were what we've come to expect but plussed out with that crazy cut-and-fold puzzle and the Q quests. So much fun, our Q quests stories will be told among friends for years!

"We always put in more quests than we expect teams to complete" was absolutely true. We spent every minute speeding or struggling through the three suits we managed to get through, not all 100% accurately we found out later. But save for one, we felt we spent a fair amount of time on our quests in the eight hours. I can't imagine any team earning four suits of quests in that amount of time.

Everyone on the MA Staff was terrific and full of energy, that we definitely appreciated towards the end of the event. The organized exit at the beginning - kudos! Looking forward to the next MouseAdventure, whether it's six months from now - or four years. Or should I say 3 years 11 months and 20 days give or take a leap year day.

[adriennek]

We were the team wearing the GoPro cameras. And I will be posting up the pictures and video we took sometime today or tomorrow.

I think I speak for both cyberwoozie and myself when I say: We look forward to it.

Or should I say 3 years 11 months and 20 days give or take a leap year day.

ooooh, see what you did there?

[shna]

We (Team Happy Place) had a really good time yesterday. Having the extra time was AWESOME - even though getting up at 6am (5am body time) was pretty rough.

Loved the format. Knowing for sure that we had gotten answers right (or one wrong, which we were able to fix just by walking back to Village Haus) was encouraging. We started with Crowns & got through A-10 without much trouble. I did the Jack one (the population sign) & was very happy to figure it out. Being familiar with the sign from a previous MA (in which that sign was my downfall) was a plus. The teammate who did the Queen memorization got it right on the first try. We then wandered around with the King quest, looking for clocks. We didn't find all the clocks, but the teammate who was "in charge" of that puzzle was able to figure out the puzzle anyway. We didn't have time to go look at the rack of brochures, but made an educated guess & got it right. Woo-hoo -- one full suit done!

Our original plan was to do Crowns (since that was where we started), then do Stars (so we wouldn't run out of time), then either Bears or Rockets. As we were finishing up something with stars, I figured out the 6 of Stars puzzle & knew where to find the answer, so I wanted to make sure we got to Stars. We decided to try a couple of Rockets since they were on the way out of the park -- and wound up zipping through A-10 pretty quickly. We had the Jack quest & figured out the question, but never made it back to the castle to find the answer. We found the Queen quest person & got that wrapped up. We never really started on the King quest even though we had it in hand. Off to Stars - figured we could at least get the A-10 done & pick up the face cards. We wound up getting A-9 done, got & finished Jack, got and gave up on Queen (trying to find a specific brick when the lines for DCA were standing on the dumb bricks... grrrrr). Before we headed out with the Queen quest, we asked if we'd get credit for the 7-8-9 if we didn't have the 10 done & were told to just show the card to get credit for those three. Unfortunately, we didn't get those points because we came back after 4pm (would have come back earlier with those if we had known we wouldn't get the points otherwise ... we knew we wouldn't be able to get the King quest after 4pm, but didn't realize it would be a problem to get credit for the lower quests if we weren't planning to get the King quest). *sigh*

We never made it back into the park to do any of the Bears quests.

I'm curious as to the strategies of the upper tier teams. We were doing the math in the ballroom after the game & realized that the combined points for A-10 were equal to the combined points for J-Q-K. I'm not sure if we would have been better off doing the A-10 for all four suits & then doing whatever else we had time for, or doing what we did (finished A-Q of Crowns before moving on to Rockets).

Another bit of the instructions that we didn't think was clearly communicated was the bit about skipping lower quests in order to get the face cards. We interpreted the directions to mean that if you turned in the ace & deuce of a suit without doing the three meant that you wouldn't get credit for any of the A-2-3 quests -- but in the recap, my understanding was that you'd get points for the ace & deuce, but forfeit the opportunity to do the three quest. If we had gotten that from the beginning, we probably would have turned in our 7-8-9 of Stars & gotten those 60 points before heading out to do the Queen quest.

Still -- we felt much better about this MA than we had about the previous two. Last Spring, I know I had a migraine & wasn't functioning very well. Last Fall, we just weren't "clicking" at all -- and didn't even bother turning in our work to be scored. We used the last couple of hours to get more quests done (including finding the hidden quest), which made us feel a little better. This time, we're pretty sure we got around 950 points or so. Our score was better than the 2nd & 3rd place scores for new teams, so we at least got the impression that we didn't totally suck this time around.

I'd sure like to see this type of format again -- but possibly limited to smaller areas as someone else mentioned. I'm guessing (hoping) that the Fall MA will be in California Adventure so we can take advantage of the new areas. It's been a while since Basic has done a game in DCA. We're due!

Thank you so much to Alex for writing such a fun game, and to the MA staff/crew for doing such a great job. Can't wait for the Fall event!

[Lani]

That said, we loved the idea of the Q quests in general. The TT memory quest was really fun for me (despite the fact that I memorized them backwards initially... doh! READ CAREFULLY, I know )

Crewing the Queen of Crowns quest has to be the funnest thing I've ever helped crew for MouseAdventure. It felt so wonderful to be able to say "YES! YOU GOT IT!" and getting to jump up and down and cheer the teams all day long!

[fairestoneofall]

shna- I never even took into consideration the fact that we would know whether or not our answer was correct right on the spot. Good call on that.

[stan4d_steph]

We were the team wearing the GoPro cameras. And I will be posting up the pictures and video we took sometime today or tomorrow.

Looking forward to it!

I had a fun time manning the "Bears" station, but what a busy day! I'm also looking forward to the video of the charades that was going on just around the corner from our station. I heard some funny stories from the other staff members.

[gdanie]

I must say that I had the best time staffing the game this year. I staffed the Stars station. It felt good telling the teams when they had the right answers and I could give them their face cards. I had so much fun at the station and helping teams out and thinking "I'm glad I sat this game out, cause I would surely be hurtin about now."

Congrats to all the winners! You guys ROCK.

My next quest is to convince the rest of the Pride to join me on THE DARK SIDE. See you in the Fall.

[Ghoulish Delight]

Just popping in to say I had a great time! It was our first time staffing and it was a totally new, unique, and fun experience (though it did just make me want to play again...definitely a little disappointed we missed the chance to play an Alex-written game).

I think my favorite part of the whole thing was playing line monitor in the ballroom in the morning. It meant I got to say hello and good morning to every single team that walked in, an awesome way to start the day. Everyone looked excited and happy to be there, despite the time change! A true testament to MA.

Definitely looking forward to the next chance to participate, on either side of the fence.

[Niwel]

Loved seeing everyone who made it out to the Crowns station (we know Fantasyland/Toontown is a shlep, but at least it was shaded).

Hope you enjoyed trivia as well - I'll be posting answers AFTER Day at the Park.

And for gdanie and GD - we're glad you enjoyed "The Dark Side" ... it's nice when Masters Teams cross over!

[*Nala*]

Assuming the world does NOT end this year, and assuming Disney decides to hold another 24-hour event in 2016, and assuming we're all still crazy enough to be running this thing in 4 years, it's ON.

24 hour MA?? Hmmm... cubs will be 4 and 6, meaning in theory we'll be enough past the total sleep deprivation stage to contemplate voluntarily staying up all night. Yeah, we are so there. Besides, the Longest MA Ever just begs to be an Invitational.

My next quest is to convince the rest of the Pride to join me on THE DARK SIDE. See you in the Fall.

The Dark Side does sound fun and I would like to try it someday... but I still wanna play!! Can't quite imagine going a whole year without playing. Hmm, speaking of Invitationals, if TPTB make the fall game an Invitational I am guessing that should settle the debate...

[cintheworld]

Hope you enjoyed trivia as well - I'll be posting answers AFTER Day at the Park.

Trivia was fun and actually reasonable this time! I felt like our team knew more than usual(even without our trivia expert team-mate on board this time).
I also enjoyed the eye spies!
ANY chance of getting our scores AHEAD of DATP(without the recap)? Its unusually torturous to have to wait that long to see what our actual scores/placements were... PRETTY PLEASE?

[stacielee]

The Dashing Divas had a GREAT time! Loved the I-Spys, and actually think we got the majority of them correct, not sure about the ones we guessed on! Wish I would have gotten another deck of cards that are not all marked up, the card sleeve idea was awesome, wish we had thought of that. We made one awesome guess on a King quest and got it right! Just waiting now to find out where we actually placed...

I know Alex said something about someone giving birth at Disneyland, not sure if he was kidding or not, but here's the article: http://ocresort.ocregister.com/2012/...eyland/109807/

[Andrew]

ANY chance of getting our scores AHEAD of DATP(without the recap)? Its unusually torturous to have to wait that long to see what our actual scores/placements were... PRETTY PLEASE?

The plan is to post scores to MousePad (probably here in this thread) as soon as all the data wrangling is done. Hopefully sometime this week but that depends on how much time the Chief Data Wrangler (Tony) has available.

[Hannahbelle]

For Bear 7, "$1's and $5's" was on a penny machine just outside Pooh Corner. "Tigger's House" was the one that didn't exist, so you didn't miss that one!

BANGING HEAD ON KEYBOARD!!!!!!!!!!
I was going to "guess" that, but we ended up giving up!!! I told my team, "Tigger never had a house in the stories...."
UGH! We went into Pooh corner TWICE! Lol!!

[fairestoneofall]

BANGING HEAD ON KEYBOARD!!!!!!!!!!
I was going to "guess" that, but we ended up giving up!!! I told my team, "Tigger never had a house in the stories...."
UGH! We went into Pooh corner TWICE! Lol!!

You DID say that.