I'm a recovering puzzle addict. A few years ago I got hooked on a game called Yohoho! Puzzle Pirates. You become a sea-farer in an MMORPG world full of items to buy, homes to build, boats to sail and plenty of people to swashbuckle with. The twist to the game is that all the tasks, whether it be navigating a ship or swordfighting with a rival crew, are puzzle-based. Bailing water is a lot like Tetris Attack, fixing the ship floor is similar to to tangrams, and swordfighting is all kinds of Puzzle Fighter. For hours I would "sail" around this "ocean," looking for "booty" (currency taking the form of "pieces of eight"), messaging back and forth with other players (including my friend, Ian, who was just in the next room), building reputations, gaining ranks ... it was a ridiculous affair. It took me a while to ween off it. I didn't actually fully stop being involved until after the beta period was over and they started charging for the game. And even then a $5 buy-in was tempting. It was seriously one of the most addictive things I've ever played. Even with the constant terrorizing I received from Joey and Erica about being a "puzzle pirate," I played on. I can't even in good conscious give you the link to this site lest you fall prey to the devestating effect this game can have. Ah, heck, here you go.
From sudoku to The Da Vinci Code Quest on Google and all kinds of other stuff not alphabetically bookended, puzzles just deeply appeal to me. So it was only natural that once I started to watch Lost that I would attempt to solve all the clues the show's creative/marketing team leaves.
I started to watch Lost after learning Darren Aronofsky would be directing one of the last episodes of season two. Now that he's dropped out, I'm still hooked watching (I can stop any time I want). Katie on the other hand ... totally snagged.
Intriguing on a different level is the extra non-broadcast material from the show. There are sites and even books involving the people on the doomed Oceanic Flight 815 and the island itself. I don't know why I'm explaining this to you. Lost dominates the numbers on Wednesday nights. You know what I'm talking about.
So I've been stuck lately trying to uncover all the hidden secrets of the sites such as inputting the "numbers" into subLYMONal.com to get the secret code but not knowing where on the Hanso Foundation site to input it since the page I'm led to has a blank but no submit button (I'm thinking this may be a Firefox/Mac problem ... but maybe not; Win/IE users: do you have problems?). Also I'm trying to figure out why the Dharma Initiative site reads "17 -- diapause." This, of course, has led me to a brief (and almost definitely unrrelated) investigation of the Yucca moth, who has a diapause of 16 to 17 years. I know the diapause is the holdup of the actual initiative (I think) but it is an interesting coincidence. Oh, and, of course, the manuscript Sawyer was reading that Jack tossed in the fire to get the guns back, Bad Twin, is now a published novel you can find at any bookstore. It's written by Gary Troup (a nice anagram for "purgatory").
Avast! There be puzzles about!
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