The weekly newsletter for Fed2 by ibgames

EARTHDATE: February 11, 2007

Event Reports - page 1

CRYPTOGRAMS

Saturday February 3
by Catspaws

I must admit that ever since the ski slopes have opened on Titan, I've been a regular resident of the Methane Cafe. I love the ambiance, and you can often find me relaxing and lazily juggling snow globes. It's my new talent, and I'm working on juggling six right now. (I'd be a natural for a circus, why don't we have a circus?) Anyway, I was too content to move, so this week we held Cryptograms in the Methane Cafe. I was tempted to hold it in the eastern half, thus forcing everyone to try out the slopes first, but I was in a good mood. Actually, I was feeling too lazy to go down the slopes myself, but shhhh! Don't tell anyone.

This week saw the return of two of my favorite Cryptos players, Zadymka and Ariadne, who were really excited to be playing again, and had a friendly competition going to see who would win. Joining them was another frequent player, Zand, and rounding out the quartet we had the Fuzzy Captain, who I predict will one day beat Fancy. He's truly that good.

We started off with a rather different puzzle, but one I'll use again: player names with a specific letter in them. All four players solved this puzzle, with Zadymka finishing it first. It proved to be an excellent warmup puzzle.

THE TOPIC: PLAYER NAMES WITH THE LETTER "K" IN THEM:
CDVFZ
JNTXBCN
JBDCQXJ
NVNMCNRF
EVFFCQVW
COXRFZ

I liked the letter K, so I used it in the second puzzle as well, which everyone found a bit easier than the first. This time Ariadne solved the puzzle ahead of everyone else, and it was shaping up to be what I like to call a 'leapfrog game' where players keep jumping ahead of each other.

THE TOPIC: COMMANDS WITH THE LETTER "K" IN THEM (http://www.ibgames.net/fed2/commands/index.html):
MHLRP
KSYRPFXL
HLLP
JVOPB
VPVNSJY
IYRPSI

Every since that obnoxious feline appeared on Mars, I've been determined to get rid of him. i don't like him. He's uppity and rude and not nearly as gorgeous as I am. So I decided to make him the theme of the third puzzle, and incidentally, fit nicely into our 'learn to think like Catspaws' category. Ariadne finished first again, and Zand was starting to realize Fuzzy was stealing his treasured third place slot. Who knows, Zand might come in fourth from now on....

THE TOPIC: THINGS YOU MIGHT DO TO THE CAT ON MARS:
PXNYWV QBC
LVVG QBC
IVX QBC
IBDW QBC SI
WBDW QBC
XEJW XY QBC

Then we were back to K again in the fourth puzzle, which Zady and Fuzzy both finished before poor Ariadne.

THE TOPIC: COMMODITIES WITH THE LETTER"K" IN THEM (http://www.ibgames.net/fed2/guide/trading/commod.html):
RPYMTIUKG
FPKGMR
REFDEVPG
BUOMVBEKGT
IZAEVGT
GEIQWPWPKT

For the final puzzle, I decided to remind everyone that, though I am a brilliant game hostess, I am also role-play team leader. As such, I instruct everyone in things like... talking mobiles. Everyone beat Zady this time, with Ariadne finished first.

THE TOPIC: TALKING MOBILES:
ZGGJGOZVO DV GCPCVZ
ASCH YJCGCP DV LZEG
OEZACQ DV WSDMDG
MDGG DV CZEOS
RCCMPC DV OJOZV
HDEF DV BCVNG

When the scores were tallied, Zadymka finished third, CaptainFuzzy took home the second place trophy, and Ariadne was our big winner of one of my special reproducing slithy toves. We play Cryptograms each Saturday at 4.00pm eastern. Why don't YOU join us next week?


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