A problem I had with the previous game was that because it wasn’t in a secure location any of the puzzles could have shown up in a Google search thereby allowing a player to jump ahead. To prevent this from happening in this game I required players to register. That way I knew how many I had and also allowed me to email them a username and password that could be used to access the puzzle site which resided on a secure server.

So when the start time came I posted the link to the secure site and players used the username and password to access the game and get their first look at it. The first thing they found was this:

That message set the stage for the game. Now the players knew that Fletcher Edwards was missing, that mysterious people were looking for him and his friend Iggy is concerned. This combined with the intro video gave the players the background information they needed to begin the journey.

Included on the intro page was a link. Once clicked the players were greeted with a picture of the interior of an office. My intent was for players to understand that the office was a room of E’s house which was the house seen in the intro video. Since he is a scientist I thought he should have a nice looking office. I searched a long time to find the right picture for this. I first tried to find one that was in disarray but finally decided a nice neat upscale office would work just fine.

I think it’s pretty clear that the picture was doctored. Several items were added. Eventually the players would learn that each item would become a link to a puzzle once they got to that point in the game. At this point though, the only active link was the one attached to the crumpled up wad of paper on the floor. Once players found that and clicked on it they got to see the first puzzle (click on the picture at the top of the post to see a larger version of the letter).

I wanted as many people as possible to play the game and figured the further they got into the story and the puzzles the more interested in it they would become. Therefore I designed the puzzle to be very easy.

The letter makes it clear that Edward Fletcher (aka Mr. E) is gone and plans to be for awhile. He trusts his friend Iggy enough to tell him this and also to place the care of his bird Goldy in his hands.

If this were a real-life letter perhaps the bit about the pet bird would not seem strange but in a puzzle game everything is a potential clue. In this case E’s pet bird is actually a clue for the next puzzle. As is the mention of the island. I think I’ve gotten quite good at inserting clues into puzzles that will be needed for future ones.

Players noticed right away that there were several spelling and grammatical errors in the letter. By taking the extra letters, missing letters and, in the case of misspelled words, the correct letters, players were able to spell out the answer to the puzzle.

Another goal I had with this game is that all the puzzle answers would themselves provide clues to the mystery. In a later puzzle I would provide a clue to the players as to how the puzzle answers should be arranged to help shed some light on what was going on.

One thing I never noticed until now is that there is a mistake in the answer. A letter is missing. Obviously players figured that out but I can’t believe I never noticed it. An “A” is missing. I spent a lot of time on this puzzle making sure I arranged it correctly to reveal the answer and I just don’t see how I missed that. And I don’t recall anyone ever pointing the mistake out to me. Anyway, there should an “A” as the third to last letter.

It took players a mere 39 minutes to solve it. Once the correct answer was typed in the players were taken to a congratulations screen where in addition to a link to follow, they were give a number. For this puzzle the number is 50. It would be a wise choice for the players to write that number down. It becomes very important later on.

By clicking the link, players were taken back to the office where now a new link was activated. This time over the license plate on the wall. This took the players to the next puzzle License Plates which will be reviewed next.

I realize that some of you are probably saying “Wait, if this is game 2 then why is it called Game 1?” Great question. Although it’s true that this is the second contest, it is the first game in a three part game series called the Mr. E Series.

After the success of Puzzle Master I was eager to get going on another contest. I decided it would be fun if the puzzle answers themselves were clues that helped solve a larger puzzle. I thought that it would be more exciting for the players. That way they could feel like detectives solving a crime.

In addition to this I designed the game so that each correct answer gave the players a number. These would be need later in the game in order to solve the mystery.

I’m not sure how the Mr. E story line got into my head but I spent several days just writing down all my ideas. Eventually they all sort of came together into an international mystery involving a scientist, his associates, and an ultra-secret department of the US government.

My intent was to create a conspiracy theory. I wanted it to be plausible and contain some elements of truth. I even named the character Fletcher, giving a nod to the Mel Gibson character in the movie “Conspiracy Theory”. I used Edwards as the last name because I needed something that started with an E, to go along with Mr. E (which most of you realize I’m sure is a homonym for “mystery”).

I decided that I wanted to promote this game somehow and get as many people interested as I could. I posted on puzzle message boards, I wrote a press release, and also took my first steps into videography. I discovered that Windows Movie Maker, a video editing software was free and already installed on my PC. So I learned how to use it. I scoured the internet looking for pictures and sound that I could use to convey the mystery of the game. Considering it was my first video ever, I’m still pleased with it today although I think the ones I’ve made for the games since then are MUCH better.

Overall, I really love the storyline. To me it’s exciting. A scientist, fearing for his life because of a secret he’s stumbled across. He doesn’t know exactly what it means but he knows that others have been killed in an effort to keep it from becoming public. He disappears and goes into hiding but leaves clues hidden in puzzles for someone to solve, gathering bit by bit the knowlege that would be needed to discover what the secret is. I think it would make for a pretty good movie or at least a book.

The game started on April 1st, 2008 at 8AM PST. It would turn out to be the shortest Cluechaser game ever. The last puzzle was solved by two players named towerofbabel and e8 working together a mere 3 days 6 hours and 22 minutes after it began. This was about 1/10th the amount of time as the previous game. I didn’t mind the short play time too much. I had designed it to be easier because I wanted more people to play it, finish it, get drawn into the storyline, and be eagerly awaiting the next game. It worked pretty well because more people did play than before.

Now that you know the history, join me for the next few weeks as I tear apart Game 1: The Missing Mr. E and explain each puzzle, how it works, how it was created, and share any stories behind it. You will also have the opportunity to try and solve it on your own and experience for yourself the excitement of unlocking the first few tantalizing clues to the mystery.

Let’s start by watching the trailer video:

First, some notes about this video. The warning at the beginning was not originally there. I added it later at the request of my wife. You see, during the creation of Game 1 a couple of strange things happened. After I started uploading the puzzles to the web and putting the game together I added a hit counter to each page so I would know when a player started on the next puzzle. This way I could track everyone’s progress. Since the game hadn’t started I had all the counters set to zero. Imagine my surprise when one day I see that there was one hit on several of the pages.

Luckily one feature at my disposal was the ability to see on a map where the visitor came from. I zoomed in and discovered that the visitor was from somewhere within Washington, DC. Since the game was about things like government coverups and conspiracy theories and secrets between USA and China this “visitor” caused some hairs to stand up on the back of my neck. Of even greater concern to me was the fact that all the puzzle pages were in a password protected area. No one should have been able to access the puzzles unless they had the password or knew how to hack their way in. Was this the FBI or CIA checking me out? Needless to say, I was concerned.

Then, the very next day three guys came into the office where I worked and started looking around. They said they were with the fire department and just doing a routine check. It struck me as very odd. I thought about my Washington DC visitor and this got me even more worried. I told my wife about it and she tried to convince me to stop working on Cluechaser. I refused but compromised by adding the warning to the video.

In the end, nothing came of my mysterious visitors. Just coincidences I guess. I decided perhaps my DC visitor was really just myself. I may never know.

The second note regarding the video is that it begins to set the stage for an alternate reality that I needed to create for the players. It hints at things to come. Little of this is revealed in this game but it is in the following game, Puzzle PiEces.

And now, on with the video:

Intro video

I like this puzzle because of it’s simplicity. One player commented in an email to me that he had never encountered a puzzle like this before. Just an image from which you had to determine not only how to solve it but what it was you were in fact solving.

Interestingly enough it took 8 hours and 15 minutes for the first person to solve it which is 4 times longer than the first cipher puzzle.

I found the image online and then modified it by removing some things and adding others. I figured most might solve it by finding the original image and then seeing what changed. Because of that I modified it more than I needed to in hopes of incorporating some misdirection. I don’t think it worked though. One thing in my favor was that at the time, the website the answer pointed to was not well known and like many of the puzzle solutions, it took just the right person to understand what they were seeing and solve the puzzle.

The hardest part was removing anything from the picture that had numbers or letters or something that would cause too much confusion.

Although the answer is a url, I chose it because it is not your standard web address and therefore more confusing.

I don’t have a page that you can go to check your answer but I can hide it below and you can compare your answer to that. Or, you can just try going to the site indicated by the answer. It is still there, however the link to the next puzzle is no longer active. I can tell you that if you see something referring to Math.com then you found the right place. That puzzle will be discussed in the next blog post.

I hope you enjoy the puzzle. Keep in mind that the puzzles I create are very low tech. One goal I had was to not spend any money creating them so any graphics work that needed to be done I did with MS Paint. Many hate the program but I can do just about anything in it although often it is painstakingly slow.

You can click on the picture above to see it full size. Then you can try to solve it.

Once you think you have it solved, check your solution here:

I started the Mr. E puzzle series with a broad storyline in mind. I was confident that the details would fill themselves in as I went along. And they did. During games 1 and 2 players learned who Edward Fletcher was and that he discovered something very important. By solving the puzzles and following the clues players uncovered a government secret that a disease known as Environmenally Related Rapid Organ Dysfunction Syndrome (ERRODS) was rapidly spreading across the world. Mr E. was on the trail of tracking down the source when a mistakenly revealed password led to an attack on the San Francisco apartment where he and his colleagues were hiding. News reports indicated that everyone in the apartment was killed. With Edward Fletcher presumably dead players were left wondering if the cure for ERRODS would ever be found? This is where the storyline is now.

During the past year the remainder of the story has been brewing in the back of my mind. I knew where I wanted to go and how to get there but still needed to work out what clues would be found along the way. I imagine that fiction authors go through similar thought processes. Things were moving along at a nice pace when suddenly, bad things happened. If you’ve watched the video you know what happened. You know the site was hacked over and over. You know that I had to shut it down.

Now that it is back up and ultra-secure (and I’m a little wiser) the story can continue. During the site down time I did a lot of work on the plot details. Along with that I had to think up different kinds of puzzles. The trickiest part turned out to be trying to figure out how to give out the information the players would need for the story without bogging the game down. Previously I had accomplished this by including the information in the puzzle itself (like this one). Other times I made it part of the puzzle answer (like this one). However, I find that kind of puzzle difficult to design and after creating almost 40 different kinds of puzzles for the previous games and other projects my creative juices were running dry.

The good news is that the creative block in my mind that I had been chipping away at for the past several months finally seems to be giving way. The story line is clear. The path is set. The clues are being placed. Game 3 should be the most exciting one yet. New puzzles, new characters are introduced and more details are revealed.

I am excited to tell you that during the buildup to the launch of Game 3: Chasing Shadows I plan to release mini puzzles to wet your appetite. To get you in the mood so to speak. I also hope to create a couple more teaser videos to help set the stage. My goal is to have everything ready to go by June. In the months prior to that I will be asking for your help to get the word out. The more players we have the better the game experience will be.

This will be the most complex game of the three. Twists and turns await you as you brave the shadows and chase the clues. Reward and reputation are on the line as you race your fellow Cluechasers to the end.

?? – Is E dead
?? – What is the source of the chemical
?? – Who is the mole

These are the questions that need answers. Will you be the one to do it?
We’ll see soon enough.

At long last Cluechaser is back online.  To celebrate this momentous occasion I created a new video and it’s dedicated to you.

The layout and purpose of the site is changing.  It is being redesigned to be a place you can come to find all the latest info on puzzle games that are like Cluechaser.  I will be posting most of the previous puzzles as well as new puzzles as I create them. 

What about <b>Game 3: Chasing Shadows</b>? I am still working on it.  I hope to have it ready to be released by the end of the year.  For those who don’t know, Game 3 is the third and final puzzle contest in the Mr. E series where players have to solve a series of puzzles to unlock clues in order to solve the mystery.

Anyway, look around, enjoy the site and let me know what you think.  I’m glad to be back.

Cowpattybill