Challenge Ideas?

[Yoda9864]

Anybody?

[Yoda9864]

How about beating my Asteroids high score in the Arcade?

[manasecret]

Here's one idea:

1. Do 100 posts in 20 minutes. No consecutive posts by the same user allowed. Maybe change the number of posts and/or minutes.

Not sure what I think of it.

[Zen]

We all saw how reluctant they were to dress up as VG characters, lets have them be cartoon characters, im willing to bet they wont do it, we arent making them spend monedy because we didnt spend a dime, only problem i see with this is they might take mana's cutout idea.

[Yoda9864]

Yeah, they could totally do the cut out thing and get that done pretty easily.

[thatmariolover]

I just don't feel like there are enough rules. It's hard to establish fairness in a competition like this.

[Yoda9864]

Here's one idea:

1. Do 100 posts in 20 minutes. No consecutive posts by the same user allowed. Maybe change the number of posts and/or minutes.

Not sure what I think of it.
That's like 1 post every 12 seconds if I did my math correctly. I wouldn't think that would be too hard. Maybe in 15 minutes? That would give them 9 seconds a post.

[thatmariolover]

Except it encourages post cramming. We could post a few cryptograms, that would be fun and difficult. We could even make it gaming related and post excerpts from various manuals. :D

For example:

There are 8 kingdoms in the Mushroom World where Mario’s adventures take place. Each kingdom has its own map. Mario can choose any road, but on the map there are a lot of points that you can’t pass if you don’t clear an action scene. At the start of the game, you get five players (the number of Marios remaining (4) will be shown.) In the game there are places where you can get power up items and even get extra Marios (1-UPs.) You must get the royal magic wands back from Bowser’s 7 children.

to:

Iavbv mbv 8 fkgwtesz kg iav Sdzabees Xebyt xavbv Smbkez mtcvgidbvz imfv nymrv. Vmra fkgwtes amz kiz exg smn. Smbke rmg raeezv mgj bemt, pdi eg iav smn iavbv mbv m yei eq nekgiz iami jed rmgi nmzz kq jed tegi ryvmb mg mrikeg zrvgv. Mi iav zimbi eq iav wmsv, jed wvi qkcv nymjvbz (iav gdspvb eq Smbkez bvsmkgkgw (4) xkyy pv zaexg.) Kg iav wmsv iavbv mbv nymrvz xavbv jed rmg wvi nexvb dn kivsz mgt vcvg wvi vhibm Smbkez (1-DNz.) Jed sdzi wvi iav bejmy smwkr xmgtz pmrf qbes Pexzvbz 7 rakytbvg.

[BreakABone]

That's like 1 post every 12 seconds if I did my math correctly. I wouldn't think that would be too hard. Maybe in 15 minutes? That would give them 9 seconds a post.

Well that won't work.
The forum has a 10 sec post cycle.

[manasecret]

Except it encourages post cramming. We could post a few cryptograms, that would be fun and difficult. We could even make it gaming related and post excerpts from various manuals. :D

For example:

There are 8 kingdoms in the Mushroom World where Mario’s adventures take place. Each kingdom has its own map. Mario can choose any road, but on the map there are a lot of points that you can’t pass if you don’t clear an action scene. At the start of the game, you get five players (the number of Marios remaining (4) will be shown.) In the game there are places where you can get power up items and even get extra Marios (1-UPs.) You must get the royal magic wands back from Bowser’s 7 children.

to:

Iavbv mbv 8 fkgwtesz kg iav Sdzabees Xebyt xavbv Smbkez mtcvgidbvz imfv nymrv. Vmra fkgwtes amz kiz exg smn. Smbke rmg raeezv mgj bemt, pdi eg iav smn iavbv mbv m yei eq nekgiz iami jed rmgi nmzz kq jed tegi ryvmb mg mrikeg zrvgv. Mi iav zimbi eq iav wmsv, jed wvi qkcv nymjvbz (iav gdspvb eq Smbkez bvsmkgkgw (4) xkyy pv zaexg.) Kg iav wmsv iavbv mbv nymrvz xavbv jed rmg wvi nexvb dn kivsz mgt vcvg wvi vhibm Smbkez (1-DNz.) Jed sdzi wvi iav bejmy smwkr xmgtz pmrf qbes Pexzvbz 7 rakytbvg.

I like that idea. What is that, a simple letter replacement cipher? As in, v=e, a=m, etc.?

I like the idea, but I think the cipher would need to be more complicated. I'll look more up on that. Anyone know much about ciphering? We need to recruit Neo. :D

[Yoda9864]

We could do a playfair cipher. It was my favorite cipher in my computer cryptography class.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Playfair_cipher

We could leave a clue in our post as to what the key word is and what is used to decipher it.

Example clue:

In a recent interview with the one and only Mario, he was proclaimed to be the savior of the Mushroom Kingdom. Mario humbly replied, "I am the key to the peace in Mushroom Kingdom. But, Bowser keeps coming back and each time with dirtier tricks. Why can't he just play fair and leave Peach alone?" The interviewer continued to tell the back story of Mario, "******ENCODED STORY******"
Mario looked at the interviewer with a perplexed look on his face not knowing what the hell was just said.

Can you help Mario find out what was said?

Obviously, we wouldn't have the bold words in there as that would be too easy.

[Yoda9864]

The encoded message would look like this if the keyword was Mario:

ql di ci id lr gh fr rp ol ql bi pt ka rz ma za ik cx lc id ar io ru rc yb lu so dt qi ld tg ch dy ci hq lr gh fr ag rq ey ur zh ar vb ri om hc hf na ru ci lz im rc fp ui lu lc ar qu lc id ri ci ni ui bu mo lu tu qc yi fz hc lu qm xr tr ez fz fr lu eh ci ir ho eq om ku df lf iq ql dt qi is fn ql bl ra li fz lb ue my bt hi il dx ql fl po cf im bo ri om xd bi ro lo gh ya ky ge dt na zh ol ql bl ra ly lc id ri bt hi df qx lc id zi qf oh lb uq az di pq ey bi qr kf by fl lb yl ys ir ar io ru pq tx fz op tu lb sy ql di iz ih ar lm ha oh kx cm dh do ma fm xq di qd la ke id kz

We would have to manually put the numbers in, fix all of the spaces to make it look like it's a straight up cihper:

Qldic iid 8 lrghfrrp ol qlb iptkarzm azaik cxlci dario’r urcyblusod tqil dtgch. Dyci hqlrghf rag rqe yur zha. Rvbri omh chfnar uci lzim, rcf pu ilu lca rqulc idr I cin iu ibumol utuq cyi fzh’c luqm xr tre zfz’f rlueh ci irhoeq omkud. Fl fiq qldtq ii sfn qlblr, ali fzl buem ybthiil (dxq lflpoc fi mborio mxdbirolo (4) ghya ky gedtn.) az hol qlbl rally cid ribthi dfqxl cid ziq foh lbuqa zd ipqey biq rkfb yfl lbyly sirari (1-oru.) pqt xfzo ptu lbs yqldi iziha rlmha ohkx cmdh domafm’x 7 qdiqdlak eidkz

[thatmariolover]

Excellent idea, I say we go with that.

[Yoda9864]

Ok, well if nobody else comes up with anything BaB/Swan this will be our challenge:

-----------------------------Cut here---------------------------------
In a recent interview with the one and only Mario, he was proclaimed to be the savior of the Mushroom Kingdom. Mario humbly replied, "I am the key to the peace in Mushroom Kingdom. But, Bowser keeps coming back and each time with dirtier tricks. Why can't he just play fair and leave Peach alone?" The interviewer continued to tell the back story of Mario:

"Qldic iid 8 lrghfrrp ol qlb iptkarzm azaik cxlci dario’r urcyblusod tqil dtgch. Dyci hqlrghf rag rqe yur zha. Rvbri omh chfnar uci lzim, rcf pu ilu lca rqulc idr I cin iu ibumol utuq cyi fzh’c luqm xr tre zfz’f rlueh ci irhoeq omkud. Fl fiq qldtq ii sfn qlblr, ali fzl buem ybthiil (dxq lflpoc fi mborio mxdbirolo (4) ghya ky gedtn.) az hol qlbl rally cid ribthi dfqxl cid ziq foh lbuqa zd ipqey biq rkfb yfl lbyly sirari (1-oru.) pqt xfzo ptu lbs yqldi iziha rlmha ohkx cmdh domafm’x 7 qdiqdlak eidkz."

Mario looked at the interviewer with a perplexed look on his face not knowing what the hell was just said.

Can you help Mario find out what was said?
-----------------------------Cut here---------------------------------

[manasecret]

Nice one. Doesn't look impossible to do, either.

By the way, I am going to New Orleans to be with my girlfriend this weekend, and I won't be back until late Sunday (~7 or 8 p.m.). Until then, I won't be able to help. Good luck everyone!

[Yoda9864]

Have fun! We'll do our best to keep our wining streak alive.

[Zen]

Personally for me that cypher thing looks really hard, I couldnt even begin to make sense of it without the playfair wiki thing, heh, so i am all up for that being our challenge.