YABA5 - golden tickets

the golden ticket puzzles have been released!!!

click here for puzzles

At the start of the game, each player will receive a token redeemable for one chocolate bar. At one clue site during the game on Saturday September 13th, teams will find our resident Oompa Loompa and redeem their tokens for the chocolate bars, which have been donated by our sponsor

We will not disclose in advance the clue site at which the Oompa Loompa will be located.

Five of the chocolate bars will contain golden tickets inside their wrappers.

After the game, the players who find these tickets will enter a contest, the winner of which will receive an American Eagle gold coin containing one ounce of pure gold, valued at approximately $375 (as of August 2003).  This coin is actually part of a real life treasure - read about it here

Forbes FYI $10,000 Treasure Hunt

Who will get the golden tickets? Well, that will be a combination of luck and skill.

There will be 350 chocolate bars. Each chocolate bar will be individually numbered from 1 to 350.

Between now and game day, three puzzles will be released, one for each division. Solve the puzzle for your division, and you'll know the number of the golden ticket in that division!

During the game, when you find the Oompa Loompa, you may ask for any chocolate bar by number, or just grab one at random.  BUT...if you have solved the puzzle for another division (or ask for it entirely by accident) you will not be allowed to take that number.  The Oompa Loompa will tell you that number has already been taken.

If you are the first person in your division to solve the puzzle and find the Oompa Loompa, you will win the ticket! But if you ask for it and it's gone, or if you didn't solve the puzzle, you'll still have a chance to get one of the two other golden tickets for which no hints will have been given out.  (The Oompa Loompa will not know the numbers for these two chocolate bars.)

Note that this is an individual contest, and you may be competing against your own teammates! If you solve the puzzle for your division, check with your teammates to see if any of them has solved it too.  If so, please work out in advance which one of you will ask the Oompa Loompa for it.  Oompa Loompas do not like breaking up fights among nasty greedy children.

Some fine print:

Once you win a golden ticket, you may sell your chance to play, assign shares of the ticket to your teammates, have someone else play in the contest for you, or do anything else with your ticket that your little heart desires. Note, however, that only one person per ticket may play in the contest, and only one person may win the golden coin.  Any side deals are strictly your own business!

If fewer than 350 people play, and one or more of the golden tickets is not distributed by the end of the game, the remaining chocolate bars will be passed out at random at the finish. Otherwise, we'll eat them ourselves.

Conversely, if more than 350 people play, and we run out of chocolate bars - well, you shoulda gotten there sooner!

And finally, if your team does not make it to the clue site where the Oompa Loompa is passing out chocolate bars, fear not.  You can pick yours up at the finish, while supplies last.