YABA5 - clue 12- solution

Beginner only

1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8

In order from left to right, Elizabeth Taylor married:

Conrad "Nicky" Hilton (yes, he's related to Paris - her great-uncle)

Michael Wilding (an actor)

Mike Todd (film producer, killed in a plane crash while she was married to him)

Eddie Fisher (Mike Todd's best friend, whom she stole from Debbie Reynolds, his wife at the time)

Richard Burton (for whom she left Eddie Fisher, they met on the set of Cleopatra, one of the biggest clunkers of a movie ever made)

Richard Burton (she married him twice, hence the two photographs - younger and older)

Senator John Warner

Larry Fortensky (a construction worker whom she met at the Betty Ford Clinic - they were married at Michael Jackson's Neverland ranch)

And if you already knew all that, and you're a guy - you are SOOO gay.

{hint to treasure hunters - only the Beginner teams got this hint : There are three different ways to solve this puzzle. One is to look at the map for an interesting little intersection, one is logical, and one is trivial. In the logical and trivial methods, numbers become letters.}

The easiest way to solve this puzzle was to key in on the fact that these were Elizabeth Taylor's husbands, in groups separated by a genie's lamp. Could that genie be - Aladdin?  If you got that, and looked on the map, you might notice that there was an Aladdin Alley in the sector - and that it is accessible only from Taylor Street!

If teams didn't get that (and I don't think any did), then the required "aha" insights were that the images needed to be ordered, then added up, then changed into letters of the alphabet (1=A, 2=B, ... 25=Y, 26=Z).

In order to order the images, you could either figure out the order from Elizabeth Taylor trivia, if you knew anything about her (Beginner teams didn't need to do this - they were given the ordering above the clue). Or, if you didn't know anything about Elizabeth Taylor, it was still possible to order the images using logic - we told all the divisions that the images were in order in each grouping (that is, separated by the genie's lamp).

For example, give the images letters in the order in which they appear in the puzzle. In that case

A	F	E	D	B	C	H	G

From the groupings in the puzzle:

1. A < B < C

2. A < E

3. F < E < D

4. A < B < G

5. A < F < D < B

6. E < D < B

7. D < C < H < G

so from 1 and 5, you have A < F < D < B < C

And from that and 7, you have A < F < D < B < C < H < G

And from that and 3, you have A < F < E < D < B < C < H < G

Once teams got the ordering correct, and did the math and number/letter substitutions, they got this message:

ALADDIN ALLEY

 

Beginner/Regular/Masters

1	spacer	1	+5	+6	spacer
A			12 = L

1	spacer	4		1	+3
A		D		4 = D

spacer	2	+3	+4	spacer	1
		9 = I

+5	+8	spacer	spacer	1	spacer
14 = N				A

1	+2	+4	+5	spacer	3
12 = L

+4	+5	spacer	5		4
12 = L			E

+6	+7	+8
25= Y

the images are in order within each grouping

What's protecting 33/35?

Ahhh, this was the third clue site where the environmental information teams needed went missing. At 35/37 Aladdin Alley, there had been a plaque screwed to the wall that said "Protected by German Shepherd Security Service" with a picture of a snarling dog.  When Game Control began to get calls from teams who were wandering around Aladdin Alley wondering what they were missing, Alexandra drove over there to find - NO SIGN!

We found out later that the people at that residence, who had lived there for 9 years, had MOVED OUT THE PREVIOUS WEEKEND. Yes, in between our last playtest, and the actual game, these long-term residents moved - and took their sign with them.

Sheesh!