Early on in last Sunday's
MouseAdventure event, one team gave us their opinion in a
brief, elegant phrase. "You suck," they said. I'll leave it as
an exercise for the individual teams to decide if this was heartfelt, or
good-natured ribbing.
Best New Team: The Tastyabbot Staff
- Scott, Judy, & Bill
On the good news front, MouseAdventure continues to grow in
popularity, with this being our biggest event so far. 71 teams
registered for the event and over 220 players tackled our game. As
always, a surprising number of those 220 played while pushing strollers
or convincing young children that spending 15 minutes reading a sign in
Fantasyland is indeed a fun way to spend a day in the park.
And, hopefully, it was a fun day at the park; despite the bad news of
the day. One of the hardest parts of creating an event like this is
accurately judging how difficult it will be. While it has always been
our intent to create an event difficult enough that many teams will not
be able to finish everything, we overshot the mark this time and created
an event few teams were able to complete.
Best Team Spirit: The
Gurglesmooshes - Megan, Amber, Elise, & Brady
As the primary figure in the creation of the event this time around,
I want to let everybody know that you've been heard, and we'll
definitely loosen the reins on the next MouseAdventure in April.
Otherwise, the game went off
without a hitch (even if evil Clog Dancers did evict us from
our normal home in Carnation Gardens) and for the first in written
history (all 12,000 years of it) we actually began the award ceremony on
time. All our readers will be happy to know that you can, indeed, fit
250 people, some strollers, and random diners (who may have come to
regret their selection of a turkey leg lunch) into Fantasia Gardens.
Keep this in mind for you next family reunion. Finally, we for once
succeeded in selecting a date for the event on which Anaheim was not
blasted to about 176 degrees; a nice overcast persisted throughout the
game and kept things cool.
3rd Place, Quests Only: The Yippies
- Melissa, Carrie, Doug, & Chenin
3rd Place, Combined: Squirrels
A-head - Joseph, Cindy, Matt, & Rose
Before going further, I
would like to thank all the MousePlanet staff that helped with the
design and execution of the event. Dan Steinberg, Andrew Rich, and
Jennifer Rich were a constant help during the game and helped make sure
that the game we had created was actually possible to complete.
In addition to helping on game day, the Krocks (Kevin, Adrienne,
Spencer, and Matthew) were kind enough to let me sleep on their floor
during several extra visits to the area. Tony Phoenix, Adrienne
Vincent-Phoenix, Kevin Yee, and Sheila Hagen were kind enough to help
create several of the quests.
And finally, I have to thank my wife, Lani Teshima, for putting up
with me when things got tense, for correcting my poor grammar, and for
doing the publishing of the game so that it looked as great as it always
does. I can't thank this group of friends and colleagues enough.
2nd Place, Quests Only: MoUSCeteers
- Ralph, Patti, Gordie, & Nick
2nd Place, Combined: Sebastian's
Crab Shack (& Lawyers)
Lisa, Christian, Stephanie, and Andris
And thank you to every MouseAdventure player and every child who put
up with Mommy and Daddy's three hours of seeming insanity. This event
couldn't exist without all of you, and it is great to meet you all.
Everytime we do this, I say to myself on Saturday that I never want to
do this again. After hearing all the feedback and kind words from the
players (even when it's negative), I end Sunday wishing I could do it
again next week.
Despite the difficulty, there were
still many amazing performances. One team, Main Street
Monopoly (#58), went a perfect 10 out of 10 on the EyeSpy pictures
(could you so easily identify the ashtray from the Fantasyland
smoking area?) and another team successfully answered over two-thirds of
the trivia questions (Team #9) with several teams on their heels.
Finally, I have to say that many of you are just way too good at tearing
things into pretty shapes.
1st Place, Quests Only: Amanda,
Joe, & David
1st Place, Combined: The Denton
Affair - Steve, Laurie, & Chelsie
Thank you all, and
please don't be shy with your comments, complaints, and compliments.
E-mail me at mouseadventure@mouseplanet.com.
The following page will give complete
results for each team. All team photos will be available as we can
upload them.
I hope to see you all, plus some, in April! [We'll have to wait for
an official Clog Dancer announcement before giving a date.]
Alex Stroup
MouseAdventure Coordinator
