London PCAG event

Please add links to your photo galleries below! If you need a login, ask in #syzygy and someone will create one for you. Also...we will be co-opting players' images for this page, so keep an eye out for your photos!

General

• On Saturday, Feb. 25, players gathered in London for the much-anticipated PCAG competition, the follow-up to the New York PCAG event
• 25-35 people turned up for "Brunchfast", a pre-event social at JD Weatherspoon's pub (though no one brought a pink balloon, the pre-determined identification symbol)
• Meanwhile, nine players and representatives crammed themselves into a phone booth at Trafalgar Square for publicity shots with a professional photographer (by the way, the world record is 14)
• Doors opened at 12 PM for signing in 200 individuals, broken into groups of six (38 teams total)
• After an introduction by Adrian, the games began at 1 PM
• Goods including t-shirts, starter packs, mugs and posters were available for sale
• Each team received one special, light blue PCAG bag, and every participant received a PCAG Leitmark
• The members of the winning team received clear cubes as prizes
• After the games concluded, the top 8 teams were taken to the London Eye, where they intercepted a conversation in morse code, flashed with torches on either side of the river
• Later, everyone retired to the Horse and Groom pub on Great Portland Street for social interaction lubricated by alcohol

The Games

• Players received on Perplex City bag per team, containing a folder with challenge and information sheets
• Teams had until 4:00 PM to complete as many challenges on the sheet as possible. This included:
  • Taking phone camera pictures of the task as evidence and sending them in via MMS
  • Having helpers visually verify tasks
  • and texting base camp if the challenge could be answered in words
• Teams would also receive trivia texts throughout the day, with points for each correct answer
• Other texts would be sent out if a new challenge was happening close by

Challenge sheets

• 16 questions requiring observation from walking round an area of central London (a triangle between Leicester Square, Trafalgar Square and Picadilly Circus) that we had to text back to HQ for varying amounts of points (10-40). With hindsight the questions were in a good walking order, although those that did it backwards didn't get waylaid by the anti terrorism march and demonstration. (340 points)

Photo evidence

• Six photo questions that required you to MMS photos of your team in various locations (360 plus open-ended 5 points per letter photo)

SMS trivia questions

• Eight trivia questions texted through the day (7x20 + 1x10 = 150)

National Gallery trail

• A special National Gallery section that gave cryptic clues for a trail through the gallery with a bumper 250-point question at the end to tempt us. Also to be texted. (370 points)

Ranger verification

• Two questions requiring you to be witnessed either singing as a choir or playing video games (180)

Base camp

• Two questions that required you to compete against other teams building a biscuit tower or spelling backwords (60 plus open-ended 10 points per letter spelling).

Spot challenges

• Three or four other tasks texted through the day, including choir practice, Wacky Races and a conga line

Final challenge

• The final task was to purchase the largest object possible for £1, with receipt
  • The undisputed* winner of the biggest item for £1 was the toilet roll bought by the CRT (Cube ReCoventry Team). With two 2-ply rolls for the bargain price of £0.95, and weighing in at an amazing 119.04 metres long, or 13.09 square metres in area, it truly was value for money! Toilet roll runs from left to right through the far doors in the photo and then some way up the stairs.
    • (*may not have actually won!)

Results

Rank	Team name	Points scored
1	The Puzzle Monkeys	1200
2	Perplex Monkeys	1072
3	Logic, Intelligence and excellance	1062
4	The Cube ReCoventry Team	1017
5	Team Jazz Hands	1002
6	Serpentine Road	962
7	Good Guys, Bad guys 'n' explosions	957
8	Reservoir Frogs	937
9	Chic Geeks	892
10	Random Genius	880
11	Anglo Irish Contingent	827
12	Simba's Waffles	772
13	NorfolkFour	762
14	The Klatchian Foreign Legion	752
15	The Red Folks	752
16	The Argonauts	745
17	Muddled to the power of 5	727
18	The Sharkheads	720
19	The Minkies	707
20	The Wildcards	702
21	The Roofers	672
22	Viridian	665
23	Team Cambridge	637
24	Exit, pursued by a bear	617
25	thekipsclubb	615
26	The Goodies	612
27	lippy yank	590
28	kalimotxo	527
29	Smarties	492
30	The IT Crowd	465
31	Hunters with attitude	455
32	Sigma Chi	450
33	Noumenon9	435
34	Violet-Harlow	425
35	Lill Baz	390
36	The Bells	305
37	The Deadly Viper Assassination Squad	300
38	And so it begins	290

Facts

• 127 people in the conga line
• 3830 texts sent out
• 1153 texts recieved
• 27276 points earned
• 2 things going completely wrong
  • The first was that culture wardens in Trafalgar Square wouldn't allow any "professional" filming of the events around Nelson's Column.
  • The second was the huge angry protest march which gathered in Trafalgar Square, *on* Nelson's Column...about 30 seconds before the Conga Challenge started right in front of them.
• 0 arrests
• £1 challenge:
  • 5 people sold for £1
  • 3 countries
  • 3 newspapers
  • 1 toilet paper roll

Photographs

Please add a link to your photo galleries here. When adding images on flickr, be sure to tag them pcaglondon

• LHall's flickr photoset
• Mikey_J's flickr photoset
• number9dream's flickr photoset
• Daemon Kirjava's flickr photoset part one and part two
• guy_p's flickr photoset
• sotonrich's flickr photostream
• skenmy's flickr photoset
• buzman's flickr photoset
• amliag's flickr photoset
• brat-sampson's flickr photostream
• Gibbet's flickr photoset (No kloos here!)
• Crys's flickr photostream
• sherpa's flickr photostream

References

• Joystiq.com - "Gamers, flash mobs, and London -- the Perplex City Academy Games"

• Yembles' blog walkthrough of the PCAG for the team 'The Sharkheads'