WARNING: SPOILERS AHEAD
CHRONICLE WALKTHROUGH
CHRONICLE was a 5.5 stage puzzle taking place in parts of the Upper East Side and ending on Roosevelt Island.
Teams found QR codes, some with tricky hides, at all locations. At the final destination, a treasure chest was hidden under an aquarium rock.
STAGE 1
Stage One, also titled "Rebicle" or "Central Parkicle" was a simple puzzle to get teams on site. A map of central park with a red circle was intended to get teams heading to the first location -- lower central park. My intention with these puzzles is to get people who might live far away from the first location a chance to solve the rest of the puzzle on the train. From there, teams had to solve a Rebus puzzle to find where in the park the QR was hidden. The lines solved to weird phrases. An IPod with a circle around the play button was intended to be a nod to the fact that each line was a play. Once teams realized they were all descriptions of Shakespeare plays, they quickly identified that there was a Shakespeare statue in the red circle at the park. One of the highlights of my day was watching teams be confused by a band shooting a music video directly in front of the statue. Just a few feet away was a sign with a description of the statue with the QR code on the back.
STAGE 1 LOCATION
STAGE 2
Stage 2, titled, "Abraham Lincon-icle" was two parts: a poem with advice and two sets of zoomed in images. The poem's capitalized letters spelled " GROILER CLUB" which teams realized was a short walk from Central Park and featured an Abraham Lincoln: Life in Print exhibit. This was confirmed for teams by the "opens at 10" line, as the Groiler Club only opens to the public at 10:00. Leading teams were parked outside Groiler Club as early at 9:30 and some realized the collection could be found online and some images were able to be identified early.
Once inside, teams realized that each image had a number associated with it. After AZ126 the numbers, they spelled "LIFESIZE NYPL 58ST". After a google, teams found that there is a book called Lincoln Lifesize, which can be found on the "Oversized" books shelf. On the inner cover, a QR code was placed that led to the next puzzle.
I chose the Oversized book shelf thinking they were the least likely books to be checked out, and to my surprise there just so happened to be an Abraham Lincoln book there. How perfect.
Lots of people asked about this, but I did not inform the Groiler Club or the NYPL 58st of this puzzle -- I'm sure this is the most foot traffic they have had in one day.
Huge thank you to NYPL and Groiler Club for their patience and understanding. Also thank you to the wonderful GP hunters who were respectful of both spaces!
This was by far my favorite location in a GP hunt yet, I hope you all got to enjoy looking at the documents while searching :)
If you are wondering why presidents come up in Golden Pigeon puzzles a lot, it's because the Golden Pigeon loves Abraham Lincoln... a lot. I told some of you this, but I have google alerts turned on for "Abraham Lincoln NYC"
STAGE 2 LOCATION
STAGE 3
Stage 3, "Crosswordicle" is one of my favorite styles of puzzles, and based on an Instagram poll, it was the communities favorite puzzle too. A boat full of animals and a simple unnumbered crossword puzzle.
Many teams started by trying to populate the grid with the regular names of the animals but quickly realized they didn't fit in the grid right. After analyzing the winter background with a wood frame (Wardrobe leading to snowy Narnia) and thinking of ways this could be a "chronicle", teams were tipped of to start looking for Narnia characters that were animals. Once realizing that all of the animals pictured were a character in Narnia, they filled the grid in with their names and were left with three words "ADAMS SMITH WALL". Googling "ADAMS SMITH WALL NYC" led to the Mount Vernon Hotel.
A few teams noticed that the boat had a brick wall pattern that resembled the wall of the Mount Vernon Hotel and that the white circle looked an awful lot like the PVC pipes that came out of the wall. Funnily enough, teams were stumped and many didn't think to check out the one PVC pipe that was not like the others (the one with the PVC cap). In Golden Pigeon, everything is intentional. When I was scouting QR hides for this location, I brought a measuring tape and popped into the Home Depot across the street, bought a matching PVC cap, and super glued the QR to the inside.
It was really fun to watch how teams approached finding the QR in front of other teams. Some made human walls, some stuffed it in their pocket and walked away to snap a picture before returning it, and some were nice enough to share with the others.
Special shoutout to the staff of the Mount Vernon Hotel, who came out to help hunters look at one point. Again, I didn't ask for permission here, but they were so excited to hear about GP and even offered to be a host for a hunt in the future.
STAGE 3 LOCATION
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STAGE 4
Stage 4 puzzle stumped teams. Meant to be a simple puzzle with only three components, Crownicle, was a logic puzzle game (Game of Crowns). Once teams solved the puzzle, the locations of the crowns on the grid gave teams a 6 digit number. On the notepad next to it, a list of names titled "The Order". Teams noticed the names sounded awfully British, and were names of heirs to the throne (hinted at by the crown and throne on the page). Once identifying what number in line they were, teams AZ126 them to spell "Charter Number".
Now what? Many teams couldn't figure out what has a charter number and overlooked the little bookshelf image in the bottom corner. This was intended to represent "little library", but even if you looked up charter number + book, it would've taken you to the Free Little Library Lookup, where successful teams found that the charter number matched a nearby FLL on Roosevelt Island. On the bottom of the FLL, was the next QR code.
Teams probably will never forget that free little libraries have charter numbers, especially since this is the second free library to be feature in Golden Pigeon hunts.
STAGE 4 LOCATION
STAGE 5A
Stage 5 fooled some teams into thinking they were looking for the treasure -- but experienced teams or teams who have read previous walkthroughs know that the GP logo and fake rock is always pictured on the final clue. This puzzle was intended to get teams closer to the final location, and to add another location so teams could enjoy Roosevelt Island.
This puzzle, Episodeicle, was a TV show puzzle. Shown by the TV screen and remote, teams knew they were looking for a TV Show. But which one? Some teams were able to back into it by identifying one of the AI images like "Bermuda Love triangle", but some completed the semaphore that spelled " TV CHRONICLE", after googling TV shows that are chronicles, some teams stumbled across a TV show named CHRONICLE! How convenient!
After scanning through the episode list on wiki, teams saw that the episode titles were matches for the AI images. Using the given numbers, teams needed to index (aka book cipher) or take the number letter of the episode titles to get the next location.
It spelled BLUE DRAGON, a statue found on the southern side of Roosevelt Island.
The QR hint was a picture of "The Rock", so teams flipped over rocks in the vicinity of the statue until finding the QR, tapped to the bottom of a rock in a nearby flower bed.
My favorite interpretation of the rock clue, was that the star was placed on his arm, so it needed to be hidden in the "arm of the rock". Next to the statue was a rock wall that curved, and one team interpretated it as an arm. Unfortunately, that misled them and the rock was not near that, but I love the theory!
STAGE 5 LOCATION
STAGE 5B
The final puzzle! A quick one to say the least. Teams blew through this puzzle to find the final location of the treasure.
A basic spells word search using Hogwarts Spells and the words given left only a few letters behind. THE PW IS SPELLBOOK.
The instructions below told you to add that to the end of Golden Pigeons Website : GoldenPigeonNYC.com/spellbook, which took you to a NYT Connections website, made by the Tech Guild. A custom Golden Pigeon connections game when solved was: VOTERS, LAUNCH, CLUES and FINALE: USE What 3 Words. When teams used What 3 Words, a coordinate website, and plugged in the remaining other words, they found a 3 meter square on Roosevelt Island where the treasure was hidden safely in some long grass near the Cat Sanctuary. The best part of sitting at the final location for many hours (aside from meeting so many of you...) was the amazing company of the free roaming cats.
Special shoutout to the staff member at the Cat Sanctuary who was awfully concerned by many people searching near and on rocks (and even threatened to call public safety) until she found out about Golden Pigeon and even joined the fun to help the winning team search for the treasure. Sorry for the confusion! I hope she reads this. Pro tip: tell people its a treasure hunt and they will join.
Thanks for reading and hope you enjoyed Chronicle. As always, send me your thoughts -- the good and the bad. Would love to hear it.
STAGE 5B LOCATION
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