WARNING: SPOILERS AHEAD
PRIMARY WALKTHROUGH
PRIMARY took place in Lower Manhattan and consisted of 5 puzzles and 5 (Technically there were 7 but two of them are next to previous locations).
Teams found only QR codes, either magnetized or stickers at all locations. At the final destination, a treasure chest was hidden under an aquarium rock. Hiding a physical object in NYC is HARD, so QRs and the treasure chest were well hidden.
STAGE 1
To get teams out of their apartments and into the wild, the opening puzzle consisted of a simple anagram followed by an on site scavenger hunt at Essex Market. Teams arrived shortly after 9:00am and begun their search for 12 pictures on site.
After finding the 12 images, teams had to take the Nth letter of the text that was removed on the image. This spelled: TOGO'S PARK L.F.L. Teams knew they were looking for something magnetized and many were successful in reaching under the metal roof of the Little Free Library to access the QR.
Togo's Park is called Seward Park and is a short walk from Essex Market. There is a statue of Togo (a dog) in the park which tripped up many teams who thought the QR would be out in the open and visible to the public.
The LFL was pained green with flowers on it, the same green and flowers shown in the clue under the instructions. Teams who recognized this had extra confirmation on where to look.
STAGE 1 LOCATIONS
STAGE 2
Stage 2 was a fan-favorite puzzle. This puzzle was intended to be a Stage 4 puzzle, but the location of the QR and the following stages made more sense to put this as Stage 2.
Since it was only stage 2, there were several motifs to get you to Google presidential pets. "WHITE HOUSE" was spelled in all caps in the instructions, as well as a nod to use a search engine to research this. Red White and Blue and the Eagle were extra references to get you thinking patriotically.
Seward Park, the previous stage, was purposefully chosen to give teams access to the Seward Park Library with computers and free internet.
Once teams uncovered that these pets lived in the White House, they needed to find which president was their owner and use the number president they were (GW = 1, etc.) to use an AZ126 cipher to spell out "HOPE BELL".
A quick Google would tell you that the Bell of Hope was located at St. Paul's Chapel near Fulton St.
Peggy at the bottom of the page was dressed as a grandma as she was called "Old Peggy" by her owner on the 10 dollar bill, Alexander Hamilton. On site, the grave of George Eacker, the man who fatally shot Alexander Hamilton's son was near a park bench. Under this bench was the next QR.
STAGE 2 LOCATION
STAGE 3
To balance out the heavy Googling of Stage 2, Stage 3 was intended to be a fun and familiar puzzle. A twist on a Sodoku but with letters. Once solved, the letters in the colored boxes represented the location to head to next "SPINNING SPRING ST PARK" As there were a few words that could be made out of SPINNING, the letters in the puzzle were also spinning.
At the park, teams had to find the spinning chairs and identify the correct QR.
For fun, dozens of decoy QR codes were planted on the spinning chairs that linked to GoldenPigeonNYC.com/WRONGQR. Teams might have realized by now that the correct QRs were bedazzled, and they could reach under the chairs to feel the gem stones of the correct QR.
STAGE 3 LOCATION
STAGE 4
Puzzle 4 was full of new ciphers and ways to solve a puzzle for teams. Most teams started with the chalk morse code, which spelled "POLE", a hint to the location of the QR code once on the correct site. Teams may have noticed that each problem had a prime number and this was Primary School Math Lessons. A quick google for "Prime Number Codes" led you to the Prime Number Cipher. This decoded to "Sticker", a double-meaning hint. "Sticker" was to get you to acknowledge the sticker on the book at the bottom of the page, as well as the actual QR was a sticker, found on a pole with dozens of other stickers on it.
The sticker on the black book on the bottom of the page was an ISBN Number for a book titled "The Answer". This was supposed to tell you that using an ISBN number was THE ANSWER and that you needed to use THE ANSWERS to the math problems as the ISBN.
Once you googled your solution as a string of numbers, The Manhattan Murder Well popped up. Just a few blocks away on Spring St. was a store that has the Manhattan Murder Well in the basement. I hope teams went inside to check it out -- amazingly, the First Murder Of USA that went to trial took place in the basement of a Cos store and the Well is still there.
The text on the page all referenced parts of the story of the murder -- the treasurer referencing Alexander Hamilton (again LOL) and the lawyer referencing Aaron Burr.
STAGE 4 LOCATION
STAGE 5
Stage 5 was a test of patience and perseverance for teams.
First, teams needed to decode the bottle's many ciphers, soon realizing that these were mostly not in English. After Google translating, teams found the message "The treasure is hidden somewhere in Hudson River Park. Caviar will show you the way."
Teams needed to find where caviar and fish were located somewhere along the 550-acre Hudson River Park. The correct solution was to find the Sturgeons at Pier 25's Science Playground, where fish were displayed with names of donors to the park. Unfortunately, many teams took this literally and went to Piers in the 50s and 60s looking for caviar restaurants. However, the seaweed on the puzzle also gave a subtle nod to the pier number, as it was a group of two and then a group of 6 = Pier 26.
Once teams saw the wall of fish donors, they knew they were in the right spot. They needed to find the correct fish and identify the first name or last name missing from the fish on the puzzle.
From there, teams were STUMPED. The winning team was stuck on this part of the puzzle for 5+ hours. Many teams arrived shortly after them and encountered the same problem. By the time the puzzle was solved after two bonus clues, there were 15 teams at Pier 25.
To correctly finish the puzzle, teams needed to think about the order of the rainbow, red = 1, orange = 2, etc., and index using that value depending on the color of the fish. This order = numbers was reflected throughout the hunt, with gemstones in rainbow order on each stage's QR and email response.
This fish spelled SKATE STAIRS. Three teams found the stairs next to the Skate Park at Pier 26 and searched the shrubbery. Only one team found the treasure under the aquarium rock pictured in the clue and claimed the prize.
STAGE 5 LOCATION
