How to Prepare

Before The Game

Many clues involve pattern recognition. This includes recognition of numbers standing for letters, letters standing for letters, letters standing for numbers, numbers standing for numbers, and symbols standing for letters. Examples of helpful items to study or bring with you:

  • the periodic table
  • alphabet and corresponding position in the alphabet
  • cipher codes, Caesar cipher
  • Roman numerals
  • Binary code
  • Morse code
  • Semaphore
  • how to read music
  • number sequences like Fibonacci or pi
  • anything else you can think of

Clues can also involve trivia or require knowledge (putting american presidents in order, knowing how to read music, knowing common brand logos, knowing the authors of famous novels/quotes, etc.) Here's a link to an old clue-solving tutorial from one of the Stanford Games.

Check out the practice clues here

Other Tips While Playing

  • More complex clues often involve multiple layers of pattern recognition and knowledge of trivia (e.g. a clue that provides a list of american presidents, you have to put them in order, and then for each of the Nth presidents in the list, take the Nth letter in his name, put them together and you have the answer)
  • Sometimes you may need to look things up on the internet. You can bring a laptop and hope for free wi-fi spots, use a smart phone, or have a list of friends who you can call to look things up for you
  • About half of the destinations in the game are pretty well known, so bringing a San Francisco guidebook of some sort can be helpful
  • If you really get stuck, feel free to call Game Control. Sometimes getting a hint and 20 minute penalty is better than spinning your wheels for 40 minutes
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