Game Summary:
This is Mike Holzbaur filling in for Rich Bragg, who normally writes these little synopses.  This was the first, and I am betting only, game that our fearless leader missed due to a previous commitment.  This game, as you can guess by the title, was based on the Zelda legends of video game lore.  The pregame clues included, among other things, playing a custom quest of the original Zelda game (very cool), and solving an interesting puzzle that involved five Links (the hero of the Zelda legend) walking in patterns across the computer screen.  The game itself was very challenging and we knew we were in for a battle after receiving the first clue in third place and then proceeding to leave the first clue site pretty much last.  However, again we can note that we actually had the highest pregame score without cheating: the first two teams actually hacked the code on the preclue Zelda game to give themselves more heart containers.  At least we are consistent in our pattern of being fast starters…

After the first clue we were given a list of hints to help us with each clue based on Zelda lore.  The only problem was that the hints were not in order and sometimes there was a great deal of guessing as to which hint fit the problem at hand.  We began to move towards the front of the pack as the first day went on into the night, thanks to our internet support team on clues like the book puzzle.  However, clues like the Game of Life and the astronomy clue (despite having star charts and the solution – HMBRD VISTA?) put us just behind the lead pack come Sunday morning.  Rich became available as internet support by midnight on Saturday and helped us from his home in any way he could from then on.  We pulled through Sunday despite some difficulties with how to break clay and finished time-wise in 6th place (not counting any time penalties we might have incurred).  I personally had a blast and we did much better this time as a team – experience in this stuff is somehow both invaluable and worthless.

Team Members:  Chris Cheng, Robert Cheng, Mike Holzbaur, Scott Krueger, Kate Saul
Internet Support Team:  Maya Adam, Rich Bragg, Steve Holzbaur, Beverly Tang
Start Time:  Saturday, October 27, 9:30 AM
Finish Time:  Saturday, October 28, 8:00 PM (unofficially)
Clues:  Solved 18 of 20 clues (one we skipped at the recommendation of GC, the other we lacked the resources, knowledge, and energy to solve at the time)
Result:  6th out of 21 teams (unofficially - final results were never posted)