Link
Got it! Thanks, Surf :D
Also, it just occurred to me that we haven't picked locations for our WCGs so we should probably do that real quick… ^^'


Activities
I love the forums! But historically I feel like people tend to avoid those. We'll probably have better luck with a project. I can try coding it if necessary?


Description
No burning desire as such—go to town! XD


PFPs
They look gorgeous, Surf! Here's my form >:D

Recca / purple and black / #d69d70 should do? / World's most common dark brown / Black, wavy bob that ends slightly over my shoulders. Kinda like yours but poofier / Sweater (sweater in a lake, HA. They're comfy, though) and the color…pink, I think. / If you're smirk, and Snowy's smile, then I'll be grin! / YES make ‘em FANCY / Earrings. Teardrop shaped, dangle, aaaand…blue. / For the colors, you can choose any shade you think looks good—I trust your sense of contrast and I’m really not that picky XD


Scavenger Hunt
I think it'd be easier to plan for having the clues send them directly to the next location…? Which is why I'm more inclined towards that for now.

WCG Locations
Oh yeah! We could make them be different tents in the camp or as different locations themselves, like the fire pit… either could work

PFPs
Awesome, I'll get started on these

Activities

SnowdropSugar wrote:

One idea I had just now is to end it with like a puzzle box to open the cabin memory book thing, and then when they reach it, if they fly through everything, we can just add more to that, so it's a very easy story update that keeps it pretty consistent but also allows us to be flexible with camper activity?

Oooh I was rereading the forums and had missed this earlier–I love this idea! it'll help keep the activities a lot more paced. Would we move the kayak activity before the scavenger hunt, then, or have it as a break between the clues?

Here's what we have so far for the scavenger hunt!
Clue 1) ?
Follow a lakeside trail until you find a rock with blue paint
?Activity: Spend thirty minutes outdoors
Clue 2)

WCG groups
WAIT TENTS SOUND FUN. WHAT IF WE HAVE LIKE. MEGATENTS.

Snowy's Mega-tent (WCG). Surf's Mega-tent (WCG). Recca's mega-tent (WCG). Think about it. Completely nonsensical. Serves the purpose beautifully.


Design
Snowy, thoughts on a More Sugar + FF Providence Sans font combo? Looks like this:



Scavenger Hunt
Should we start the first one with something relatively easy?

How about you guys give this one a shot and let me know what you think :>
LULV RQ VWRQH, ULYHUVLGH WKURQH

HI GUYS!! SORRY FOR NOT RESPONDING-
Homework this week has been crazyyy and I felt a little sick after spending too long on screens yesterday, haha. Anyway!

Activities
Fair enough about the forums! So project it is, then? If you'd like to code it, go ahead! Also happy to help out with that however I can, if you need it, but feel free to if you're interested <3

WCG Locations
MEGATENTS YES!! I love this idea, and it would just be the perfect amount of silliness

Scavenger Hunt
Hmmm. That's a good idea. Perhaps we could move it before, since the scavenger hunt does feel a bit more like a closure activity/the climax, and it might be kind of strange to have it come too early.

Perhaps the first thing could be a Caesar shift? It's a fairly simple code, and it's also one that we've all agreed upon, right?

THE PROJECT IS SO GOOD, OH MY GOODNESS! I did indeed decode it but will not spoil it, haha <3

Are we thinking of giving them this project or just leaving them to wonder if it's a keyboard smash? I personally think it might be nice to let them try at first, and then if they don't get it, then we could give them hints that get progressively more…I can't remember the word for it, but that bring them closer to the solution

If we were to start with the Caesar shift, then our scavenger hunt could look like the following:

CLUE ONE:
–> starts: Real-Fi cabin/map project
–> clue: Caesar shift which, when translated, takes them on the path of the lakeside trail
–> ends: rock with blue paint

CLUE TWO:
–> starts: rock with blue paint
–> clue/challenge: x people must spend 30 minutes outdoors to complete the challenge! (I think this probably would depend on camper activity in general, ahaha)
–> ends: ?

Coming back to a few locations we talked about earlier!

Fictionally speaking:
• In a hollow in a tree
• Buried…somewhere
• Underwater in the shallow part of the lake or attached to the bottom of the dock?

For actual places they'd find the clues:
• Our (co)leader apps
• Bios
• Volunteer profiles
• Previous cabins we've (co)led
• Previous fourth weeklies

I forgot—did we end up deciding what the ultimate “treasure” would be? Because if not, we should probably figure that out

Design
WAIT, YES, that's actually kind of what I was thinking for font vibes, ahaha- I think they look perfect!

WCG Locations
Ooh yeah megatents are awesome!

Scavenger Hunt
Woah Recca I love that clue!

I’m not sure about what the final treasure could be, what are you guys thinking?

I agree with letting the campers try out decoding the clue first—we could always supply hints so things move along faster

Sorry for the shorter post, my day was pretty hectic :’)

Scavenger Hunt
Ooh, wait, so one other thought is that we could have the treasure be the cabin memory book? We would be releasing it a few days earlier, if we did, but that's one possibility?

Other
Forgot to post this yesterday, but my schedule for the rest of the week!

Monday (today): Robotics
Tuesday: Robotics, improv test, speech tryouts (aaa-)
Wednesday: Robotics
Thursday: Chinese presentation test, history midterm, robotics
Friday: Lang test, chem test, friends sleeping over at my house <3
Saturday: Friends staying over until like midmorning or whatever

Yeah, so this week is going to be crazy hectic for me, but hopefullyyy I won't get homework over break, so then I can spend a little more time on all this stuff and can write the description on like Saturday or something…

Scavenger Hunt
Sure, that idea sounds great!!
Maybe the third clue could be a substitution cipher? if that’s too difficult, maybe they could unlock a letter clue every set number of words they write, or just allow for a couple hints

PFPs
I finished these—let me know if I should change anything! https://scratch.mit.edu/projects/1183234864/editor/

Other
Tuesday-Thursday: tennis games every day but only a few tests
Friday: nothing as of now!
Saturday: studying

Sorry for not responding, but things will be less hectic for me here on out!

Profile pictures
Oh Surf, it's beautiful! I LOVE it >:D


Scavenger Hunt
Okay, I think we all agree on having the treasure be the cabin memory book, then! We can make choosing a song one of the activities (pick a song you like/feel best represents you/the cabin etc. etc.) to compile in the playlist for later, like a surprise >:)

Since clue one is a puzzle, and clue two is an activity, I think clue three should be another puzzle. We can alternate between them?

Surf, expanding on a substitution cipher, what if we used symbols or emoticons this time? That's a lot easier and faster than a substitution cipher, though—I'm not sure if it'd be as satisfying.

Perhaps if we added another layer to it? Making it a sort of multi-step puzzle?

• = 1
■ = 5
★ = 10

In this case, each symbol corresponds to a number, and the sum of the symbols corresponds to which letter of the alphabet, so

■••• ■ ★•• ★•• ★■

would spell out HELLO.

That's incredibly cumbersome to encode AND decode, though, so we're dumping this in the bin until we're completely out of ideas.

Another idea I had was Morse code. What if we put together a random jumble of words, but the number of syllables corresponds to dots/dashes? So like:

cat/jump/run/walk boop one/keyboard/two/dots things/only/I/find funny/chicken/dancer

one/one/one/one one one/two/one/one one/two/one/one two/two/two

…. . .-.. - - -

H E L L O

It's incredibly nonsensical and basically a gigantic eyesore (it took me three tries to convince myself to read over my own work RIP) but since its based on an existing code…?

You know what, maybe we'll save this one for when we're discussing super hard puzzles.

SAFER, SANER, MORE REASONABLE IDEAS:
- The substitution cipher's tricky, but we can probably drop enough hints along the way. Besides, anyone who's read enough Sherlock Holmes knows the most frequent letters include ETAOIN SHRUDL which is why you should always start from those.

- Emojis or symbols!

- Riddles! Preferably in the form of limericks >:)

Activities
I agree with alternating for each clue! Maybe the song activity could be the fourth clue? If we are going to make it more of a surprise, how are we going to ask the campers if they’d like to include any short writing snippets?

For the second clue, it could be leading the campers to a hole in a tree?

Using symbols or emojis would probably be the best idea! Were you thinking that it would be more alphabetical, like ⛺️= t or = c?
Those other codes look really cool though—we could definitely save them for the harder puzzles

sorry if this makes no sense it is early

Profile Pictures
SURF, THEY'RE SO PRETTYYY <333

Scavenger Hunt
Ooh, good idea about the songs, Recca, and I agree with Surf about it being the fourth clue/challenge?

Surf: Good point on the writing snippets thing. Maybe we could just try and be vague? Like, “Hey, we're looking to showcase camper writing this month, so if you've got any short snippets of writing you're proud of, please share them with us!” or something like that? That way we don't give them too many details as to what it is exactly but it's enough to like. Make them maybe want to participate?

Hole in a tree sounds perfect!

I actually love the idea of a multi-step puzzle! I think if we wanted to include it later to close it off (like build up to the difficulty and such), then it would be super cool. Personally, I love the ones you talked about! The first one you mentioned really reminds me of the binary code thing, like

• • • • • (Each of the dots being a zero or one)
1 2 4 8 16

And then turned to numbers in on/off to total the number of the letter in the alphabet, so “hello” would look like

00010 10100 00110 00110 11110

So far, here's what it seems like we've got, just to consolidate:

CLUE ONE:
–> starts: Real-Fi cabin/map project
–> clue: Caesar shift which, when translated, takes them on the path of the lakeside trail
–> ends: rock with blue paint

CLUE TWO:
–> starts: rock with blue paint
–> clue/challenge: x people must spend 30 minutes outdoors to complete the challenge! (I think this probably would depend on camper activity in general, ahaha)
–> ends: hole in a tree

CLUE THREE:
–> starts: hole in a tree
–> clue: (a puzzle of some sort, maybe emoji/symbol substitutions)
–> ends: ?

CLUE FOUR:
–> starts: ?
–> challenge: Name a song or two you like! Make sure they're Scratch-appropriate.
–> ends: ?

Anyway. I mainly do this because I'm impossibly scatterbrained at times and will probably lose track of this otherwise.

Okay, since I forgot to talk about this earlier, riddles and emoji/symbol substitutions both look great!

I think another thing we should start thinking about is assigning the locations to the actual places (like the projects or whatever) where they'll find the clues, perhaps?

Cabin Relationships
Cat has asked me if we'd like to be hostile neutrals with Fantasy this session! Once again, totally open to pretty much anything cabin relationships-wise, but just wanted to check with you all <3

So far, for reference, we are allies with Thriller and hostile neutrals with Mag-Real!

Scavenger hunt

Thanks for the list, Snowy—it certainly makes things a lot easier! XD

So we need to find a location for the third clue to lead to, and a puzzle that corresponds with it. Since the fourth clue is about songs, what if we make the location somewhere near a bonfire?

I'll loop back to the corresponding on-site location things later when I'm less sleepy, RIP


Cabin Relationships
Hmm—since we're already hostile neutrals with Mag-Real, should we fill out a friendly neutral slot with Fantasy instead? If Cat's alright with it? Otherwise, hostile neutrals sounds perfectly fine >:)

Scavenger Hunt
Ooh, near the bonfire sounds good to me! Surf, thoughts on this?

Locations from earlier:
• Volunteer profiles
• Previous cabins any of us have led/co-led
• SWC big house
• Previous fourth weeklies
• Leader apps
• WCGs
• Bios

So maybe the blue painted rock could be Surf's leader app (because of the blue theme and all that), and then the hollow in the tree could be…I don't know, it could be the big house or something?

Maybe for the last clue, it could lead them to the fourth weekly from last session (MemorieSWC) because of the memories theme?

Cabin Relationships
Sounds good! I'll let them know one way or the other when Surf responds.

Also, Ava has asked if we'd like to be enemies with Sci-Fi!

Cabin Relationships
either friendly/hostile neutrals sound fine! and enemies with sci-fi would be fun

Locations
Yeah I like the idea of the bonfires for the fourth clue!
Hmm we might be better off not using the big house so nothing gets buried, maybe we could change the location to something that fits the possible locations better?
Ooh tying it back to MemorieSWC could be cool! We would probably have to be more specific about this location though, so newer campers wouldn't get confused

Rough Schedule
just to get a better idea of the timeframe–

* = camper or campwide messages
• = events

* September ~1-2 days before camp: camper signup messages
• November 1-5: Opening days
- 5k as a cabin to set up the tents
- time capsule prep (featured short writing snippets)
• November 1: share pfps project
* November 5: set session goals? cabin wars #1 reminder
• November 6-13: Kayaking
- Prompt exchange
- Mad Libs
• November 14-29: Scavenger hunt
- Campers are given clues and find the “treasure”
* November 20: goals check-in, cabin wars #2 reminder
• November 29-30: Bonfire
- Cabin memory book/time capsule released
- Rose/bud/thorn
* December 1: add any writing you've had from the session

Cabin Relationships
Enemies with Sci-fi sounds fine ^^

Locations
Agree with Surf on The Big House—it's probably for the best if we stick to older projects and stuff. Speaking of which, are we sure we want to branch out to locations that aren't directly tied to our cabin? MemorieSWC sounds fun, but it's still a…hmm. Communal? Sort of place? Basically, I'm not sure whether it'd be completely appropriate to use it for our in-cabin activities ^^'

Rough Schedule
Yep, I think that's pretty much it :0

I'M SO SORRY, THIS DIDN'T SHOW UP IN MY INBOX-

Cabin Relationships
Got it! I'll let them both know <3

One more thing: Thoughts on being neutrals with Psycho-Fi? And if so, do we have thoughts on whether we'd like friendly, hostile, or just truly neutral with them?

Locations
Yeah, that's definitely a good point, Surf. We could perhaps put it in a description or one of our bios or something?

About MemorieSWC: Yeah, for sure on both of your points. If we ultimately decided we wanted to use it, we'd definitely want to check with whoever shared the project (I forgot who it was), and we'll probably want to make sure we give enough context, maybe present the cabin earlier in the session so that everyone knows it exists and then we can link it to the theme or something? But if we find a better idea, then we could always just like. Ditch this one, haha

Rough Schedule
YAY, thank you so much, Surf! This is perfect!

Other
Okay, finally, my schedule for the week! It's Saturday here, but I figured I'd just do this now while I'm thinking about it.

Saturday (today): My friends just left from our sleepover, so nothing else is on the agenda except a little packing and homework
Sunday: Church
Monday: Leaving for Malaysia
Tuesday: In Malaysia
Wednesday: In Malaysia
Thursday: Coming back to Singapore
Friday: Taking family photos for our Christmas cards, piano lesson
Saturday: Absolutely nothing, thank goodness

I don't have school this week, by the way, so I should be more free! When I'm in Malaysia, I won't be bringing my laptop, but I'll respond on my phone as best as I can!

Okay, a few more things! Do you all have a quick description of your appearance I could use for the introduction? Just so I know what to highlight to differentiate us, haha

And when you get a chance, would you all send a quick introduction of yourselves (50–100 words, thereabouts) for the description?

Cabin Relationships
Maybe true neutrals?

Locations
It might be better if we make the locations explicitly (or at least more closely) tied to the online locations? I just think it might be a bit too hard for campers to find, for example, my leader app from the blue rock clue unless there is some other hint. I could put “look for a blue rock in a blue project…” in my bio or something similar so campers don't have to search everywhere looking for a clue, and maybe the clue for a campfire could be part of the real-fi cabin desc? we could use the wcg groups too (to put the actual clues or to indicate another location–either could work)

Short desc
basically just my pfp! brown hair, gray-ish green eyes, dressed in baggy green pants

I'll work on the introduction and have it done by today

PFPs themed project name
any ideas? I was thinking the camp store, or any other themed name

Schedule
Sunday: meeting, studying
Monday: tennis
Tuesday: appt after school
Wednesday-Friday: lots of tests
Saturday: studying

Cabin Relationships
Update: So seeing as Fantasy already has two friendly neutrals, Cat has asked if we'd like to be true neutrals with them instead! A couple of possible things we could do, given the situation with Psycho-Fi as well

1. True neutrals with both but stay on the lookout for friendly neutrals
2. True neutrals with Fantasy, ask for friendly neutrals with Psycho-Fi
3. Go with hostile neutrals for Fantasy and ask for friendly neutrals with Psycho-Fi

Thoughts on all of this? I'm leaning toward 2 or 3 just to balance things out, but honestly, neutrals requires less of a balance than allies and enemies, so it's not that big of a deal to me either way.

Locations
Ooh, combo-ing (is that a word?) with the bios would be good! We'll definitely want to make sure that we're making the different things obvious enough that we don't NEED to give them hints, so just as long as we can balance the difficulty, I think we'll be alright.

At the campfire/in the description sounds good as a location as well! Depending on the location we make the cabin guide (if we do a brief one—I forgot, are we doing this?), then we could throw that in as well!

Description
Got it! Thank you <3

Themed Project
Ooh, yes, I love that! The camp store would fit perfectly for sure.

Other
Aaa, good luck on the studying and tests, Surf! <333

Cabin Relationships
Maybe 3?

Bio for Description

Hi! I’m Surf (they/she), and I’m a high school student who loves to read, write, play tennis, make art, and bake! I love science and geology, and I’m also fond of spending time outdoors and hiking. I’m very excited to be co-leading Real-Fi this session and can’t wait to get to know everyone <3

Thumbnail Design
Recca, I built off some of the thumbnails you designed in the canva and started on the WCG thumbnails. Any thoughts? (I'm not sure how to link photos into the forums, do you have to use an image sharing website?)

Cabin Guide
Not sure! There isn't a lot of complicated cabin-related info so I don't think it would be necessary for that, though there could always be a short general overview of SWC for any newer campers? It depends on how quickly we can finish general storyline planning

Kayaking Event Prompts
We probably need an intro description for this event! Should it be in third person form (sort of like the storyline intro)?

To help your team kayak towards the finish line, your WCG should complete one (? or maybe they could complete two of them so it takes longer, but it could be whichever they choose and repeats are allowed?) of following activities:
Prompt exchange: Exchange prompts with your fellow campers in the Real-Fi Retreat–then, create a 300 (?) word story, incorporating details from a different prompt every 100 words!
exchanging prompts and incorporating each one into a story every 200ish words
Mad Libs: Partner up with someone from your WCG! Each one of you will write a 30+ (?) word template for mad libs, and fill out each other's! Once you've both revealed the final story, write a 250 word (?) story based on the events of your mad libs!

Not sure about the specific word amounts, feel free to change anything

Other
Thanks have fun on your trip!

Cabin Relationships
Alright! We'll just wait on Recca to confirm this, but that sounds good with me <3

Bios for Description
Thanks! <3

Thumbnail Design
I'm pretty sure you can link an image here using the image function and it will upload the picture on Scratch! I think it's not letting me post it because I said the website of what it is (it should still let you upload the picture, though), but it is the 3D form of a square plus the opposite of download that I said in parentheses just now.

If it doesn't work, would you send me the link to the thing that you use to design the thumbnails, and I'll see if I can pop on really fast?

Sorry for going about saying everything in a really roundabout way here, sobs- Scratch is not letting me post the stuff otherwise

Cabin Guide
Okay, so maybe we leave this as like a last priority? If we don't have time for it, then it's not a big deal, but it'd be nice to have if we have the opportunity to make it.

Maybe the main things we'd want here would just be like

• What is SWC?
• What are dailies?
• What are weeklies?
• What are cabin wars?
• How do I add words?
• What counts for words?

I think our information is fairly self-explanatory outside of that, right? Like the writing comp, critiquitaire, word wars, etc. are all also described elsewhere, and we don't have overly complicated activities, I think.

Kayaking Event Prompts
This looks good! I think we'll see how active our campers are and then we can decide whether we want one or two activities for this.

A couple small things:

1. Just to clarify, the prompt exchange is an individual activity, right? I think we should probably specify that a little more in the description of it.
2. I think for Mad Libs, we'll definitely want a larger template—I want to say that most of them will be 50–100 words instead, based off my prior knowledge of the game.

I think the exact word amounts of the stories can definitely change based on how active our cabin seems to be. I think this is a good baseline, but if we need more to stretch it out a little more, then we can always change it closer to the date!