Behind the Scenes of the 2015 Allison Wonderland Mock Hunt

by Allison Wonderland

Some of you may be interested to know some of what happened behind the scenes of this hunt. It all started of course when the PP medallion was found and people were calling for a second hunt. I didn't believe the PP would do another one and some Cooler Crew people were suggesting an immediate mock hunt. I'm usually up for such a challenge so I was thinking about it, waiting to hear for sure what the PP would.

When they said they wouldn't, Jake called me and said we should do one. It was his idea to do two clues a day. I had a meeting that night I had to go to so we said we would meet up later to discuss where to put it. In the meantime Jake decided not to help, but later realized he had an idea of what I had in mind, so he didn't hunt either. So as I headed to my meeting, I knew I was on my own.

After the meeting, I actually started towards Indian Mounds with the medallion in hand. I'm not even sure why now, but as I was driving I suddenly decided to go to Highland instead. As someone on here guessed, I was looking for a park that people had already been digging in. Not to hide footprints, but because of how I wanted to hide the medallion. I wanted to find a spot someone had already cleared, and hide it under their pile of snow so that when people came looking at Highland, they would think that spot had already been checked.

I got to the park and went to the south side because parking was easier. I went up to the picnic grounds and found a pile of snow next to an area someone had swept clean. I stuck my shovel under the pile, lifted it up, and put the medallion underneath. Then I pressed down on the snow with my shovel and scraped a bit more onto the pile. With that I was out of there.

By the time I got home it was after 10pm. I started making a list of things I could use as clues. I knew I had to get at least the first clue written before bed so that I could post it in the morning and I did manage to do that while also keeping up with the details of the PP hunt.

So the next morning I post the first clue thinking I had been pretty clever and used some obscure references. Five minutes later the first response appeared. It was Valley Girl saying it must be in Highland because Highland used to be called Reserve Township. My hunt lasted 5 minutes and they had already figured out the park!

So there was a bit of panic there as I furiously set about trying to write the rest of the clues. I knew I wasn't going to fool anyone into thinking it was a different park, but there was one tactic that might work. The "Boomerang". Often I like to use the "Eclipse" strategy which is where you use a small park, but you write clues in such a way that they also kind of fit a big park and the little park hides behind the big park. This would be the inverse of that. I would use a big park, but make people think the big park was a decoy for a little park, when in fact the little park was the decoy.

Mattocks Park was my target. I knew it had a Charles Schultz connection as did Highland, it was sort of in the Highland area, and they both had a street named after a college. My goal was to try and lure some people there through the 1st six clues anyway and then maybe the hunt would have a decent chance. The second clue was meant to talk about the Peanuts connection, but also to sow some doubt about whether it was really at Highland, or was it just the decoy yet again.

That strategy kind of worked, except somehow people ended up at Hillcrest instead of Mattocks. They would have to tell you why. I've never been to Hillcrest.

That first day was a furious one of clue writing. I actually had all 12 clues written within 24 hours of the PP hunt being done. I did tweak the wording on some of the unreleased clues later on, but didn't make any major changes or alter the order of them.

And then it was just a matter of waiting to see how long it would go. It was interesting to watch this year because there was a lot more discussion on the PP boards than I usually get to see during a hunt. People came up with Highland in half a dozen different ways from the first clue, and only two were intentional. I think I see now why the PP doesn't use Highland. Everyone tends to go there and dig no matter what the clue actually says.

On the other hand, even though the Reserve Township and District 15 thing came up very early on, people started going to parks all over town anyway. It's amazing what power a vague phrase can have on splitting the masses.

But eventually people got back to Highland right about on schedule and the hunt almost made it to Clue 10 which I think is a pretty good length. So despite a crazy start, I think it was a good hunt and I am pretty happy with it.