It all started a little more than a year ago during a summer picnic. A friend of yours told you about a new outdoor activity he was involved in called Geocaching. He told you all about his recent trips around the area trying to find these things called caches. Intrigued, you joined him on a hunt for a new cache in the area. He gave you his GPS device and taught you how to follow your 'Geo-Sense' while looking for the cache. You still remember the great feeling you had when you pulled the hidden magnetic key holder from the bottom of the park bench. You were elated when you discovered that you were the first one to find the new cache! Your friend showed you the log inside where you signed your name and date. You suddenly had a new hobby!
That seemed so long ago. Now, hundreds of cache finds later and with much more experience, you still get excited when you go out Geocaching; ready to see what's around that next bend
Today, you are more excited than usual. You have just discovered that five new caches have been placed near your house. It is unusual in that your house is fairly remote; only a small martial arts school is nearby. Today is also the day your brand new GPS receiver will be arriving in the mail. The reviews for it are all out of this world. Not a day too late either since you dropped your old unit off a cliff nearby and it is lost forever. All you have left is the recharger for the batteries.
You wait patiently seated on the bench on your front porch eager to begin the day's cache hunt.
Now where IS that mail?!
Geo Quest is intended to combine caching and solving puzzles together in an new (or rather, old) medium called Interactive Fiction.
If you remember the old text game called Zork, than you already know what Interactive Fiction, or IF, is all about. Interactive fiction tells you the beginning of a story. Then it puts you in charge and lets you decide what your character should do. You type commands for the main character to carry out, and the story replies by telling you what happens next. Think of the rooms as your setting, and the objects you find as the props. Your role is to help the main character overcome obstacles to his progress: solving problems, working out what is going on in the story, discovering ways to reach new locations and tools. That aspect of interactive fiction is like a game.
Geo Quest is a series of geocache puzzles all rolled up into one "game". There are five different physical "caches" in the series, each listed below. You will need to solve four major puzzles in the game. When you do, you will be given the real life GPS coordinates to the cache locations. At each of the four locations, you will receive a clue that you will take back to the IF game to try to solve the fifth and final puzzle. When you finally solve the last game puzzle, you will get the coordinates to go out and find the last physical cache.
With the exception of Keystone Power, it is not necessary to solve every puzzle. You can do any of the puzzles/caches individually.
If you are not in the central Ohio region, you can still play the game without having to find the physical caches. You can do this by entering the command switch mode inside the game. This will put GeoQuest into "game" mode and will allow you to play the entire game.
You will play Geo Quest online with no downloads required. Just click the link below.
If you have any questions, I'll be glad to answer them. Just send me mail at my Geocaching account name: TeamMonroes