Chosen Mission Wherigo Cache

A James Bond-themed Wherigo cache set around Chosen Hill in Gloucester. To find this cache, you will need to collect clues and solve puzzles at other caches first.

Please remember to bring your own pen: if you don't sign the log, you can't claim the find!

To play this cartridge, you will need to download it from the link here.

1. The Mission
2. About This Cache
3. Things You Should Know
4. Alternative Solutions
5. Acknowledgements
6. Wherigo Development
7. Version History

The Mission

Bond

We have another person of interest for you to follow up.

After investigating their leak, Canadian Intelligence have been able to provide us with information that ties Baron Bart Ouanalao to the Quantum organisation.

The Baron is a local despot who parades himself around as a great philanthropist - awarding himself the name "Saint Bart" - while secretly siphoning off most of the public money to his personal interests.

The Baron is throwing a reception - in his own honour - and we've managed to create an identity for you that will allow you to get inside.

However, we can't risk you being identified at the security checks outside's the Baron's mansion, so you'll have to find a way to enter without being detected.

We've provided more information for you at the insertion point.

Good luck,

M

About This Cache

This cache started out as an idle experiement and slowly transitioned to a labour of love before becoming a war of attrition.

For a number of months, I'd wanted to create a cache that was something a bit different and, after a little bit of consideration, I decided that I'd give Wherigo a go (I'd looked previously just after I started Geocaching and had been scared away!)

I've added a section on Wherigo Development to cover some of my thoughts on this rather than go on about it here.

When it came to a place to hide it, only one place came to mind. Since I started caching in July 2009, Chosen Hill has been a focal point for me and I wanted to put down a marker that would help encourage people to come back and enjoy the amazing views on offer (and a good walk).

The game cartridge is put together in the format of a "Choose Your Own Adventure" book, where your choices diretly affect the dialogue and future options on offer. It's fairly linear but hopefully offers a bit of fun and replay value.

I'm really interested in feedback and logs so please let me know how you got on during your walk and whether you saw anything interesting up the hill. For the effort that has been put in, it would be nice to receive more than the dreaded four-letter log: "TFTC"!

First to find prize is an unactivated Enigma Geocoin, kindly donated by Hampton Wick!

Things You Should Know

Below are a few things that you may need to be aware of before embarking on your mission for Her Majesty's Secret Service:

• Due to the length of this route, it's not generally advised to take small children on this Wherigo: you will have to tackle a number of slopes and some uneven terrain.
• As the hill can be quite exposed in places, please remember to take plenty of fluids and something to cover your head with.
• Particularly at the height of summer, the hill can be covered with thistles and nettles and these may crop up around the GZ. Similarly, some of the caches are hidden near barbed wire. Please be careful when making the retrieval.
• You will have to have decoded the encrypted text in both Terminal Alpha and Terminal Beta - without the answers to those, you cannot complete this cartridge. A clue of how to decrypt those puzzles can be found (along with the starting coordinates to this cache) at Tactical Insertion.
• The route of the Wherigo is designed to take you past a number of other caches in the area but if you're coming to the area especially to do this cache, you will need to be able to decrypt a complex cipher before attempting this cache. A smartphone could help but two visits may be necessary.
• Decisions you make while playing the game will directly affect your ability to complete secondary missions (ie; find the other caches) and your overall score. Choose wisely!
• Activating the help and hints on the cartridge does not affect your ability to complete secondary missions: it merely prevents you from receiving a score of 100%.
• Nothing about this cartridge is designed to trick you. There are indicators at all points that tell you how to proceed.
• If in doubt, ask yourself "what would James Bond do?"
• There are points in the cartridge where, if you provide the wrong information too often, you will fail the mission and have to start again.
• There are a couple of timed tasks in the cartridge. You should be able to complete these at a brisk walk but the faster you complete them, the higher your score will be!
• This cartridge was tested using a Garmin Oregon 550 and the Groundspeak Wherigo emulator. I've purposefully tried to avoid items that raise compatibility issues but there may be ongoing problems for certain devices.
• The infrastructure supporting Wherigo is a little unreliable. I've tested this cartridge as thoroughly as I can but I can't prevent all system failures. I'm really sorry if you get near the end of the cache and the cartridge hits an error but you have been warned!
• If you spot a bug of any kind (or even an embarrassing spelling mistake!), please feel free to drop me a line via my profile page.

Acknowledgements

This cache wouldn't have been possible without the support of the following people:

• Hampton Wick who tirelessly tested this cache throughout its lifecycle (often in particularly unpleasant weather conditions) and kept badgering me to complete development (even if he lost faith in a couple of places when developing the cartridge became particularly problematic!) He has also donated a number of the cache containers (which should be quite familiar to local cachers by now).
• matejcik for his excellent author script, which overcame a lot of the problems I was having with dialogue and made the story elements of this cartridge possible.
• Cassandy for her helpful blog, which gave me the courage to try a Wherigo myself and pointed me towards Earwigo.
• Nick and the Earwigo Google Group who helped me out when I got stuck with certain parts of the Wherigo functionality.

Alternative Solutions

Bond

M

Q

Wherigo Development

When I first looked at Wherigo, it was because I wanted to find out why so few of these cache types existed. My initial investigations (probably in Spring 2010) ended abruptly - probably for the same reason that the cache-type has not caught on: the Groundspeak Wherigo builder was in the "Alpha" stage of testing and has remained that way since its release in 2008.

As should be expected of anything still in the Alpha, the technology still seems to be quirky and a little buggy. However, when I regained my courage and came back for a second look, it was clear that a number of alternatives had been made available: among those are Urwigo and Earwigo.

I opted to choose Earwigo but both systems appear to be supported by a healthy community who are eager to help answer questions, share good practice and find new ways to make Wherigo work as a game format. There's also a lot of useful discussion that takes place on the Groundspeak forums.

This particular cache was my first and was developed despite my only experience of Wherigo being a video on Vimeo and the fact that I didn't own a Wherigo compatible device (thanks to Hampton Wick and Evil Edna for loan of theirs during testing)!

I created my first version of this cache locally with the waypoints closely packed so that each test didn't require the same hike as the final cache would (these were later transposed to the hill when the final version was ready).

Dialogue and interaction became a significant problem as these did not function particularly well together. This is where matejcik's author script became invaluable as it allowed for dialogue to be followed by a choice/decision.

I can't recommend highly enough that you test the Wherigo cartridge thoroughly before release. I think this particular cartridge was tested 20-30 times during development to ensure that it ran as smoothly as possible.

The process, from start to end, took about 2 months and absorbed a number of evenings and weekends (as testified by my poor caching stats for May and June 2011!)

I can honestly say that I found developing this cartridge an enjoyable - if sometimes frustrating - experience and one that I'm giving some thought to repeating. I'm not sure that it's something that should be recommended to non-technical players but, with a little perseverance, you should be able to put together an enjoyable caching experience. There's plenty of help out there for people who do want to rise to the challenge and a number of options available. If you can survive the initial teething problems in creating a working cartridge, the results will hopefully make all the pain worthwhile.

Version History

Below is a short history of changes/fixes introduced to the Wherigo cartridge. It's doubtful there'll ever be any major upgrades to the system while the technology is not actively being developed by Groundspeak but, if you're experiencing bugs, this is where I'll announce any possible fixes that I've implemented.