@qlp @philip it is amazing how through the whole thing it felt like Sam&Mike had the advantage over underdogs Ben&Adam, when it was always the opposite!

RNJesus was offering the game to Sam&Mike on a silver platter, but they threw out their coins fortifying the low speed before a multiplier, wasted several train frequencies in the stalemate, ignored all the high value challenges in their region, and went bust to go all-or-nothing on a variable! At least we've proven the show's not scripted? 😓

I hope next season Amy knows Sam well enough by now to say 'no' to his 4D chess master plans ....

#JetLagTheGame #JLTG

And what about the hiding time? Well, we found them at 18:16, so the raw time was 5 hours and 50 minutes. Quite a big gap between both runs. But wait! What about their hand cards? They had two 60 minute time bonuses, two 30 minute time bonuses, a 15 minute time bonus and another 10 % time bonus on top of that and so they raised their time to 9 hours and 40 minutes. If we had not found them so fast by accident, this game could have been really down to the wire.

A third run, mostly on day 3, would have been possible, but after a short discussion all five of us agreed to end our journey right here because we were GENUINELY JETLAGGED!
My team was awarded an actual 3D printed trophy later that night, an amazing surprise organized by one of the other players. I’ve attached photos of this trophy as well to this post.

I hope you enjoyed reading this extensive summary. Writing it certainly felt like recording an episode of The Layover podcast to me 😂.

🧵 7/7

#Deutschlandticket #JLTG #JetLagTheGame #JetLagHideAndSeek #HideAndSeek #JetLagBayWü

About 50 possible stations around Lake Constance, southern Rhine valley and the High Rhine were left and we started checking which stations were reachable in three hours from Nagold. After that we looked at the Strava map and two of us independently found a street line in Constance-Wollmatingen which seemed to match perfectly. So around Tuttlingen we already knew we wanted to transfer to the S 6 in Singen and go straight to Constance.
While the S 6 stopped at Wollmatingen we successfully identified the tallest building visible from the station but chose to travel one station further to Constance-Fürstenberg so we could enter the zone on foot from the southeast and deploy a 1 km radar right at the edge and they were again outside of it. Right after their answer we were greeted by another message: a photo of a card reading "Curse of the Non-Dominant Hand" – meaning we now had to use our left hands for most tasks. This was a slight inconvenience but didn't matter that much. We asked for a selfie while searching for them in the industrial part of Wollmatingen to the south of the railway line. Their photo made it abundantly clear that we were in the wrong part of town and we hopped on a bus to shorten the relocation time. We exited the bus near the town hall and knew we had come to the right place as the streetlamps here resembled the streetlamps from the selfie much more. In the next 10 minutes we tried to get a better sense of our location and started exploring some alleyways when we walked into the hiders near some glass recycling containers. They were – rightly so – furious and baffled that we found them so fast without asking more questions. To be fair the situation was rather hilarious as there was still a notable part of the hiding zone which we had not ruled out yet.

🧵 6/7

#Deutschlandticket #JLTG #JetLagTheGame #JetLagHideAndSeek #HideAndSeek #JetLagBayWü

The seekers were put off by the curse and tried to find the street we hid on by searching for it in Nagold for the next two hours which only played into our hands. At 20:00 the first game day ended and we met up in the hotel to enjoy the remaining evening together. We resumed the game at 08:00 the next morning and about 45 minutes into day 2 it became clear they identified our location as they were getting closer and closer. After 10 hours, 6 minutes and 55 seconds the seekers finally found us. We were smiling and laughing at them while they were out of breath after ascending fast into the woods. Some time bonuses extended our time to 11 hours, 37 minutes and 36 seconds. A strong start!

We switched sides and it was our turn to hunt them down. We started the search at 12:26 that day with an 80 km radar and they were outside of it. By asking "does your nearest commercial airport match ours and ours is Stuttgart" (answer: nope) we further narrowed down the area. We decided to take the bus towards the Gäubahn line and departed for Herrenberg. The time on the bus was effectively used for a 5 km thermometer and the answer was "colder". Upon our arrival in Herrenberg we knew we should move our sights to the south. The waiting time in Herrenberg was used by asking for a Strava map. Shortly before we entered RE 87 to Singen with the goal of dropping another radar in Spaichingen we received a text: "Curse of the Post Office". We boarded the train nonetheless but left at Horb to write the letter. We had to spend 70 minutes in Horb waiting for the next RE 87 but at least we enjoyed a beer in the sun while writing the letter (we asked for a photo of the tallest building visible from train station). While we were at it we asked for another photo of a park to which they replied "not possible" - interesting!

With this info in mind we started searching the remaining hiding zones for parks and identifying the Strava map in a packed RE 87. While going through Spaichingen we finally dropped the 40 km radar and the hiders were again outside of it.

🧵 5/7

#Deutschlandticket #JLTG #JetLagTheGame #JetLagHideAndSeek #HideAndSeek #JetLagBayWü

From Tübingen the seekers went straight to Herrenberg with RB 63 and took the bus X 77 to Nagold while we were enjoying Hohennagold. It soon dawned upon us that the seekers had found our general location. We actually were truly amazed and wondered: "How did they know?" In the aftermath of the game we were told that our Strava map had given it away. Upon descending from the ruin, we seemingly found the perfect hiding spot just at the edge of our zone (photo attached to this post!)

The second thing we were shocked about was that they went straight to the correct station in Nagold and the endgame started approximately 17:30 consequently. So we were stuck in our hiding spot which was deep in the woods in the west of Nagold.

The seekers used another thermometer to further cut down the hiding zone and requested a trace of our nearest street or path as photo and this – at least in my opinion – brought them more harm than good. The path we hid on was rather straight with only slight curvature and it was only displayed on Google Maps on high zoom levels which made it especially tricky.

Upon receiving the answer they immediately asked for a photo of the tallest structure in our sightline but after 20 minutes we vetoed this question. This veto was crucial as the answer (a deerstand) would have made it clear that we were in the woods. This veto bamboozled the seekers for a short period of time and this gave us enough time to play "Curse of the Strongman": I completed 85 push-ups in 15 minutes on the grassy forest floor – a big achievement personally. More importantly, we were confident this would be a real spanner in the works as they had to collectively do the same amount of push-ups without time restriction before asking their next question. Only later did I find that I probably paid this curse not only with sweat and sore muscles but with a tick bite.

🧵 4/7

#Deutschlandticket #JLTG #JetLagTheGame #JetLagHideAndSeek #HideAndSeek #JetLagBayWü

They decided to give the region around Tübingen a try after receiving a photo of the tallest mountain visible from our train station. As we saw where they were heading, we played "Curse of the Ransom Note" to successfully prevent them from asking more questions while being on transit. Once they left the train at Tübingen we followed up with "Curse of the Mediocre Travel Agent" and sent them on vacation to a "lovely" police station in the southern part of town. We giggled a lot and – judging by their vacation photos – they also had some fun! 😂 According to the curse description, they had to send us three photos, but we only received two. It was with devious delight when we noticed them returning to the train station. Once they were near the station, we drew their attention to the missing third photo and prepared to see them walk back to the police station. But what happened instead? They sent us the second photo again which sparked confusion among us hiders and after a short discussion we noticed that this is actually a loophole as nothing in the rules states that it has to be three distinct photos.

The seekers confirmed we were not anywhere nearby by using their custom radar for a second 15 km radar around Tübingen main station and clearing "Curse of the Ransom Note" simultaneously. As a counteroffensive measure we played "Curse of the Hidden Hangman" to gain more time and to prevent them from boarding any means of transportation. We failed this in both aspects. We misinterpreted their tracker and their train was already departing upon playing the curse. And we didn't gain much time either as they guessed our first word rather fast. A small downer for us hiders as we thought we had a great choice with the rare word "Aspik" (English: aspic).

And what did we do during the day in Nagold? Well, besides exploring our hiding zone and eating pizza we had a look at some cool places in the old town and the castle ruin "Hohennagold" which towers high above the city. A historic spot and stunning views - Adam Chase would be proud!

🧵 3/7

#Deutschlandticket #JLTG #JetLagTheGame #JetLagHideAndSeek #HideAndSeek #JetLagBayWü

As the S 1 gained a six minute delay, we arrived at Herrenberg at 10:20 and had just two minutes for a connection onto bus X 77, which we were able to enter right before departure.

With this, we settled for plan A and were a bit surprised that we made that possible. The bus arrived at Nagold, a small city at the edge of the northern Black Forest and we left the bus at "Vogelsang" at 10:42. The bus stop is situated near the train station "Nagold Stadtmitte".

Now, to the key point of our plan: During our preparation the night before, we discovered that from Nagold Stadtmitte other train stations could be reached on foot during the remaining minutes of the hiding time and this was not shown in DB Navigator. So we walked to the station "Nagold" and reached it close to the end of our hiding period – we were fully prepared for the game.

The seeking team started with an obvious question and asked if we matched their first-level administrative boundary, which was a clear "yes", because Nagold and Ulm are both in Baden-Wuerttemberg. They entered RE 5 to Stuttgart at 11:15 – just like us three hours earlier - while deploying a 15 km thermometer. When our answer reached them at 11:35 ("hotter"), they knew that they instinctively made the right decision in not travelling towards Lake Constance and they made good use of the remaining time on the train by further narrowing down the area ("Is your nearest commercial airport the same as ours? Ours is Stuttgart." – Answer: "Yes.") and asking for a Strava map. Once they reached Stuttgart, they tried to check if we were somewhere within the city with a 15 km radar (answer: we were outside) and to check if we were to the north or south of them with a 5 km thermometer (they travelled from Stuttgart main station to Stuttgart-Zuffenhausen, which resulted in "colder").

🧵 2/7

#Deutschlandticket #JLTG #JetLagTheGame #JetLagHideAndSeek #HideAndSeek #JetLagBayWü

I also loved that there's a Dalek on one of the signs around the station for Ben's hiding zone in E2.

#JetLagTheGame #JLTG