casino royale game in retrospect

After almost 20 hours of non-stop action, I'm back, had a nap, and ready to write about The Casino Royale Game. Many people are already asking how it went, so the best way to let everyone know is to put it down here. To cut a long story short, we had a lot of fun, got to know each other better, and somehow we even managed to win.

It's not that we didn't want to win. But you can't enter a competition with the stated aim of just taking part - you have to set your sights on the goal or the whole thing just falls flat and you will decide to go home halfway through. Still, we really never expected it, because we always thought our stomachs would get in the way. Most of us missed the opening brief because we were scrounging the Esplanade for last minute snacks, and along the way we made numerous pit stops at Carrefour, Kopitiam and Seah Im Food Centre (see complete list of food stops here). We also discovered the delights of a particular brand of roasted seaweed with wasabe. The race is important, but the food even more so! Sadly by the end of it all, we were a little to tired to take advantage of the one-for-one UOB offer at Hog's Breath Cafe as we had originally planned. But enough about food.

Our team comprised Agent R, who's local knowledge of Singapore allowed us to make some great conceptual leaps from half-solved clues; Agent J, specialist in Japanese and pop culture. Agent F, literary genius and sometime barbarian; Agent M, the data cruncher and myself, who helped out here and there by running errands and buying snacks.

The format of The Game was fairly simple. There was a total of 15 RV points, and at each location a new clue to lead us to the next place. The clues were quite diverse, such as number puzzles, patterns hidden in classified ads, an X-ray, Japanese drama serials and my personal favorite was an interactive software puzzle. You can tell from the website that the organisers are quite techie, but the software puzzle took the cake. Time to solve each puzzle ranged from 15 minutes without hints to 3 hours with a lot of hints. I can't put the snazzy software here, but this was one of my personal favourite clues (that does not require additional information to solve):

The RV points were located all around Singapore, stretching from Sengkang in the North to Changi Airport in the East to Harbourfront in the South and Kent Ridge Park in the West. We covered the distances on a whirlwind journey in our souped up Subaru Forester (which had no fear of cars, pickups or even small buses although the people inside were plenty scared at some points) and armed with 5 laptops and an M1 Wireless Broadband Router (our invaluable companion), we carried our little Wi-Fi bubble everywhere that had a power source (unfortunately Kopitiam was not one such place, which explains why we spent 2 hours there eating and not getting much solving done).

Our position in the game was quite a roller coaster. We started off on a red herring (didn't know we could check with Mission Control at first, oops) but once we discovered the real clue we made short work of it. We zoomed through the first couple of clues until we got totally stumped by some picture cards of Japanese pop stars and a cryptic classified ad. Four frustrated (but gastronomically fulfilling) hours later, we found ourselves at the very bottom of the pack. It was then that we also realised that we could take hints from Mission Control, and became what I termed 'hint whores'. Personally I'd have preferred that everyone just spent more time to puzzle out the clues, but we were't about to handicap ourselves on an ideal if all the other teams were doing it. After that we managed to claw our way back into the first few positions in the real time race, and eventually won because we had suffered much less time penalty from hints compared to other teams.

Apart from eating well, we also tried to make sure we were comfortable. After spending a few hours in the stationary car suffering carbon monoxide poisoning, we opted for more creature comforts wherever possible. In a way, this approach actually backfired because there was a lot less focus and less urgency. (Especially in eating places.) But it certainly made the whole thing much more enjoyable! Here is one of our temporary HQs in the Science Hub, eating prata and listening to the greatest hits music clue:

The conduct of The Casino Royale Game obviously invites comparison to the Singapore Amazing Race, of which I am also a two-time participant. I will always look back fondly on the 2003 race as a great experience, just as I will Casino Royale. Here are some of the key differences in the two formats:

• Casino Royale got car, Amazing Race don't have.
• Casino Royale can confirm the solution with Mission Control before you go to the next checkpoint. Amazing Race you just find your way there (sometimes walking for hours) and hope to find the checkpoint.
• Amazing Race got no hints, Casino Royale can opt to take hints for time penalty. And they are quite generous with confirming if you are on the right track too. (We didn't know this at first, maybe they briefed it while we were eating.)
• Amazing Race got tasks to complete at each checkpoint (such as snow tubing, eating a balut) and the chance to visit some very scenic spots. Casino Royale is all about solving the clues.
• Casino Royale over one night, Amazing Race over two.
• Put all the above together and you can tell the Amazing Race is much more phyically and emotionally draining (and satisfying). But Casino Royale was much more intellectually challenging.

In summary, both have their merits, and I suppose they appeal to different audiences. My own personal ideal would be some balance between the two, with clues and car from Casino Royale (and not so many hints) with more time and some of the better scenary and physical challenges from Amazing Race. But the important thing is, they were both awesome fun!