Post by @moof@cupoftea.social

Wendy the DBJUNGLESKOG and myself in front of Halle (Saale) Hbf

You may have noticed that yesterday I was hiding in Quedlinburg, but we’re starting the morning in Halle(Saale). The official rules state that we should start from where the last hider was found.

Last time we played in Germany, we worked out that starting from there wouldn’t get us around the country much. Apart from the initial ICE from Frankfurt to Erfurt, we could have played the entire game on a D-ticket.

This year we’ve added a rule saying that after the player is found we should travel to the nearest station where there is a regular ICE service, and start from there.

Technically speaking that would be Magdeburg, but the service is there not that regular, so we collectively decided that Halle gave the hider the most options.

This did mean we had a scheduled 2.5 hour ride from Quedlinburg yesterday, and we got Deutsche Bahned on the way here, which meant we ended up having supper in Magdeburg and arriving at our hotel pretty late.

But now we have a much more interesting game

Moof! 🏳️‍🌈

@moof@cupoftea.social 11 hours ago

That being said, the first order of the day was to work out which way to go.

From her notional start time of 9am (we are working on timetabled time here), and assuming she took a long distance train, she could only have gone North towards Berlin and Stralsund or South towards München. We didn’t think Leipzig was likely.

So in order to work out which direction to go, we asked her if her location was closer to sea level than we were at 110 metres. They are closer, and so we can discount the more mountainous southern region.

And we are now on a train heading North…

Moof! 🏳️‍🌈

@moof@cupoftea.social 10 hours ago

As we ride this train up north towards Berlin, we entered the Land of Brandenburg. This meant we could ask them if they were in this Land, to which the answer is no.

That being said she could still have been in Berlin. So we asked her if her nearest commercial airport was the same as ours (BER), and it isn’t.

So, whilst there is an outside chance she could be somewhere else, we are now working on the assumption she’s in Mecklemburg-Vorpommen, based on travel time. We’ve adjusted our mapping app accordingly, in order to make it more responsive.

A map of Mecklemburg-Vorpommen, with some of it blocked out. There are green circles where stations are.

Moof! 🏳️‍🌈

@moof@cupoftea.social 7 hours ago

We got to Berlin, and then thought that based on timing, we needed to narrow down which of two lines @darkphoenix could have gone on, towards Stralsund, or towards Neubrandenburg.

We tried to do a 5km thermometer, taking advantage of the fact that from one edge of the S-bahn platforms in Berlin Hbf to another edge of the platforms at Jungfernheide Bf was near as dammit 5km. We were stymied by the fact that four of the six platforms at Berlin Hbf are currently shut, and the one that was open was about 50m shorter.

We went to Jungfernheide anyway, and walked out of the station, just as far as the canal, which made it to exactly 5km. And so I asked the question.

And then they vetoed it.

~5 more replies

Moof! 🏳️‍🌈

@moof@cupoftea.social 3 hours ago

@darkphoenix So we decided that the easiest thing was to go towards Pasewalk, and try to narrow it down on the way there, as there was a junction there that could be helpful if we were wrong.

We had a hunch, based on the fact that there was a particular ICE to Stralsund the previous hour that had a stop in Mecklemburg-Vorpommern that would have just fit into their time budget, and this train would take us there.

This regional train was packed to the gills, as one of the five carriages was closed off as unusable. As a result, the first class area was available for use by everybody... and most people either didn't realise or ignored the announcements to the effect, so we managed to go up in the first class section of the train, reasonably quietly.

As we went up, we discovered that we were going to go through Angermünde, and, based on the same hunch, we decided to ask if their station started with the same letter as ours…

Moof! 🏳️‍🌈

@moof@cupoftea.social 3 hours ago

@darkphoenix …and it did!

Which basically narrowed the possible stations down to 7, of which 5 were outside of their time budget.

So, we had to differentiate between Anklam and Altentreptow. We had plenty of time, and so chose to ask for a photo of the biggest body of water in the hiding zone, thinking that we might be able to differentiate between the estuary in Anklam, and the smaller river in Altentreptow.

20 minutes later, the picture we received was inconclusive. So we decided to go for a backup option: asking whether they were closer or further away from the coast than us. Their response that it was closer allowed us to narrow it down...

They were in Anklam.

Moof! 🏳️‍🌈

@moof@cupoftea.social 3 hours ago

@darkphoenix I think this is the furthest we've been from a hiding zone whilst having a definitive confirmation of where it is. Normally, we ask for a clue that allow us to confirm the station as we pull in, such as the Tallest Building from the Visible from the Stop.

It also allowed us to look at a number of different ways of narrowing down the location within the hiding zone as we spent the next hour or so heading North on the same regional train we’d boarded at Berlin-Gesundbrunnen. Our hunch was right.