Ciphers, codes, hidden messages and so on are close to my heart, as I’m sure you’ve already realised. Having spent quite a considerable time creating the puzzles in Army Of Zero, you might think I’d have had enough of them. Even now, though, I still come across clever stuff that I would like to make use of, if only I had the chance to publish it somewhere. My copy of Gödel, Escher, Bach: an Eternal Golden Braid, by Douglas Hofstadter, for example, still gets flipped through occasionally. I still find some chapters hard work, but it’s great for just dipping into, particularly the cleverly-constructed chapters of dialogue, where Hofstadter is playing games with the reader. Chapter 4 is a case in point. Although on the face of it, it’s simply a conversation between two characters, the dialogue is constructed so as to conceal a message. Look closely, and you’ll see that the first letter of each paragraph spells out a message.

Such constructions are called acrostics. You can find examples in a surprising amount of literature, including such familiar sources as the Bible, Edgar Allan Poe and Lewis Carroll. Many acrostics, as in the Hofstadter example, use the initial letter of each paragraph to spell out the message. But there are alternative constructions as well. Often the first character of each sentence is used. (Lots of acrostic enthusiasts like hiding one letter per sentence rather than a letter per paragraph, because you can hide more letters this way.) Sometimes you might come across an acrostic which uses the last character of each sentence or paragraph, but these are more difficult to construct because the human mind finds it easier to think of words that start with a given character, rather than words that end with it.

Maybe you’re wondering why I’m bringing up the subject of acrostics at all. Are they relevant to solving Army Of Zero’s puzzles in some way? Kind of. Evasive answer, I know, I’m sorry.

All right, let me try to be a bit more helpful, hopefully without giving too much away.

Some of the puzzles are word puzzles, and for those puzzles, as you might expect, using particular letters (or groups of letters) from the game cards is the way to go. Obviously, a significant part of the trick is to uncover what – and where - those particular letters are. Rearranging the cards in an appropriate order should then be possible. (The number of ways in which you reorder the cards might surprise you!)

Oh dear, I hope I haven’t been too obtuse. Really, I’m just trying to give you a bit of a nudge in the right direction. Don’t worry if you get stuck. Everyone does, from time to time, but if you do, a good strategy might be to think about different ways you would set about hiding information in the card designs. Revealing the secrets of Army Of Zero is supposed to be somewhat challenging, but there are hints to be found, if you know where to look!

The Toy Talk website did an interview with me this week, which you can read here.  I talk about what influenced Army Of Zero, and the trials and tribulations of getting from concept to market.

It was a thrill to meet so many of you at the UK Games Expo 2009 last weekend, thanks to everyone who stopped by the stand to say “hello”. We played a lot of games of Army Of Zero over the two days, and it was great seeing so many kids getting into it (and usually giving me a bit of a beating, it has to be said). There seemed to be a lot of dads there, intent on introducing their kids to gaming, and I think they appreciated that Army Of Zero offered the opportunity to do that.

Embarrassingly, when playing against adults, the dice seemed to be rolling in my favour most of the weekend! I’m going to have to get some loaded dice for the next event, so that I can butter up a few more punters.

Sales were pretty healthy, even so, although it took a last-minute rush of buyers on Sunday afternoon to totally convince me that it was worth it and to send me home with a spring in my step. That last-minute rush was unexpected, because from three o’clock it all seemed to be winding down. So a lesson for traders at other events - keep going until the end!

As far as the puzzle element of Army Of Zero goes, people seem to fall into two categories - either they’re flummoxed, or they totally get it. It was interesting to see a number of people have a couple of minutes with the cards and cotton onto some of the symbolism. In particular, the notches got sussed out by a few people, and one chap figured out the shield with the array of orange and blue dots. Another visitor picked up on the clue on the poster.

Our stand at UK Games Expo 2009

There was a further hint on the leaflets that we handed out, but probably that won’t make any sense until you’ve figured out part of the puzzle - it’s more like a confirmation that you’re on the right lines.

And finally I just want to say hello and thanks to Jason and Matthew from Dark House Games who were my neighbours for the weekend. They supply Bachmann Plasticville USA buildings for use in wargames, role-playing and so on - why not pay them a visit?

The July edition of Toy News Magazine has an article on Army Of Zero, which was nice to see. Basically they picked it up from the Wilmslow Express piece, but it’s interesting to track how these bits of media coverage track each other and accumulate over time.

Click on the thumbnail to read the article…

No-one can resist a crack about my name, can they? Heh.

You can download the whole magazine in PDF format from here (registration required).