Godiva's Quest
Godiva's Quest is a traditional quest of wits, skill and determination. Questers have to solve a gauntlet of puzzles and challenges, both on line and around campus. The first person to finish the Quest is awarded the ultimate prize: the third and final Chariot Race Judge position.
Rules
- F!rosh cannot win. They are encouraged to participate.
- There is only one winner. You can work as a team, but only one person can win.
- No one already judging the Chariot Race can win.
- No fisticuffs.
- Hacking and cheating is not permitted.
- Hints may be provided at the discretion of the QuestMaster.
- Have fun!
History of the Quest
0T3
The puzzles in this Quest were all cryptographic in nature. In order to claim the prize however, the winner had to sing Bust a Move at Eglinton Station.
0T4
This Quest incorporated music trivia and word searches into puzzles. The winner had to perform The Tale of Mr. Morton by Schoolhouse Rock near the Union subway station. They brought some instruments down and played during the evening rush.
0T5
The Quest this year was styled after the 'Keeper of the Bridge of Death', from Monty Python and the Holy Grail. It was 5 puzzles, including a euchre-based puzzle and a question about the air-speed velocity of a swallow. This was the last purely text-based quest.
0T6
Up to this point, the Quest was just a bunch of puzzles thrown together. This year the puzzles were all linked together with an overall story, taking participants to various buildings around campus in the story. The order the buildings were visited was the solution key to the final puzzle. This was the last year where participants would bribe the QuestMaster for hints to the puzzles. Some of the puzzles required participants to piece together further instructions from the text on landmarks, such as the 0T5 wall in the SF atrium which had the verses of Godiva's Hymn.
0T7
This year's Quest followed suit from the previous year's, using an overall story to link the puzzles together. However, with the graphics help of Henry Cheung (B&G co-chair with John McLeod that year, and the designer of the still-used godivaweek.skule.ca layout), each puzzle was stored as an image, and additional visual clues were embedded in the image. This Quest led participants around campus, and each puzzle solution was a piece of the final puzzle, which required participants to find a specific book in the SF library to win.
0T8
This Quest was unique in that no one knew who the QuestMasters were until the final puzzle. The Quest was run as an ARG, where participants got instructions from an unknown person, identified as 'Godgifu of Mercia' a couple puzzles in. No one actually knew who was running the quest, which allowed the QuestMasters to intermingle with participants until the end reveal. This was the first Quest to use instant-feedback for correct answers, as well as IP logging to detect cheating, and puzzles built in Flash. It featured 14 online puzzles (more than double the amount of most years), and a run-around portion where participants got information on where and when the final puzzle was. Puzzles ranged from simple decryption to piecing together images on the plasma screen. At one point participants had to answer a public phone at a certain time, and were given instructions from a pre-recorded computer message.
0T9
Without a doubt, this was one of the nicest looking Quests ever made. It also made huge improvements to the back-end. Up until this point registration was dealt with by the QuestMaster. This Quest had automated user registration, generating aliases for each participant to be used when submitting answers. On top of that, you could see which users had solved what puzzles on their automatically updated scoreboard. There were 16 puzzles to be solved, using a wide variety of puzzle types. The first 9 puzzles could be solved in any order, however the 9th puzzle was easier after solving the first 8. Clues to help solve the 9th were emailed to the participants once they solved each of the puzzles leading up to the 9th. Upon solving each puzzle in the last batch of puzzles, participants were emailed a section of a lock combination. The final puzzle gave the location of the locker, and inside were instructions to phone the QuestMaster to claim victory.
1T0
This Quest returned to a linear model, and was similar to online challenges like the Tim Tang Test and notpr0n. Registration returned to the traditional method of filling out a form, and user progress was not tracked. Puzzles included hidden text in images, clever riddles, and a clue inside the Beast.
Past Winners and Masters
| Year | Winner(s) | Quest Master(s) |
|---|---|---|
| 0T3 | 1st) Don McAuslan | Andrew Overholt |
| 0T4 | 1st) Andrew Overholt | Don McAuslan |
| 0T5 | 1st) Cameron Fraser & Evangelos Staikos | John McLeod |
| 0T6 | 1st) Luke Wesley | Cameron Fraser & Evangelos Staikos |
| 0T7 | 1st) Robert Nesci | Igor Denisov |
| 0T8 | 1st) Sanae Rosen*
2nd) Tommy Liu |
Evangelos Staikos & Ian Swartz |
| 0T9 | 1st) Evangelos Staikos* & Ian Swartz*
2nd) Benjamin Schmidt |
Tommy Liu |
| 1T0 | 1st) Evangelos Staikos*
2nd) Alvin Ho |
Kathy Grycko & Kevin P. Siu |
| 1T1 | 1st) Ian Swartz*
2nd) Alvin Ho 3rd) Victor Zhang |
Evangelos Staikos |
*Ineligible