Ready, Set
On the street with The Go Game
The final seconds of the game are ticking away as my team races through a shopping mall in San Francisco’s Embarcadero district. We are looking for a clue, and all we have to go on is a picture that vaguely resembles the face of a fox. Maybe it will be on a storefront, maybe painted on the wall, or perhaps it’s a floral arrangement—we don’t know. Hurriedly we survey the scene, our necks craning, our eyes slightly unfocused, trying and failing to detect a fox-like visage. We’re running out of time.
“I found it!” shouts our team leader Geoff, waving his arm at the wall map in front of him. Sure enough, the map’s depiction of the mall floor plan strongly resembles the countenance on our clue. “Okay … now what?” he says.
Everyone begins to talk at once. In short order we determine that the clue is indicating a point on the map in the center court of the mall, and that whatever is located there will be our answer.
We burst into the mall’s echoing central plaza, a ring of upscale stores surrounding a stories-high fountain that cascades from ceiling to floor.
It’s 4:59; we have one minute left.
