Swinburne has a private friends-only place called РІР‚СљHERE, where the world is quietРІР‚Сњ (the first line of РІР‚СљThe Garden of ProserpineРІР‚Сњ РІР‚вЂњ helpful if anyone tried searching on ROBLOX for it). There were various helpful hints to this effect on my profile page, and in the description of Mysterious Object III. The huge leap of intuition that players had to make at this point in our little treasure hunt was to look for a user named РІР‚СљSwinburneРІР‚Сњ on ROBLOX. This poem is about the Greek myth of Persephone (again with the Greek stuffРІР‚В¦). Googling for РІР‚СљThe Garden of ProserpineРІР‚Сњ will quicklyР’В find the eponymous poem by Algernon Swinburne. This may seem arcane, but people found this hint almost immediately and posted it on the forum. If one opened the map in Roblox Studio and found the script for brick #3, there was a mysterious comment at the end of the code: In this level, people could find four different bricks that, when touched, would print one of the 4 haikus. The Mysterious Object blog post told users where to start looking: one of my old places, Sword Fights on the Heights. Thus began the quest for Mysterious Object III. This poem talks about the taboo programming mistake of deferencing a null pointer (which causes a crash), but doesnРІР‚в„ўt give any real hints as to the nature of Mysterious Object #3. Soon afterwards, some people started to discover there was a Mysterious Object III in the Recently Updated hats list, and, even more astounding, some people were finding it and it the box in their inventory! Suggestively, there was a haiku #3, a poem which indicated that there might be a Mysterious Object III after all. In fact, the real game was just beginningРІР‚В¦ Since some people were having trouble with this one, I gave you guys a little tiny bit more help by wearing a shirt with a picture of a Hoplite on it for several days. Since all the mysterious objects are hats, some people were able to make the inference that this box must contain a Greek army helmet. The haiku references the Iliad, the epic story of the sacking of Troy by a Greek army. Illium is a name for the famous city of Troy. People who figured it out either have taken college-level literature classes, or are good at googling for information.Р”Вios Achilleus is an ancient Greek epithet (it means РІР‚СљGodlike AchillesРІР‚Сњ) for Achilles. The fourth poem didnРІР‚в„ўt give away the entire answer, and required some domain knowledge of the classics. Another popular guess was that this was a moon hat, since the moon is made of cheese. This makes sense since anyone wearing a cheese hat certainly must РІР‚Сљstruggle for their dignityРІР‚Сњ.

Most people picked up on the words РІР‚СљcurdledРІР‚Сњ and РІР‚СљmiceРІР‚Сњ, concluding that this was a cheese hat. ItРІР‚в„ўs a screw.Р’В I mean, how many objects can you think of that are РІР‚Сљthreaded fastenersРІР‚Сњ, РІР‚Сљtwist aroundРІР‚Сњ and hold things tight? The poem plays on the fact that the word РІР‚СљfastРІР‚Сњ has many different meanings. Therefore, posted 4 Haiku, providing reasonable hints for people trying to figure out what was in each box. I figured that players who read the News section deserve to get a leg up over everyone else who was trying to solve our mystery. РІР‚СљMysterious Objects Sighted!РІР‚Сњ proclaimed our August 10th News post. I realized that people loved the idea (who doesnРІР‚в„ўt love a good mystery?), and decided to give them a little bit more to chew onРІР‚В¦ When I came into work the next day, I was astounded by the number of mystery boxes we had sold. The obvious question: where is box III? Very mysterious indeed. To make things extra mysterious, we decided to label our three mysterious boxes as I, II, and IV. When we came back, we decided to create two more. We went out for lunch, talked about the Mysterious Object and what a cool idea it was. The idea was that the object would be a grab bag РІР‚вЂњ people would buy it and then it would morph into something else later.Р”В¬razy ideas always start simple. For fun, we called it the Mysterious Object and tried to sell it for 50 tix. Clockwork had the great idea of publishing a hat that was just a box, to see if anyone would buy it. About a month ago, clockwork and I were messing around and creating new hats to accompany the big Builders Club release.

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