Could you say a bit more about "it is very unreliable"? I'm considering using django-tasks with an rq backend [1] and would like to hear about your experiences. Did you find it dropping tasks, difficult to operate, etc.
I have recently made a new room for /dev/esc - my idea was that in the run-up to Christmas, plenty of dev teams would be looking for activities to do together. Full disclosure: it didn't work - I didn't get a bump of new customers.
If you can look past the festive theming, IMHO there are some good, totally original new puzzles in "Santa's Tech Disaster". (choose from drop-down when setting up a new game)
https://app.dev-esc.com/new_game/ - an online escape room for developer teams. I aimed to make a team-building experience that was a bit different. unashamedly geeky: you’ll need puzzling and some coding to solve the challenges.
Fully remote for teams of 1-8ish; free to explore. Requires a computer, although you can explore on mobile/tablet.
Originally it was free to play - I got a fair few plays off my HN post, now I have a trickle of paying customers.
Thank you. That’s an interesting thought about “aha” moments versus meticulousness. I’ve tended to offer “slow burn” puzzles, although I think there’s one exception in the escape room at present.
Really fun idea and a great implementation. I have been trying to come up with programming puzzles for my own project https://www.dev-esc.com - an escape room for devs
I've built an online escape room for developer teams. I am seeking alpha testers.
Come and try to escape, and help me while doing so!
* Free to play (for now). Asks for an email address, completely optional.
* Fully remote; BYO video conf (works over Zoom, Skype, Teams, Google Meet - anything that enables screenshare + audio)
* Team size can be between 1 and 12
* You'll need to understand code, maybe write some code, hack a bit (needs a real computer, not a tablet or a phone)
* Currently, every game will be the same. In future I can build custom games, parameterised games, pick'n'mix.
Basic premise: for dev teams, coding together is something that is actually enjoyable. Get some satisfaction and build some team cameraderie without, y'know, meetings and JIRA and, well, clients/customers. Especially with covid-imposed remoteness, I see dev teams needing a bit of levity, a bit of (cringe) team building - I wanted to try a way that's not online drinking or a straight-up quiz.
Each player will be asked for a player name, then the team is dropped together into the escape room. Swarm over the puzzles, pair up or spread out (up to you) - puzzle/code/hack your way out together, then reflect on the fun you had on the way. Heavily influenced by Advent of Code, Project Euler.
I would like to charge for this eventually. The main challenges as I see it are content and game dynamics. I would like to learn from the first few teams that play. Getting the puzzle difficulty right, making hints available to the players at the right times, finding out how different teams handle and react to the UX. That kind of thing.
I look forward to hearing people's initial reactions, ideas and feedback.
Love this article. I wonder if this is a brain-type thing. It really rings true for me.
Developing the idea, I have a similar multiple definitions problem, in a much smaller context, with the word “prescription”.
In the UK it means all of: a doctor’s idea of what medicine to give to a patient, a piece of paper with that written on it, and the medicine itself.
I got thoroughly confused when I went to collect a prescription from a pharmacy and was told “it’s (still) over at the surgery”. It wasn’t, or rather, it was. But we were talking about different prescriptions.
Early days in a creative experiment with tech - we have had great success getting young children to connect with their grandparents. This feels so much better than "here's YouTube, be quiet for an hour". What have others tried? Does this trigger any other good HN ideas?
Totally agree with you about the need to click "+" and then remove two lines you don't want. I was planning a drop-down as you suggest.
Then I got a full-time job and have stopped working Estigator for now.
It's really nice and encouraging to hear the feedback and read the bug reports on HN. I think the most likely next step for Estigator is for it to become an open source hobby project. Still mulling things over.
So - no newsletter sign up (privacy policies, GDPR, bler) - but I will certainly announce at https://www.rmorrison.net (my personal homepage) if I ever move things along.
Excellent - thank you for sharing. I wanted to be able to allow custom probability distributions for the tasks/items in estigator.com - uncertain.io is a great way to capture them
I wonder if owners of these smart glasses who also hang out here have tried this. Might persuade me to buy a pair!