Grim’s Trick or Treat: Pumpkin Patch Hunt

Eyewire, citizen science, Halloween, Grim's Trick or Treat, Syke, pumpkin patch, Daniela Gamba

The next house on the block belongs to HQ’s illustrator Daniela (@danielag). At least… that’s what the mailbox says. As for the house itself, you find yourself struggling to see it in the gloom of twilight. It’s not just the light, in fact; as you walk closer and shine your flashlight upon the building, you discover it’s been covered in vines from the garden’s overgrown pumpkin patch. Yikes!

Is Daniela still drawing in there? Does she know she’s trapped within? You’ve heard this house’s candy supply is particularly delicious, too, but you’ll never get to find out any of this unless you can get to the heart of all these mergery vines. Look for where the worst tangles begin and see if you can unravel the mess to get to the front door!

There are 12 mergers in the Hunt cell; you have 5.5 days and 24 guesses to locate them all, between midnight EDT on 10/19 and noon EDT on 10/24.

How to identify and report mergers

    1. Select Hunt cell from Change Cell menu. Stay in the overview.
    2. Type /debug into chat. This will reveal a special box with information about the cell (located above the “Start Playing” box).
    3. Use ALT+click to select the origin point of the merger you have identified. It is a good idea to zoom in close on the merger before you select it to get the most accurate coordinates.
    4. Find the coordinates of the merger’s origin in the cell information box. These are next to the word “center.”
    5. In the chat pm thehunt bot your coordinates. For example: /pm thehunt 5123 4321 5678.
    6. thehunt bot will let you know if you got it right or wrong and tell you how many guesses you have left.
    7. To check how many mergers you have found and to check what guesses you have submitted, type “/pm thehunt !list”; the bot will give you a list of all the coordinates you have guessed, and whether or not there was a merger at each set of coordinates. A + means there was a merger there, a — means there was not a merger there.
    8. If you accidentally submit the same coordinate a second time, it does not count as two guesses.

Do not reveal your coordinates to other players. Do not do anything against the spirit of the Hunt. Anyone caught cheating will be automatically disqualified from the event and will not receive any points.

Proximity to merger start point is determined by number of voxels (1 voxel = approx. 1/250th of a cube’s width). Mergers are only counted as found if guessed within a distance of 250 voxels. Pieces of dust floating in space don’t count as mergers, so please don’t report them! We also do not count fused mergers that could not be removed during the Hunt prep process.

Swag (generously sponsored by @susi): The top scoring player will win 1 mug and their choice of a sticker or magnet! Second and third place may each also choose between sticker or magnet.

Bonus info is available in your in-game notifications. Good luck, and happy hunting!

Artwork by Daniela Gamba