We decided early on that we would play to our strengths, and that our strategy would be speed. This is partially because when we did JttEotN, we were very cautious about not getting caught, and took things slow; so we missed out on the race aspect. But also, it was more fun to run.

We arrived at Washington Square Park about 15 minutes early, and began preparing by stretching and checking out our adversaries. When we were given permission, we grabbed a ribbon – purple, as planned, since it was dark and wouldn’t make us stand out as much as orange or yellow. We learned, however, that there were a lot of athletic-looking yellow ribboned players (our predators), and only a few orange ribboned players (our prey). Also, purple had the disadvantage of leaving 20 minutes after the first group of yellows were released. But it was too late to change, and Meredithian and Mr. O weren’t afraid of a challenge.

After witnessing the large crowd of Yellows moving north, we decided to head east and take a clockwise route. We didn’t run into our first Yellow until after obtaining three stamps, when we were heading west on Illinois St. The streets were crowded, and the two Yellows popped out of a group of pedestrians. We, however, had a quicker reaction time, and bolted before they realized that it was their job to chase us. The crowded streets where hard to maneuver. We immediately lost track of one another. Meredithian acted fast, and took a gutsy move of running across the street, dodging the heavy traffic. This strategy worked – none of the Yellows were willing to follow her into the street. Once she was safe on the other side, she kept moving in order to get some distance between her and her pursuers.

One of the Yellows was coming after Mr. O. He ran, dodging people and parking meters. He stopped and turned around to see if he could see what happened to Meredithian, but he saw no Meredithian and no Yellow, but an innocent looking Purple strolling down the sidewalik, smiling. “Did you get tagged?” Mr. O asked. She just smiled back, and said “No.” Where did she come from? Was she with the yellow? It was very suspicious. Her distraction worked, and the Yellow came at Mr. O from behind a parked car. He turned and ran, not looking back. Speeding around a corner, he almost took out an innocent bystander, who screamed in his face (and scared him half to death)! Mr. O headed down an alley, and managed to lose them. That was close.

After making phone contact with each other, we learned we had both averted our foes, and managed to meet back up on our way to the next secret.

The next time we encountered other players was near a secret. We saw some suspicious-looking characters near the secret. But were they yellow, orange or purple? It was too dark to tell. Also, when we approached, we didn’t know if they had seen us or not. We took our time sneaking up to the secret until we could get a good view of their ribbons, and were ecstatic to learn that they were, in fact, orange, and they hadn’t seen us coming. They were strolling away from the secret without even watching their backs. We quietly crept up behind them, and when we were close enough that we thought they’d hear us, we started running. Mr. O nabbed one before they even knew what hit them. She screamed, startling the other players into a run. But when he tagged her, she sort of tripped. Mr. O felt bad about startling her, so instead of immediately go after her friends, he half caught her/half helped her fall so she didn’t get hurt. He asked her, “are you ok?” Her response was “you asshole!” Alright, she was ok. Meredithian had gone after another of the Oranges. But this poor fool tried to lose her by running directly into the clutches of Mr.O, who nabbed him gleefully. By this time, the third had about 20 yards on us. Mr. O tried to go after him, but couldn’t get close enough to tag him.

After collecting names, we headed to the secret. Not being sure on how to exit the apartment complex, we asked a bystander for the way out. He did not know. We commented to each other how bizarre and out-of-place he was. He was standing by himself against a fence in this apartment complex, reading a book, and it was at night. And he obviously didn’t live there since he couldn’t help us out. However, for some reason it did not occur to us that he was in fact a secret agent, which we learned later that he was.

Our next run-in didn’t happen until a few secrets later. This time, also, we came out on top. We encountered some friends and fellow Foe Cakes (also purple) Indy Cent and Amby-D, and they had given us the scoop on some incoming Oranges, while they scouted out a different group. We went for the secret spot. The stamp was surrounded by Oranges, cowering behind the 20 foot safe radius of the stamp. But, one of their friends was not safe yet, and made a break for it. Mr. O tagged her. She tried to argue that she was within 20 feet of the stamp (she was about 40 feet). It was her call, according to the rules, so Mr. O let her decide. There were 5 people in the area, so we used 4 of us to measure the spot between where Mr. O tagged her and the stamp. She stretched and (rather pathetically) tried to say that it was less than 20 feet from the stamp, but it was really just not. She conceded and very reluctantly gave her name to Mr. O. Meredithian agreed that the tagging occurred well over 20 feet of the stamp.

At the next secret location, we discovered a group of about 4 Oranges taking a smoke break near the stamp. United with our Foe Cake friends, we sneaked along the side of a building; they did not see us approaching, and continued smoking. Three of us (Indy Cent, Amby-D and Mr. O) were on one side of a building, while Meredithian snuck around the other side.

Here’s how this encounter played out:

The Oranges from the previous secret – the ones who were safely near the stamp when we arrived – approached us, and saw us hiding behind the building.
The ones who had no names (like the one Mr. O already tagged) went right for the stamp, and we assumed they let the smoking Oranges know that we were waiting and hiding.
The other three Oranges who still had names were waiting in the background. Mr. O, Amby-D and Indy Cent stood as a barrier between them and the secret. A couple of them thought they could out-maneuver us. They were wrong.
One of them went to Mr. O’s left, right into the clutches of Amby-D. Bam, +3 names to team Foe Cakes.
One of them tried to give Mr. O a fake-out, only to underestimate Foe Cakes and find himself tagged by Indy Cent. Bam, +10 more names.
The third did not actually come in for the stamp, and stayed a good distance away. But he was no match for Mr. O, who ran after him, and overtook him. Bam, +4 names for team Foe Cakes.
The four original smokers took advantage of this distraction and headed out by going in the other direction. Of course, Meredithian was waiting for them, and promptly nabbed three out of four of them. Bam, +3 more for team Foe Cakes.

A few check points later, there were a couple of girls dressed like Italians, and they were giving free Gondola rides, so Mr. G hopped in. He recognized one as a secret agent, but did not want to interrupt the tour by saying the secret password. After getting a stamp, Meredithian recognized the agent and said the phrase, “beneath the pavement, the beach.” The Gondola driver said “oh! I have something for you. And it’s the last one!” And gave Meredithian a name. Mr. O had snoozed, and losed.

We speedily moved on, and didn’t have another run-in until the twelfth and final secret check-point. As we headed towards the alley where the secret was, there was a suspicious-looking person slowly riding her bike past us. Meredithian recognized her from her picture and quickly said, “beneath the pavement, the beach…” She looked at both of us and responded, in a heavy French accent, “I don’t know what you’re saying,” and rolled away. Oops.

Before heading in, we saw a few Yellows moving into the alley where the stamp was. Even though we were going for speed and not names, we did not want to lose what we’d earned. We sneaked in the ally from the other side, and weren’t sure if we should try to get to the stamp, or wait for them to leave. We decided to go for the secret since the three Yellows were taking their time, and we were trying to make it back quickly. Also, the fence gate we had to crawl through turned out to be really loud, and they heard us coming.

They asked us what colors we were. Without hesitating, Mr. O answered “Yellow!” and they responded “oh! We are too.” We couldn’t believe they bought it. Couldn’t they see our ribbons? Mr. O started heading in towards the stamp. They weren’t even looking at him as he ran in, and stopped when he was close to the stamp. “I lied, I’m not yellow. I’m purple.” They were flabbergasted. Meredithian was right behind him and also made it safely. They weren’t amused. But then we were stuck at this stamp with these slow Yellows.

"Slow Yellows... hm," Mr. O had thought. He had a plan, but he had to pass the message on to Meredithian. After trying to catch her eye or whisper something to her, and failing, he decided to just say fuck it. The Yellows were right next to us, but he said “Hey, Meredithian, let’s just run. NOW.” We bolted. They ran after us at first, but quickly realized they couldn’t catch us and gave up. “Oh, they’re too fast for us,” one had said, defeated.

We were done. We had gathered all twelve stamps in about 2 hours. Now we just had to make it to the finish line. We took the Red Line up to Fullerton, then the Brown Line up to Diversey, and very cautiously headed up Lincoln, north of Wellington into the safe zone.

We were expecting to run into a lot of players near the safe zone, trying to catch a few extra names before heading to the Heart of Gold. But, there weren’t. In fact, we didn’t run in to another player before getting to the finish line, and ended up being the first ones to finish.

We hung out, exhausted, at the Heart of Gold as other players trickled in. Our final numbers were 6 and 7 names for Meredithian and Mr. O. We didn’t expect to win the trophy, but we had achieved our goal as one of the first 6 to finish. We were proud to be the very first to finish, even after hitting each and every twelve secret check points.

Our victory solidified our confidence in team Foe Cakes. Even though Amby-D and Indy Cent didn’t arrive back to the finish line until just after midnight, Indy would have taken the top purple place, and the four of us collectively had about 30 names, which accounts for about 42% of all of the names given out to the players at the beginning of the game. Next street game, Meredithian and Mr. O fully intend to take the trophy.


Special thanks to the Architect, the Urchin, and everyone else who helped with this adventure. You guys rock!