Author: Elaina Present
Voice acting: Harrison Bralower, Elaina Present, Paul Romer, Laura Royden
Four people are playing a game – approximately, Taboo. However, every card is a word from the NATO phonetic alphabet. The four players take turns trying to get others (their partners) to say the words on their cards. They take turns in the following order: Amy, Betsy, Aiden, Bill. Taking the letters indicated only by those cards that each respective player successfully successively clues, the answer to the puzzle may be read out. That is:
The answer to the puzzle is AND I LOVE HER.
Of course, you already knew that.
A few strange things happen during the game. People interject "Shoot!" at illogical times. There is at times an odd scampering sound. Betsy seems to be counting rounds differently than anyone else, and at the end she states that the word game that was just played is not the game whose status the solver will find most interesting.
There is another game happening. It's Chutes and Ladders.
The players take their turns in Chutes and Ladders in the same order they clue in almost-Taboo. Amy starts, followed by Betsy, Aiden, and Bill. Every number or number-homophone (e.g. too, for, won) spoken during the game is the Chutes & Ladders spin of its speaker. This starts with Amy's "three" while she is cluing ALPHA and concludes with Bill's "Who won?" Each time a player goes down a chute in Chutes and Ladders, "shoot" ("chute") is immediately, loudly, stated. Each time a player goes up a ladder, there is a scampering noise. In all, there are 10 rounds of Chutes and Ladders played during the 1 ¾ rounds of almost-Taboo.
When the Taboo game fizzles and Betsy declares the end, the four players are on the following numbered spaces on the Chutes and Ladders board:
Using A=1, the four end locations spell out YORK in turn order, which is the title of the puzzle.
The Chutes and Ladders game progresses as shown:
| CL Round | Amy Roll | Amy turn end location | Betsy Roll | Betsy turn end location | Aiden roll | Aiden turn end location | Bill roll | Bill turn end location |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | |||||
| 1 | 3 | 3 | 1 | 38 | 2 | 2 | 4 | 14 |
| 2 | 4 | 7 | 4 | 42 | 1 | 3 | 2 | 6 |
| 3 | 4 | 11 | 4 | 46 | 2 | 5 | 2 | 8 |
| 4 | 2 | 13 | 3 | 11 | 4 | 31 | 4 | 12 |
| 5 | 6 | 19 | 2 | 13 | 2 | 33 | 2 | 14 |
| 6 | 1 | 20 | 3 | 6 | 3 | 44 | 2 | 6 |
| 7 | 3 | 23 | 2 | 8 | 2 | 46 | 1 | 7 |
| 8 | 5 | 84 | 4 | 12 | 3 | 11 | 1 | 8 |
| 9 | 3 | 24 | 1 | 13 | 3 | 14 | 2 | 10 |
| 10 | 1 | 25 | 2 | 15 | 4 | 18 | 1 | 11 |
Rolls (spins) highlighted in green indicate ladders; orange indicates chutes.
The full script with numbers and number homophones can be found in this pdf.