Heyyyy that's where I live (well, not really, I'm in the other side of the country). Small insiders remarks: They're probably using a 4-day Swiss Travel Pass which is functionally equivalent to a...
Heyyyy that's where I live (well, not really, I'm in the other side of the country). Small insiders remarks:
They're probably using a 4-day Swiss Travel Pass which is functionally equivalent to a resident abonnement général / Generalabonnement. It's the same idea as the japanese JR pass, in that you get unlimited travel within the network. But in this case, "the network" means "pretty much all of the public transport of Switzerland".
They sensibly took a 1st class pass. 1st class is usually quieter and more importantly less busy than 2nd class, which is practical in case you want to film yourself for a youtube game show.
I could guess in which canton Adam was by noticing the "Stiär Biär" sign over his head in the café, googling it and it's a local beer brand based in Uri
In general they'll want to avoid shooting car license plate because that's a pretty good giveaway of the canton that you're it (they feature the canton flag on them, see examples)
Awesome to get the inside scoop! No pressure, but I hope you'll share your thoughts on the rest of the season. It'd be cool to hear from a (comparative) local regarding their game.
Awesome to get the inside scoop! No pressure, but I hope you'll share your thoughts on the rest of the season. It'd be cool to hear from a (comparative) local regarding their game.
That was great. I am really loving the new format, and you were right about it being really cool, @Halfloaf. Episode Spoilers It felt like they found Adam reasonably quickly, but a lot of that...
That was great. I am really loving the new format, and you were right about it being really cool, @Halfloaf.
Episode Spoilers
It felt like they found Adam reasonably quickly, but a lot of that came down to really well picked questions by the chasers... and kinda predictable behavior from Adam. They predicted him being in the mountains before they even asked their first question, and even narrowed it down to the castle super quickly after arriving in the correct town too. :P So hopefully Ben picks a slightly more unpredictable and hard to pin down spot, or at least one where the questions will be less useful to the chasers.
Commentary from an (almost) local: Initially I though Ben was in Ticino because of the palm tree we see at 7:38. Ticino is known to be much more sunny than the rest of Switzerland (being on the...
Commentary from an (almost) local:
Initially I though Ben was in Ticino because of the palm tree we see at 7:38. Ticino is known to be much more sunny than the rest of Switzerland (being on the literal other side of the Alps helps). But then I saw the German sign to not swim at 9:31, so eh :shrug:.
Pressing a button so that you hail a train: yep, that happens in less populated station. Usually you would also need to hail for a bus, but a bus has a human driver, can see that there's someone waiting and doesn't have the momentum of a multi*ton vehicle, so stopping in a whim is easy.
Cantons are not regions, they're States (the higher chamber of politics is literally called Council of States). The three layers of government in Switzerland is (Con)federation > Canton > Commune.
The map (taken from the Federal Statistical Office) roughly corresponds to the linguistic map of Switzerland (Italian usually vote lapis, French vote mostly ruby, German votes either topaz or jade)
However election to the Federal Assembly (the lower chamber) is not a first pass the post affair like in the UK, it's a proportional system. The exact term eludes me but each Canton has a fixed number of representative proportional to their population. In each election cycle you don't vote for parties, you vote for people (that usually happens to be a member of a party, but independant exists) . Parties gives you a list of people to elect (and that's what you get in your voting slip), but you are free to modify this list as you want (like crossing our a politician you don't like).
So the map doesn't show "what party my Canton voted for", but rather "what party my Canton voted for the most". And while the map is representative of a general trend (French Canton are more ruby leaning, German ones are more jade), if you look at the commune map you can see that there's urban/rural divide (if it's a state capital, then there's a high probability that's it's ruby). And even then, the color represent the strongest party. If you mouseover each commune, you don't see that much percentage that goes over 50% (meaning there's not that much absolute (50%+1) majority).
I've voluntarily obfuscated the name of the color so as to not have political preconception (here I'm more interested in describing the system than the actual politics), but if you really want to know, SVP is the populist right wing party, SP is the left wing party, FDR is centre right, Centre is also centre right (merger of the Christian party and another one)
Aaaanyway as a game mechanics the canton votes is a pretty good coarse tools, but the commune one is perhaps more interesting to play with (but also more finnicky to check and display). I was worried a bit anpit misleading representation of Swiss politics, which is famous for being direct and multi*faceted but seems rather simplistic here.
Zug:
... it rhymes with Doug, not rug. I know they're American (and still, Sam have a surprisingly serviceable French), but it still hurts my ears. And in not even German speaking.
A family fondue all by himself ? Ouch ! Ben's stomach is a solid one.
there's a scene in the preview that shows Sam and Adam eating fondue so I'll keep my anecdotes about fondue for that episode
Cantonal bank: each Canton has its own (government owned) bank. They all share the same basic logo (a chevron < in a square) All taken together they're are comparable to the big new like UBS and Credit Suisse. They're more of less the default safe choice for a bank (though they are not exempt from scandal and politics).
Ovomaltine: it's brand whose main product a milk chocolate type of thing (made from malt). I hear brits like it a lot (sold as Ovomaltine here) I like them more for chocolate snack derivatives (bars and such).
The political party vote one irked me (way more than the rhyming, they all seemed to be on the same page which is good enough, frankly). As presented now, it’s basically misinformation, and all it...
The political party vote one irked me (way more than the rhyming, they all seemed to be on the same page which is good enough, frankly). As presented now, it’s basically misinformation, and all it would have taken is to reword it to something like “which party got the most seats in parliament” to be accurate. Or perhaps “which party got the most votes in the last election”. But not “which party did the canton vote for”, because they… didn’t.
Click to expand spoiler. That was a great run by Ben. The town and rhyming word selection, which sent Sam and Adam back and forth around Zug and the surrounding area, was clever. And even his...
Click to expand spoiler.
That was a great run by Ben. The town and rhyming word selection, which sent Sam and Adam back and forth around Zug and the surrounding area, was clever. And even his hiding spot, which they walked past several times before finally figuring it out, was excellent. 9 hours 36 minutes is going to be tough to beat.
Sam better have something really clever up his sleeve if he wants to win.
Click to expand spoiler. I definitely felt like they screwed up by not asking for more hints. I’m sure some of the curses are bad, but they spent _so much_ time fumbling around not knowing where...
Click to expand spoiler.
I definitely felt like they screwed up by not asking for more hints. I’m sure some of the curses are bad, but they spent _so much_ time fumbling around not knowing where to look. Something like a much smaller radius question around Zug would have instantly told them they’re in the wrong area and could have saved them hours.
Click to expand spoiler. Yeah, there were definitely a lot of misplays and poorly chosen questions. But I feel like the biggest factor was that they once again underestimated Ben, which has bitten...
Click to expand spoiler.
Yeah, there were definitely a lot of misplays and poorly chosen questions. But I feel like the biggest factor was that they once again underestimated Ben, which has bitten them in the ass a few times over the course of the Jet Lag games.
While I'm very much enjoying this season, I feel like they aren't very much. There's lots of sitting around doing nothing for the hider and lots of unknowns and frustration for the seekers. I...
While I'm very much enjoying this season, I feel like they aren't very much. There's lots of sitting around doing nothing for the hider and lots of unknowns and frustration for the seekers. I wonder if they'll do another season of this format?
Regarding their enjoyment of it, they spoke a bit about it on the latest episode of the (Nebula-exclusive) The Layover podcast, and you're not wrong. I believe it was Sam who said they generally...
Regarding their enjoyment of it, they spoke a bit about it on the latest episode of the (Nebula-exclusive) The Layover podcast, and you're not wrong. I believe it was Sam who said they generally see an inverse correlation between how much they enjoy filming a season and how well the season does ("how fun it is to watch").
Click to expand spoiler. Pretty impressive how quickly they located the correct area that Sam was in. That "eliminate 50% of the possibilities with every question" advice about Guess Who seems to...
Click to expand spoiler.
Pretty impressive how quickly they located the correct area that Sam was in. That "eliminate 50% of the possibilities with every question" advice about Guess Who seems to work quite well for this game too.
But I was really surprised how long it took them to find Sam after they got to the end game. Going to the wrong McD's and them not seeing the A street beside the forest cost them A LOT of time. But it seems like the biggest factor in it taking them so long was that one of the major weaknesses of the pinpointing questions they can ask is that none of them are very good for locating someone hiding in the woods like Sam was.
p.s. I wonder why Adam was running so hard to get to that spot before his time ran out.
Spoiler Overall while I've been enjoying it, I think that it's one of the more boring seasons. My main issue is that the curses haven't been used enough. Basically all the curses have been pretty...
Spoiler
Overall while I've been enjoying it, I think that it's one of the more boring seasons. My main issue is that the curses haven't been used enough. Basically all the curses have been pretty trivial and the hiders only ever roll once or twice. I think they should have made curses cheaper but less powerful overall, with a few rare good ones, and in addition the seeking abilities should have been a bit more powerful, considering how long it's taking to find the hiders on average.
Also it seems a bit unfair that they don't all get an equal number of opportunities to hide.
Click to expand spoiler. I have also been enjoying this season, but I agree with you about it being a bit more boring than the others due to all the sitting around, waiting to get found. I also...
Click to expand spoiler.
I have also been enjoying this season, but I agree with you about it being a bit more boring than the others due to all the sitting around, waiting to get found. I also think cheaper curses would have been way better too, but I actually think they should have been slightly more powerful since (at least all the ones we've seen so far) have been barely any inconvenience. And the pinpoint questions have also been almost entirely useless at helping the seekers actually find the hider too. So hopefully, if they do this format again, they refine all that to make it a bit more interesting and make the game a bit more dynamic.
Hey, so I was busy with a hackathon and had a busy week so you've got two rounds of commentary instead one Ep3 In case you've not read the YouTube comments, the white poles with the horns at the...
Hey, so I was busy with a hackathon and had a busy week so you've got two rounds of commentary instead one
Ep3
In case you've not read the YouTube comments, the white poles with the horns at the top are 3D footprint of a proposed new building (I think it's done after a communal or cantonal authorization). Neighbors have something like 30 days to object to the new building.
Fondue: looking at [the menu](https://swiss-chalet.ch/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/Fonduekarte_EN_2023.pdf) they're eating Moitié-Moitié, which is the most popular type of fondue in Switzerland. The name comes from the type and proportion of cheese used: it's half Gruyère, half Vacherin Fribourgeois. Trivia: the French part tends to keep things fairly minimal with bread as a tipping vehicle and maybe a platter of Food cuts like they're having, I heard that some people from the German part are more creative with that, dipping fruits in the cheese and putting whipped cream in it. There's other variant, like truffle flavored fondue or pure Vacherin. My favorite variant is the tomato one (add some tomato paste to the mix; just don't add herbs in it lest you have a liquid pizza)
For some reason the name of the lake in English is a boring "Lake Lucerne" while both in German and French it's a much more interesting "Lake of the Four Cantons" because its shore is on four cantons at the same time. It's also on these shore where the first confederation was allegedly founded.
Stuff you shouldn't do with fondue:
lose your bread in it (you generally have to do some silly challenge if you do)
heating it too much, breaking the cheese emulsion and having some random cheese oil in it (you can try to fix it with corn starch)
skipping on the *religieuse*, that delicious bit of grilled/caramelized cheese stuck at the bottom of the caquelon. Harder to do with a non-stick caquelon.
Ep4
American guy mispronouncing local names corner: the second t in Winterthur is a hard t, not a thorn sound. The names are announced on the train for major train stops, in several language including English, so it's mildly infuriating.
Winterthur was home for a fairly well known a insurance company (also called Winterthur). It has been merged in the late 2000s with Axa for many billions.
I find the challenge of filling hole in cheese with some other cheese a good idea, but the whole passage left me vaguely offended. The "uh there's no swiss cheese in this cheese shop" feels like average cultural blindness that happens from someone writing from an educational YouTube channel. Then, "we fixed the defect of in your cheese, Switzerland" quip doesn't feel witty enough to register as a joke, but more at slight insult towards precision manufacturing and the dairy industry, both of them being kind of a big deal culturally and economically speaking. Also dude, we're in Switzerland, all of our cheese are Swiss; and not all of our cheese have hole in it, just like not all beer in Ireland are dry stout.
I just realized that for some reason they're restricting themselves to train and are not using buses, because 51 minutes from the forest to the train station is way too long. A shame, because the bus network complements very well with the train one. It would be far too easy to take a bus to nowhere-in-the-Alps though, so I kinda understand this decision. But restricting it in urban areas is a bit restrictive in my opinion (there could've checked all the McDonalds much faster for instance).
At 49:36 you can read a license plate that can tell you in which canton Adam is.
Regarding the cheese: I think they were genuinely expecting to find a type of cheese labled “swiss cheese”. Like they weren’t saying the cheese in that shop isn’t swiss(adjective) but that it...
Regarding the cheese: I think they were genuinely expecting to find a type of cheese labled “swiss cheese”. Like they weren’t saying the cheese in that shop isn’t swiss(adjective) but that it isn’t swiss(name)
I remember Tom Scott doing a video many years ago about a similar-ish kind of "Condominium" lake, Lake Constance, which shares a shoreline with Switzerland, Germany, and Austria.
I’m so excited for this season! I listened to the an episode of their Nebula podcast where they described the rules and game design, and it feels like their most mature and interesting system yet!
I’m so excited for this season!
I listened to the an episode of their Nebula podcast where they described the rules and game design, and it feels like their most mature and interesting system yet!
There were a couple of interesting parts! Some rules spoilers below! The hider doesn’t have to do challenges to get coins. Instead, the chasers have to pay the hider for truthful information. More...
There were a couple of interesting parts!
Some rules spoilers below!
The hider doesn’t have to do challenges to get coins. Instead, the chasers have to pay the hider for truthful information. More detailed information is worth more coins. The hider can then spend the coins on curses, which are determined semi-randomly through a die roll.
Each chase is split into two sections —- the initial phase and the endgame. During the initial phase, the hider can move around a little. I think it’s something like 1.5 miles. This can give them flexibility in answering some of the questions mentioned above. After the chasers are within that 1.5 mile radius, the hider must stay exactly where they are. There are also some questions that would give way too much power at that stage, so the hider can respond with “I cannot answer that question”, thus confirming to the chasers that their target is close!
I really feel like this ruleset could work in a number of locations, and I hope to see it used more than once!
That actually does sound pretty cool! It's basically a reversal of the previous way it worked. I like it, and now am extra excited to see how it plays out too. Thanks for sharing!
That actually does sound pretty cool! It's basically a reversal of the previous way it worked. I like it, and now am extra excited to see how it plays out too. Thanks for sharing!
Some commentary from a Swiss guy: 9:56: That's some Valais Blacknose sheeps ! A breed of sheep endemic to Switzerland (more particularly the Valais region, as their name suggests), breed for meat...
Exemplary
Some commentary from a Swiss guy:
9:56: That's some Valais Blacknose sheeps ! A breed of sheep endemic to Switzerland (more particularly the Valais region, as their name suggests), breed for meat and whool. They're kinda cute
12:29 : So they're near the Bern trainstation, a place I'm actually familiar with (my GF used to study in Bern). More specifically, they're on the roof of commercial building nearby (the actual trainstation spans several blocks underground). Maybe they should've go a little bit further, you can have a nicer view from the university's lawn. You can actually see the root of the Palais fédéral / Bundesrat in the building. You can actually visit the building (it's a nice one). Visiting during a parliamentary session is more difficult though (you have to book, and it's nigh impossible except if you're a group), however all the session are recorded and transcribed to hell and back (see the official website)
16:33: that's not Moutier, but Spiez instead. Moutier is a soon to be formely Bernese commune, but will join the Jura canton in 2026. It's actually part of a broader conflict of Jura separatism (from Bern) whose history I barely known (but like often it seems to stems from several causes, including linguistic, economic and religious). I don't have anything special to say about Spiez, except a friend used to live here and she had a gorgeous view of the lake,.
17:57: although Adam is in Steffisburg, it's actually the Thun Castle that we're seeing in the background.
24:27: we're seeing a Landi in the background, which is a chain of shop mainly targeting farmer (they sell farmer supplies). But it's also a farmer co-operative. Interestingly, the two biggest retailers in Switzerland (Migros and Coop) began their history as co-operatives (it's even in the name of one of them)
Aaaand that concludes this run of commentary. If they come back one day, I'll try to do something similar !
Thanks for providing this running commentary all throughout. It was really interesting! p.s. Those sheep are more than kinda cute. They look like plush toys, and are absolutely adorable! :P
Thanks for providing this running commentary all throughout. It was really interesting!
p.s. Those sheep are more than kinda cute. They look like plush toys, and are absolutely adorable! :P
Click to expand spoiler. Damn, I really didn't expect Adam to pull off a win so late in the game... but he did an amazing job! That running to the next municipality trick was brilliant. Ben and...
Click to expand spoiler.
Damn, I really didn't expect Adam to pull off a win so late in the game... but he did an amazing job! That running to the next municipality trick was brilliant. Ben and Sam had noooooo idea where he was, LOL. I'm surprised they didn't ask more high value questions though to help try to significantly narrow it down instead of just spamming the low value ones and running around to a bunch of random locations hoping to find the right train station.
Spoilers Yeah, I feel like the high-value questions were criminally underutilized the whole season long. In fear of having to do a task, they'd rather spend a half hour going out to another town...
Spoilers
Yeah, I feel like the high-value questions were criminally underutilized the whole season long. In fear of having to do a task, they'd rather spend a half hour going out to another town to look and see if the graffiti matches? Why? Maybe the bad curses would really have been that bad, but I don't know that they would have been as bad a time cost as the research and wandering they did end up doing.
No spoilers They discuss this some in their Layover podcast, but all of the bad curses were really bad: the last six curses all allowed the hider to move, which would completely invalidate every...
No spoilers
They discuss this some in their Layover podcast, but all of the bad curses were really bad: the last six curses all allowed the hider to move, which would completely invalidate every question already asked. They just kind of all rolled statistically unlikely easy curses all season.
It seems like they would have done better to have a gentler curve of curses or different high end curses then? It seems a pity that they functionally were incentivized to avoid interacting with...
It seems like they would have done better to have a gentler curve of curses or different high end curses then? It seems a pity that they functionally were incentivized to avoid interacting with the core mechanic of the season because of the risk aversion associated with a deadly higher end.
We played hide and seek across Switzerland - Episode 1
Heyyyy that's where I live (well, not really, I'm in the other side of the country). Small insiders remarks:
Awesome to get the inside scoop! No pressure, but I hope you'll share your thoughts on the rest of the season. It'd be cool to hear from a (comparative) local regarding their game.
I'll sure do, see below :)
That was great. I am really loving the new format, and you were right about it being really cool, @Halfloaf.
Episode Spoilers
It felt like they found Adam reasonably quickly, but a lot of that came down to really well picked questions by the chasers... and kinda predictable behavior from Adam. They predicted him being in the mountains before they even asked their first question, and even narrowed it down to the castle super quickly after arriving in the correct town too. :P So hopefully Ben picks a slightly more unpredictable and hard to pin down spot, or at least one where the questions will be less useful to the chasers.
Ep 2 - We Played Hide And Seek Across Switzerland
Commentary from an (almost) local:
As a Brit, Doug and rug do rhyme? How do Americans pronounce Doug that it doesn't rhyme with rug?
As an American on the west coast (since there's more than one American accent) Doug and rug rhyme for me too.
The political party vote one irked me (way more than the rhyming, they all seemed to be on the same page which is good enough, frankly). As presented now, it’s basically misinformation, and all it would have taken is to reword it to something like “which party got the most seats in parliament” to be accurate. Or perhaps “which party got the most votes in the last election”. But not “which party did the canton vote for”, because they… didn’t.
Ovomaltine cocoa is ok, but the ovomaltine chocolate (both as tables and bars) is always amazing.
Ep 3 - We Played Hide And Seek Across Switzerland
Click to expand spoiler.
That was a great run by Ben. The town and rhyming word selection, which sent Sam and Adam back and forth around Zug and the surrounding area, was clever. And even his hiding spot, which they walked past several times before finally figuring it out, was excellent. 9 hours 36 minutes is going to be tough to beat.
Sam better have something really clever up his sleeve if he wants to win.
Click to expand spoiler.
I definitely felt like they screwed up by not asking for more hints. I’m sure some of the curses are bad, but they spent _so much_ time fumbling around not knowing where to look. Something like a much smaller radius question around Zug would have instantly told them they’re in the wrong area and could have saved them hours.Click to expand spoiler.
Yeah, there were definitely a lot of misplays and poorly chosen questions. But I feel like the biggest factor was that they once again underestimated Ben, which has bitten them in the ass a few times over the course of the Jet Lag games.
While I'm very much enjoying this season, I feel like they aren't very much. There's lots of sitting around doing nothing for the hider and lots of unknowns and frustration for the seekers. I wonder if they'll do another season of this format?
Regarding their enjoyment of it, they spoke a bit about it on the latest episode of the (Nebula-exclusive) The Layover podcast, and you're not wrong. I believe it was Sam who said they generally see an inverse correlation between how much they enjoy filming a season and how well the season does ("how fun it is to watch").
Ep 4 - We Played Hide And Seek Across Switzerland
Click to expand spoiler.
Pretty impressive how quickly they located the correct area that Sam was in. That "eliminate 50% of the possibilities with every question" advice about Guess Who seems to work quite well for this game too.
But I was really surprised how long it took them to find Sam after they got to the end game. Going to the wrong McD's and them not seeing the A street beside the forest cost them A LOT of time. But it seems like the biggest factor in it taking them so long was that one of the major weaknesses of the pinpointing questions they can ask is that none of them are very good for locating someone hiding in the woods like Sam was.
p.s. I wonder why Adam was running so hard to get to that spot before his time ran out.
Spoiler
Overall while I've been enjoying it, I think that it's one of the more boring seasons. My main issue is that the curses haven't been used enough. Basically all the curses have been pretty trivial and the hiders only ever roll once or twice. I think they should have made curses cheaper but less powerful overall, with a few rare good ones, and in addition the seeking abilities should have been a bit more powerful, considering how long it's taking to find the hiders on average.
Also it seems a bit unfair that they don't all get an equal number of opportunities to hide.
Click to expand spoiler.
I have also been enjoying this season, but I agree with you about it being a bit more boring than the others due to all the sitting around, waiting to get found. I also think cheaper curses would have been way better too, but I actually think they should have been slightly more powerful since (at least all the ones we've seen so far) have been barely any inconvenience. And the pinpoint questions have also been almost entirely useless at helping the seekers actually find the hider too. So hopefully, if they do this format again, they refine all that to make it a bit more interesting and make the game a bit more dynamic.
Hey, so I was busy with a hackathon and had a busy week so you've got two rounds of commentary instead one
Ep3
Ep4
Regarding the cheese: I think they were genuinely expecting to find a type of cheese labled “swiss cheese”. Like they weren’t saying the cheese in that shop isn’t swiss(adjective) but that it isn’t swiss(name)
But isn't that even worse for people making a living of semi-interesting trivia ?
I remember Tom Scott doing a video many years ago about a similar-ish kind of "Condominium" lake, Lake Constance, which shares a shoreline with Switzerland, Germany, and Austria.
I’m so excited for this season!
I listened to the an episode of their Nebula podcast where they described the rules and game design, and it feels like their most mature and interesting system yet!
Oh, nice. Can you recall any of the interesting points about this game's new system?
There were a couple of interesting parts!
Some rules spoilers below!
The hider doesn’t have to do challenges to get coins. Instead, the chasers have to pay the hider for truthful information. More detailed information is worth more coins. The hider can then spend the coins on curses, which are determined semi-randomly through a die roll.
Each chase is split into two sections —- the initial phase and the endgame. During the initial phase, the hider can move around a little. I think it’s something like 1.5 miles. This can give them flexibility in answering some of the questions mentioned above. After the chasers are within that 1.5 mile radius, the hider must stay exactly where they are. There are also some questions that would give way too much power at that stage, so the hider can respond with “I cannot answer that question”, thus confirming to the chasers that their target is close!
I really feel like this ruleset could work in a number of locations, and I hope to see it used more than once!
That actually does sound pretty cool! It's basically a reversal of the previous way it worked. I like it, and now am extra excited to see how it plays out too. Thanks for sharing!
Ep 5 - We Played Hide And Seek Across Switzerland - Finale
Some commentary from a Swiss guy:
Aaaand that concludes this run of commentary. If they come back one day, I'll try to do something similar !
Thanks for providing this running commentary all throughout. It was really interesting!
p.s. Those sheep are more than kinda cute. They look like plush toys, and are absolutely adorable! :P
Click to expand spoiler.
Damn, I really didn't expect Adam to pull off a win so late in the game... but he did an amazing job! That running to the next municipality trick was brilliant. Ben and Sam had noooooo idea where he was, LOL. I'm surprised they didn't ask more high value questions though to help try to significantly narrow it down instead of just spamming the low value ones and running around to a bunch of random locations hoping to find the right train station.
cc: @Adys, you were right, it was good. :P
Spoilers
Yeah, I feel like the high-value questions were criminally underutilized the whole season long. In fear of having to do a task, they'd rather spend a half hour going out to another town to look and see if the graffiti matches? Why? Maybe the bad curses would really have been that bad, but I don't know that they would have been as bad a time cost as the research and wandering they did end up doing.No spoilers
They discuss this some in their Layover podcast, but all of the bad curses were really bad: the last six curses all allowed the hider to move, which would completely invalidate every question already asked. They just kind of all rolled statistically unlikely easy curses all season.
It seems like they would have done better to have a gentler curve of curses or different high end curses then? It seems a pity that they functionally were incentivized to avoid interacting with the core mechanic of the season because of the risk aversion associated with a deadly higher end.
I agree but I also think overall the seekers got overconfident over time, because they got that experience hiding.