Last fall, Mouseadventure broke with tradition and actually saw a little bit of rain. Well, who says traditions aren’t resilient? Once again players found themselves sweating through one of the hottest days of the month while roaming Disney’s California Adventure trying to discover just which dolphin comes after Cruiser at Boardwalk Games or trying to find out all of the foods seen by Heimlich without actually having to ride the ride (sadly, they had to ride the ride).

With just over 450 players, we are once again able to say we had our biggest game ever and boy do we thank everybody who comes out each time to make such a wonderful event. Each event usually sees some growing pains, resulting in some confusion and errors on our part, but the players always surpass our expectations by taking it in stride and remembering that the most important thing is to have fun.

This MouseAdventure did two things we haven’t done in a while. First, we returned to Disney’s California Adventure for the first time in quite a bit and second, we returned to our Mad Scramble format, which puts the emphasis on speed and accuracy over points and strategy. Everybody has their favorite format so we enjoy getting to mix it up. To make things even more intense, we delivered on something a few teams ask for each time around. We think it’s borderline insane, but it isn’t infrequent that we’re asked for a longer game. So for Spring 2006 we offered a longer game for interested teams that put them out into the thick of things for seven hours and sent them all the way to the Disneyland Hotel and back. Be careful what you wish for.

For teams not quite so into wearing their legs down to the knees, we offered a more (but not much more) leisurely five-hour game that stayed within the confines of DCA.

I think we had a good variety of puzzles this time around, even if the difficulty tended towards the high end. One quest required players to do an inventory of the Disaster Effects Department at Muppet*Vision in Hollywood Pictures Backlot while another sent teams around the entire length of Paradise Pier in search of patterns. To help provide a break from the heat, we even gave teams an opportunity to play in the water park in A Bug’s Land… I’m sure it was thoroughly appreciated.

Eight hours after the first game began, we all found ourselves at Disneyland’s Festival Arena ready to present the winners of the event. We were pleased to see some teams in the top rankings for the first time and even more excited to see that the Brother Bears finally earned their third first-place win, securing their status as our newest MouseAdventure Masters. They have become our fourth Masters team and will be retired from competition, allowed to play future events for free, and hopefully continue to set the bar high for other players hoping to join their exalted ranks.