Wired Game|Life editor (and my former boss) Chris Kohler published an excellent story today about his exploits in Disneyland last weekend. He wasn't there just to float down log flume rivers or hang out with Mickey Mouse; he went to solve puzzles, Professor Layton style.
The puzzles, put together by an organization called Shinteki, took Kohler and krew on a wacky adventure through Walt Disney's theme park, where they dug for clues on classic rides like "It's A Small World."
I've been to Disneyland many times before, but Shinteki's puzzles caused us all to see it in a new light. You don't notice details like the elements surrounding the Walt Disney statue at the park's center, or all of the flavor text written on posters and notice boards along Main Street. If not for Shinteki I don't think I'd ever have known that for a brief moment on the train from New Orleans to Toontown you can catch a glimpse of the animatronics inside Splash Mountain (which contained a crucial puzzle answer).
Shinteki will run a similar puzzle-solving event in San Francisco this May. And I'll be bugging Totilo every day for the next two months until he lets me go.
Discovering Disneyland's Secrets on a Real-Life Puzzle Adventure [Wired.com]