Ryan Veeder’s wildly successful Captain Verdeterre’s Plunder has captured the puzzle-loving hearts of literally dozens of puzzle-lovers as well as aficionados of Napoleonic historical fiction. But astonishing true facts have come to light of late that seem to reveal that the truth, as is so often the case, is not what it seems.
Recently the highest score in Verdeterre was revealed to be 1719 Spanish dollars, a feat accomplished by one Marshall Quander. Quander definitely did accomplish this feat, and the mathematical brilliance that enabled this accomplishment merits far more congratulation than it has received. But it accomplished this feat inside of the first version of the game.
When Ryan Veeder released an updated version of the game, one of the bugfixes—unbeknownst to the author!—disabled an element of Quander’s strategy. Since then, people who have been playing online or downloading the latest version of the game have not had access to the exact same thought-provoking and award-winning combination of well-tuned systems (and praiseworthy prose) that Quander had downloaded at the competition’s outset.
Because of Veeder’s mistake, since the publication of the Verdeterre high score list, the unsuspecting world has been misled as to the number of dollars that can be amassed in the current version of the game. Based on the information available, we do not believe that a score of $1719 is possible.
However, Quander’s overall strategy is sound. Using a modified version of his solution, we were able to score $1533, a score that still outstrips any submitted by any other Verdeterre enthusiast. To avoid misleading those who in the future might visit the high score list to admire the geniuses honored therein, we have edited Quander’s score to read “$1533”, which is less than he deserves.
Ryan Veeder apologizes and accepts full responsibility for any confusion or bad vibes that may have resulted or are about to result from his negligence. We would like to reiterate that Quander’s high score was real, and that he did not—also, Veeder did not—intend to mislead anybody, at any time, about anything.
I will now take questions.