The Challenge Factory discussion

You and three friends are about to embark on a perilous journey. You will be traveling by wagon from Independence, Missouri, to the Willamette Valley, Oregon. It is going to be a long, long 1,960-mile walk.

You will face wildlife, starvation, disease, thieves, severe weather, accidents, and worst of all, no libraries :)

But you can do it together with your companions. (I promise you will not die of dysentery.)

Team 4
Erin *Proud Book Hoarder*
Lynnette
Denise (mod)
Jill

*miles traveled - 1,680

*Supply Cards available*


*Supply Cards used*

For Week 1 each team member will read for one (1) Supply Card.

Supply Cards
Medicine - read a book with "doctor" found in the text
Spare Parts - read a book that is in a series, but is NOT the first
Clothes - read a book with one fully clothed person on the cover
Clean Water - read a book that is set along a lake, sea, or ocean (50% of the time)
Food - read a book with double letters in a word in the title.

For Weeks 2, 3, 5, 6, 8, 9, and 10, you will be traveling. Each team member will read a book that will get you 70 miles along the trail.

To go 70 miles, read a book:
with the numbers 7 and 0 in the publication date - OR -
written by an author whose first, middle, or last initial can be found in MILES - OR -
with a title that begins with a letter found in THE OREGON TRAIL (you can use or ignore 'A', 'An', 'The')

For Weeks 4 and 7, you can read any 140+ page book you'd like.

First of all, pick a name for your family, group, or company.

Second, decide who will read for which Supply Card.

Third, decide who will make the team's Completion Posts. (It can be one person, or you can take turns. The team's Completion Post can be posted as soon as everyone has reported. The latest the team Completion Post can be posted is early Monday morning.)

Fourth, sit back and wait for Day One of the most incredible journey.

Hello, all! Been excited about this one. Always enjoyed the old classic game Oregon Trail (briefly, it gets boring pretty fast, but is amusing). Look forward to playing with you.

Names off the top of my head, curious to see what others come up with:

Pioneering Pageturners
Anti-Cliffs AND Cliffhangers
Dysentery Doomsdayers
Lopsided Library Wagon
We Sat on a Cactus

I like cliffhangers and lopsided library eagon

Wagon

Hi team, looking forward to getting started!

Pioneering Pageturners and Lopsided Library Wagon are my favourites out of the name suggestions.

Looks like we're still waiting for Jil to check in

Her profile is set to private. Not sure how long we are supposed to give players time to check in.

Does anyone have any preference for which supply card they want to read for week one?

Supply Cards
Medicine - read a book with "doctor" found in the text
Spare Parts - read a book that is in a series, but is NOT the first
Clothes - read a book with one fully clothed person on the cover
Clean Water - read a book that is set along a lake, sea, or ocean (50% of the time)
Food - read a book with double letters in a word in the title.

I'm assuming these will be needed later in the game, so... should we try to pick the four we think would be most useful?

Yeah, I am not sure if/when we get another chance to replinish supplies.

To me the most important for long term travel would be Food, Water, Medicine, and Spare parts

Clothes, eh, they're important but you know...

Out of these critical four then :)

Medicine - read a book with "doctor" found in the text
Spare Parts - read a book that is in a series, but is NOT the first
Clean Water - read a book that is set along a lake, sea, or ocean (50% of the time)
Food - read a book with double letters in a word in the title.


I am fine finding a book for any of the four really,

I can read for food

Let's give Jill a couple more days. Hopefully she'll check in soon. I have a couple of back-up players just in case.

Updated for first starts (13th and on)

Medicine - read a book with "doctor" found in the text
Spare Parts - read a book that is in a series, but is NOT the first - Erin
Clean Water - read a book that is set along a lake, sea, or ocean (50% of the time)
Food - read a book with double letters in a word in the title. - Lynnette

If anyone needs me to switch, let me know.

I see our name has been updated, perfect :)

I'm fine with either of the remaining options, so I'll find books for both and wait to see if Jill (or a potential back-up player) has a preference. :)

This is Week 1 of your journey West to Oregon. Each team member will read for a Supply Card. You need to decide which Supply Cards you want to begin your journey with, and who will read for which Card.

Supply Cards
Medicine - read a book with "doctor" found in the text
Spare Parts - read a book that is in a series, but is NOT the first
Clothes - read a book with one fully clothed person on the cover
Clean Water - read a book that is set along a lake, sea, or ocean (50% of the time)
Food - read a book with double letters in a word in the title.

Calamities
Broken Arm (needs Medicine card)
Snake Bite (needs Medicine card)
Starvation (needs Food card)
Extreme Cold (needs Clothes card)
Bad Water (needs Clean Water card)
Broken Wheel (needs Spare Parts card)


Rules
You can't begin reading your book until Monday morning, 12:01 a.m. your time.
You must finish and report your book by Sunday night 11:59 p.m. your time.
Books must be 140 pages or more.
Audio books must be at least 3 hours long.
Graphic Novels must be at least 200 pages.

Ugh hope we don't run into extreme cold yet.

Looks like there are two reasons to use a medicine card, but everything else one reason.

I'm sure we will get more chances to get supply cards needed later, otherwise everyone is doomed anyway.

Broken wheel would stop us.....Bad Water leading to that fun dysentery but at least we were told we wouldn't die of it :)

And ugh, I hate snakes. What's funny is when I was trying to brainstorm names I kept thinking of snake bites. 🤢

Then again I don't think of I can think of wilderness without thinking of that with my snake bite phobia ...

Hi team. Sorry for the late check in. I don't think anyone was screwed by the elimination of emails than me, ugh!. So many challenges to keep track of.

I can read for medicine.

In case of extreme cold, we'll just have to form a cuddle pile and hope it'll do. XD
Let's hope we get lucky with whatever calamities we have to face!

Does anyone wanna volunteer to do our completion posts or shall we take turns?

Glad to see you, Jill! It's easy to not notice when some of these start, I've been there myself.

Denise wrote: "In case of extreme cold, we'll just have to form a cuddle pile and hope it'll do. XD
Let's hope we get lucky with whatever calamities we have to face!

Does anyone wanna volunteer to do our comple..."

Agreed. I'd rather be very cold than have a venomous snake bite without antivenom lol - or those broken bones just don't sound fun at all.

Doesn't matter to me on completion posts.

So looks like from this we can see when we have a chance to get replacement supply cards for the freezing weather and such --


Week 1 - read for Supply Cards
Week 2 - on the trail, Calamity happens
Week 3 - on the trail, Calamity happens
Week 4 - reach Factoryville - rest and get 1 Supply Card
Week 5 - on the trail, Calamity happens
Week 6 - on the trail, Calamity happens
Week 7 - reach Fort Challenge, rest and get 2 Supply Cards
Week 8 - on the trail, Calamity happens
Week 9 - on the trail, Calamity happens
Week 10 - on the trail, arrive at Willamette Valley, Oregon

Welcome, Jill! :)

Jill wrote: "I can read for medicine."

That leaves me with clean water, works for me.

Great, looks like we have our first plan

Medicine - read a book with "doctor" found in the text - Jill
Spare Parts - read a book that is in a series, but is NOT the first - Erin
Clean Water - read a book that is set along a lake, sea, or ocean (50% of the time) - Denise
Food - read a book with double letters in a word in the title. - Lynnette

I did some digging with old photos and found out library wagons historically were a thing as the early bookmobiles. The early pictures with the horses and handing out books was interesting. I'm sure there were lopsided ones, too.

I know Oregon Trail was likely pre-wheels *sniff, sniff*, and historical with the animals involved to tug along.

That’s super cool Erin. I would like to opt out of posting. I’ll forget and I do t want to annoy the team. I’ll make sure I pull my weight in every other way.

Ah, just realized it's the 13th and this starts today in my time zone.

Good luck on the first week, everyone. Our voyage begins....

Completion Post - Week 1
Book/Author: Die tiefen Wasser der Nordsee: Küstenkrimi - Nordseekrimi (Nordsee-Krimis mit Koopmann und Neuhof 1) by Heide Hinrichs
Pages: 298
Date Read: 14 Jan 2025
Task: Clean Water - read a book that is set along a lake, sea, or ocean (50% of the time)
How It Fits: Set at the North Sea coast

The other day, in a mood, made some badges if you'd like to grab if it's something you collect. Couldn't resist the theme idea.

Completion Post Week One

Book/Author: Before the Coffee Gets Cold Toshikazu Kawaguchi
Pages: 213
Task: Food Supply Card
How It Fits: Double letters
Date Completed 1/15/25

Erin *Proud Book Hoarder* wrote: "The other day, in a mood, made some badges if you'd like to grab if it's something you collect. Couldn't resist the theme idea.

"

These are pretty cool! :D

Erin *Proud Book Hoarder* wrote: "The other day, in a mood, made some badges if you'd like to grab if it's something you collect. Couldn't resist the theme idea.

"

These are nice.

Glad you guys like them.

I should be done with my book today or early tomorrow at the latest.

👣 Completion Post - Week 1 👣
Book: Handling What's Mine: Hound Search & Rescue Book 1
Author: Autum Remington
Pages: 154
Task - Supply Card: Medicine - read a book with "doctor" found in the text
How Book Qualifies: Page 24, "She was last seen leaving her doctor..."
Date Read: 01/13/25

COMPLETION POST
BOOK: ➤ Night Tremors
EDITION READ: ➤ https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/2...
AUTHOR: Matt Coyle
DATE READ: 01/28/25
PAGES 306 |
TASK: 📔Spare Parts - read a book that is in a series, but is NOT the first

HOW IT FITS: Second book in the series Rick Cavill

Checked us in

For Week 2 of your journey West to Oregon, each team member will read a book that will take them 70 miles.

To go 70 miles, read a book:
with the numbers 7 and 0 in the publication date - OR -
written by an author whose first, middle, or last initial can be found in MILES - OR -
with a title that begins with a letter found in THE OREGON TRAIL (you can use or ignore 'A', 'An', 'The')

*******************************************************

You received the Extreme Cold Calamity Card.

Hopefully you will have earned the Supply Card that blocks this Calamity in Week 1.

If you don't have the Supply Card, one team member will need to read the task to counteract the Calamity. You will miss out on the 70 miles that that team member's book would add to the total mileage for that week.

Option 2 - a team member can read two (2) books during the week to make up the 70 miles that the person reading for the Supply Card will not accomplish. The two books must both meet the criteria for traveling the 70 miles.

Option 3 - two or more team members can 'buddy read' a book. The book must meet the criteria for traveling or the Supply Card for the Calamity. The one (1) book will counteract the Calamity and travel the necessary 70 miles.


Rules
You can't begin reading your book until Monday morning, 12:01 a.m. your time.
You must finish and report your book by Sunday night 11:59 p.m. your time.
Books must be 140 pages or more.
Audio books must be at least 3 hours long.
Graphic Novels must be at least 200 pages.

But of course we get the one calamity we're not prepared for... XD

I confirmed with Lanelle that "task to counteract the calamity" means we need to read the task for the Clothes supply card from week 1.

So if one of you wants to take the "read a book with one fully clothed person on the cover" task, I'll volunteer to read 2 books for option 2, shouldn't be a problem.

Oh I know right, what luck.

I'll look and see what I can find for someone fully clothed.

Do you think this cover works for fully clothed?



The guy in front is wearing suit and gloves and in back shows fully clothed person without gloves

I'd say they definitely both count as fully clothed - my question would be, is it "one fully clothed person" as in ONLY one rather than AT LEAST one? (I may be overthinking this. XD)

I had assumed it meant at least one fully clothed, the second person doesn't really count to me since you cannot see the bottom half of them to verify

I'll ask in case

I remembered someone asked about a cover where the person isn't fully shown and Lanelle okayed it, so they'd likely both count. :)