Locals · History
For locals who think they've seen downtown
I live here too. I've driven Central Avenue more times than I can count, and building this game showed me how much of it I'd never actually looked at.
Things on Central you've walked past
- FACT 518–520 Central, the Rix-Adamson Building, built in 1886, is the oldest building on the National Register's construction list for the district. Look up at the top for its small pediment.
- FACT 410 Central, the Woodcock Building, has an incised stone panel with its name and its year, 1929. It went up after a fire took most of the 400 block in 1928.
- FACT 350 Central, the old Savoy Hotel, has a carved shell over its stair door.
- FACT 250 Central was the Southern Club, a gambling club, before it became the wax museum.
- FACT You're driving over a creek. Hot Springs Creek has run in a stone arch under Central since 1884.
Every one of those is something you can see from the public sidewalk. The game's history pages are full of them, and every line is tagged so you know how sure anybody is.
The Archive and its secrets
The Archive is the true-history side of the game: who built Central Avenue, who walked it, and what's still standing. Each page hides a few secrets, 81 in all so far. Some you find by tapping what looks out of place, some by answering what you can see from the sidewalk, and a few only show up after dark.
A new case most Tuesdays
New chapters open on Tuesdays. There's also a weekly challenge, the same for everyone, like "open 3 north-end doors by Sunday". It's a good excuse to walk a block you usually drive.
Hidden Finds
When shops join, each one can hide one reward out on the public sidewalk near its door: by a lamp post, a planter, a bench. Nothing is physically placed there. You find it with your phone's camera and GPS, and every player who finds it gets the same thing. Searching is the skill. Hidden Finds are never on park land and never near a grate, a basement or any real door.