Blog Post
Badge Drop #2: IT'S OVER!
by Sara W
THAT WAS QUICK! I can't believe summer has come and gone already!! Seems like JUST LAST WEEK that we were dropping the first badges of summer! Well, GREAT JOB, everyone! Happy Summer Game! See you in 2018 and...
THANKS FOR PLAYING!!!!!!!
*checks calendar*
Oh dear.
OUR MISTAKE.
Guess with ALL the excitement of last week, with the BADGES and the A2CAFs, and the CODES CODES CODES on BUILDINGS, and BANNERS, and BUSES, we got a little ahead of ourselves. LUCKY FOR US, the ol' AADL badge factory never stops working! So here you are, Summer Gamers, another set of HOT and FRESH BADGES!!!
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Explore the catalog! Ride TheRide!! Visit the branches!!! Listen to Ann Arbor Stories, the ABSOLUTE BEST local history podcast that AADL has EVER sponsored!!!! Just SUMMER GAME IT UP IN EVERY WAY!!!!!
Oh wait, are you new? HI! You're just in time! Head over to our Get Started page to get your Summer Game on!
THANKS FOR PLAYING!!!
Blog Post
A2CAF Badge Drop! SO MANY POINTSSSSS
by eli
Done with this week's badge drop already? WHAT? NO? YES? PERHAPS? AFTER LUNCH? Well, we are stereotypically DELIGHTED to bring you even MORE BADGES as we KICK OFF SUMMER GAME 2017!
Because, this weekend is A2CAF, the Ann Arbor Comic Arts Festival! 11-5:30 on Saturday, and 12-5:30 on Sunday, we've got SCADS of CARTOONISTS, COMICS, and all-around HILARIOUS PEEPS descending upon the downtown library for UNRIVALED GOOD TIMEZ!
And it wouldn't be A2CAF without a literal DELUGE of POINTS and BADGES! You can get 5000 points just for completing the ALLEY CATCHER BADGE! And a 1000 point bonus if you acheive the rare and challenging A2CAF MEGAFAN BADGE, which only 31 players managed to obtain last year! A2CAF is a delight for all ages, so get on downtown this weekend and grab a handy A2CAF CODE SHEET to help you CATCH THEM ALL!
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A2CAF only comes around once a year, so start your Summer Game off with a POINTS-INFUSED RUSH and SAMPLE THE DELIGHTS here with us at A2CAF!
Thanks for playing! SEE YOU AT THE LIBRARY!
Blog Post
Badge Drop #1: Summer Game 2017 ARRIVES IN STYLE!!!
by nicole
There's something to be said for being FASHIONABLY LATE, don't you think? Up here at Summer Game HQ we usually take our PUNCTUALITY pretty seriously. ON THE DOT? We INVENTED the phrase! RIGHT ON TIME? That's a thing people say to us with ALMOST NO SARCASM on a SEMI-REGULAR BASIS! TARDY? WHAT EVEN IS THAT? Is it a snack, a drink, an app--how could we POSSIBLY know when we're ALWAYS SO ON TIME!!!
But there's just something COOL and SLICK and STYLISH about making a GRAND, GRATUITOUSLY BEHIND-SCHEDULE entrance to a party...
...so SUMMER GAME 2017 is KICKING DOWN the door to this party at HALF-PAST NOT-QUITE-THE-RIGHT-TIME O'CLOCK!!!
We'll pick that up later. Right now it's time to pick up this other thing we're putting down: SOME FASTIDIOUS and FASHIONABLE BADGES!!
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You've waited LONG ENOUGH and THERE THEY ARE, so get into it, gamers, and start digging for those POINTLESS FACTS so you can win those NOT-POINTLESS POINTS! If you're new to the Summer Game, head over to our Get Started page to get your feet wet!
Now off you go! You don't want to be LATE, do you??? Then start the clock and GO!!!!
THANKS FOR PLAYING!!!
Blog Post
Summer Game 2017 - Let's-a Go!
by andrewjmac
Okey-dokey, here we go! Time for SUMMER GAME 2017!!!
Time for codes and badges and points and reading and exploring and all around LIBRARYING EVERY WHICH WAY YOU CAN! This year's Summer Game is HOT-HOT-HOT with more things to do than ever! Wondering how you can get going? How about:
-Visit every AADL location and collect the copious codes! Westgate, Malletts Creek, Pittsfield, and Traverwood all have 10 codes hidden around the building, Downtown has 15 codes PLUS every building has a BIG code on the banner outside (all banners are going up as we speak)!
-Head to the AADL catalog and get tagging, rating, and reviewing everything you can think of!
-Leave a comment on any post on aadl.org (this one included)!
-Read books, watch movies, listen to music, anything at all! Remember, you get up to 1000 points a day for every minute/page you read, watch, or listen to! It all counts!
-Start getting started by starting with our GETTING STARTED series!
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Ready to go? WAHOO!! If not--if you don't even have a clue what this Summer Game biz even Summer Game iz--don't worry! Head over to the Get Started page to learn how YOU can join in on the fun and start earning points to spend on AMAZING PRIZES in the Summer Game Shop opens in July!
Let's do this! Do your best to top the leaderboard! Number one! Hoho!
(By the way, this post has at least 8 quotes from a certain video game hero. If you're looking for another place to start your Summer Game, try searching the catalog for the solo outing he has coming out later this year!)
Thanks for playing! Way to GO!
Blog Post
AADL & TheRide Offer Free Ride Saturdays With Your Library Card
by TimG
AADL and the Ann Arbor Area Transportation Authority (TheRide) are partnering this summer to provide Free Ride Saturdays during the AADL Summer Game!
Every Saturday from June 17 - August 26, library cardholders can ride any of TheRide local fixed-route buses for free. All you need to do is show the driver your library card when boarding the bus!
While riding, look for the AADL Summer Game code sign inside the bus and win 1,000 points to trade in for awesome Summer Game Shop prizes. Each bus has the same code inside the bus, so it's easy to find! When you see it, text the code to 4AADL (42235) or visit play.aadl.org to enter the code and get 1,000 points.
TheRide and AADL have created fun ways to get even more Summer Game prizes:
• Find the code featured on the outside of several buses for 500 points.
• Find the code hidden on TheRide.org on the MyAlerts Service page (which you can get to by clicking on "All Alerts" directly from the homepage) for 500 points.
Find all the codes to earn the Ride Master Badge and a 500 point bonus!
The AADL Summer Game is a great way to enjoy your summer and to ride TheRide for free! For more information on TheRide's routes and schedules, pick up a Ride Guide or visit TheRide.org.
Blog Post
Summer Game 2017!!!!!!! (And West Side Story, I guess)
by andrewjmac
Could it be? Yes it could. Something's coming, something good, if you can wait! Something's coming, I don't know what it is--hold on, yes I do: IT'S THE SUMMER GAME! You know, your favorite summertime activity, the one that gives you PUZZLES to solve, CODES to find, BADGES to earn, POINTS to get, and AMAZING AADL STUFF in the Summer Game Shop! We know you want more because when you're a summer gamer, you're a summer gamer all the way! Well, it's back! The game you wait all year for and have started nervously watching the sun go down every day wondering how you can make it through the summer days and oh those summer nights--sorry, wrong musical--without it?! Are you telling me you're not as excited as I am? BECAUSE I FEEL PRETTY EXCITED!
Okay, where was I? Oh yeah: I don't know what it is, but it is gonna be great! LIKE SERIOUSLY GREAT. Did you LOVE the Summer Game last year? Then you're going to LOVE it this year too. How do I know? Because we are making it to be just as awesome (maybe AWESOMER, but don't hold us to that) as ever! All the great exploration of your own hometown! All the crazy Ann Arbor Stories you've never heard before! All the ridiculous information you didn't think you'd ever need to know but suddenly find yourself digging into Wikipedia to find! And this year we have fantastic illustrations by local artist Jeremy Wheeler to make sure the game is as MONSTROUSLY AMAZING as it can be!
Something's coming, don't know when--except that we DO know when: June 16! Sorry it can't be tonight, tonight, but it's only 10 days away! But how will you know the exact second it all begins? Summer gamers, fear not, there's a place for us! Just open play.aadl.org in your browser as soon as June 16 hits and then feverishly refresh every half second or so until that GO! post goes live and then little boy, you're a man, little man, you're a king!
Until then, just be cool boy!
Blog Post
Summer Game 2016: Crunch Time!
by andrewjmac
Greetings, Summer Gamers! We here at Summer Game Central Headquarters have woken up from our post-SG nap to bring you the thing you've been waiting for but never knew you needed: stats! We've crunched all of the numbers and discovered something not entirely unexpected: SUMMER GAME 2016 WAS THE BIGGEST YEAR EVER! More players, more badges, more codes, more points, more of almost everything! Let's take a closer look at:
Players
6,183 players scored points in Summer Game 2016! That's a 13.6% increase over last year, which had been bigger than any year before!
Badges
Players earned 90,310 Summer Game 2016 badges this summer, up 18.8% from last year! There were a total of 197 badges created that were possible to earn (which makes us sad, because we were SO CLOSE to a nice round number). That means that each badge was earned an average of 458 TIMES!! And, just in case you were wondering, the top three badges were the Super Traverwood Master badge (1,637 earns), the Super Malletts Master badge (1,743 earns), and the Super Summer Reader badge--which an astounding 2,867 players earned!!!
Codes
Players redeemed codes a total of 456,555 times in 2016! That's UPUPUP a WHOPPING 29.2% over last year! We created 993 codes this year that could have been redeemed (again, SO CLOSE to that round number!), which means that each code was typed in an average of 460 times! Having fully analyzed the data, we here in the Summer Game bunker have determined that YOU GUYS REALLY LIKE HUNTING FOR CODES!! We'll be sure to remember this next year.
Reviews
9,312 reviews were added to the AADL catalog this summer! That's an average of 1.5 reviews for each player, which doesn't seem like much right? But look what you all can do when you band together: NEARLY 10,000 REVIEWS IN 3 MONTHS!! That's a lot of opinions!
Ratings
81,820 items were rated by Summer Gamers this year, meaning each of you rated an average of 13.2 items! We're seeing STARS!!
Tags
157,299 tags were placed this summer on items in the AADL catalog! That comes out to an average of 25.4 tags from each of you! And for those of you who would ever doubt the intentions of your fellow players, on average 3.5 tags were placed per item--real, useful tags, not just point grinding!! All of this love for the AADL catalog warms our hearts!
Read/Watched/Listened
Players reported an average of 3,704 pages or minutes reading, watching, or listening to things this summer! Which is pretty good! But here's the amazing part: all of those 3,704s add up to a tremendous 22,902,128 PAGES/MINUTES THIS SUMMER!! If you guys don't watch out, Ann Arbor's going to end up one of the readingiest cities in the country--whoops, too late. And that nearly 23 MILLION doesn't even count all of the pages and minutes we forgot to report (especially here at SGHQ, boy did we forget)!
Points
A record 135,370,776 POINTS WERE EARNED THIS YEAR!! That comes out to an average of 21,894 points per player, plenty enough to get yourself TWO AADL T-SHIRTS! TWO!! Speaking of spending points in the shop, you spent 101,541,500 points this year. That's more than any other year BY A LOT, in fact 31% more than last year!! Guess you found some things you liked in there this year, huh? We'll keep that one in mind for next year, too!!
As we said, we've done the math and all of those tagsreviewsratingsrwlcodesbadges add up to ONE SERIOUSLY GREAT SUMMER GAME! We here at the Summer Game Command Center had a blast making the game this year and hope that YOU feel like it was the best year ever, whatever the numbers say! So now's your chance to pipe up and tell everyone what you thought was GREAT about this Summer Game: FAVORITE BADGES, GREATEST PRIZES, AWESOMEST PLACES TO GATHER CODES, it's all fair game in the comments!
And while you do that, the Summer Game settles in for its winter slumber. The tags and reviews are well nestled into their catalog items. The codes have all been typed in and tucked in. Badges have been dutifully hung on player pages with care. Even the SG Shop has been boarded up for the season. And we, your faithful gamemakers, will descend into our recharging pods deep in the bowels of the Summer Game Nerve Center, only to emerge next June to do it anew--except that we've got a library to run! Don't forget that just because the Summer Game stops, your library doesn't stop being awesome! Keep checking out all of the cool stuff, from books to movies to synthesizers to vinyl! Keep heading to great library programs! And keep visiting all of our locations around town, including the just-opened Westgate Branch!! AADL is here for you all year round, even if the Summer Game can't be!!!
That's probably enough of our nonsense for now, except to make sure we tell you THANKS FOR ANOTHER GREAT SUMMER GAME! THANKS FOR LOVING THIS AS MUCH AS WE DO!! AND THANKS FOR PLAYING!!!
Blog Post
Badge Drop #11: GOOD TO THE LAST DROP
by andrewjmac
IT'S TIME, SUMMER GAMERS. We all knew it would come. The final badge drop of 2016. Guess it's all over...EXCEPT THAT IT'S NOT! Have YOU earned every badge? Every MASTER BADGE, too? Or is the badgelist a sea of grayed-out badge images, taunting you with their UNDONENESS? MOCKING YOU? Are you going to let them judge you that way? THEY CAN'T TREAT YOU LIKE THIS! THEY'RE ONLY PNGs, FOR GOD'S SAKE!!
It's time to regain your dignity! Your pride! Your point balance! That's right, you don't just get those beautifully opaque images filling up your computer screen. Once you've completed all of the badges in each series, you'll be awarded that series's('s) MASTER BADGE, worth 500 TO 1000 POINTS! That's on top of the points you got for the BADGES in the SERIES! And the points you got for the CODES in those BADGES! THAT'S A LOTTA POINTS, MAN!
Jeez, that's so many points, what would you even DO with them all? If only there were some kind of a SUMMER GAME SHOP where you could spend them all. And if only that shop had some NEW, INCREDIBLE PRIZES, the kind you might save for the VERY END OF SUMMER. Prizes like a BRAND-NEW, NEVER-BEFORE-SEEN AADL T-SHIRT, available in THREE, count 'em THREE DIFFERENT COLORS!! Or a bag of YUMMY, SCRUMMY AADL-BRANDED CHOCOLATES, which you can get in MILK or DARK CHOCOLATE!! Or a TWISTY, TURNY, MIND-BENDY TANGLE TOY, guaranteed not to ever straighten out!! IF ONLY.
Now that your appetite is appropriately whetted for badges and points and prizes, feast your eyes on these 20 AMAZING MASTER BADGES:
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(Remember, if you haven't received a Master Badge for a series you've already completed the other badges in DON'T FREAK OUT! Go do something to score some points and that MASTER BADGE will find its way to YOU!)
But then, after you've found all of those codes and earned all of those Master Badges and spent your points and gotten your prizes, there just won't be anything left..EXCEPT THAT THERE IS! Now isn't too soon to get out your finest AADL gear, brush off your friend code notebook, and make sure you have a ride to the SUMMER GAME 2016 GAME OVER GALA!!! We're taking this summer out in style with a one-night only BUILDING-WIDE SCAVENGER HUNT, a FREE PHOTOBOOTH, BADGE COLORING PAGES, and PROBABLY SOME PUNCH! Come meet other Summer Gamers and Gamemakers! Send off Summer Game 2016 the way it DESERVES!
ARE YOU FEELING IT? THE NEED FOR MORE POINTS, MORE BADGES, MORE PRIZES, MORE EVENTS, MORE EVERYTHING(SES)?!? Then GET OUT THERE and finish your Summer Game with APLOMB, PANACHE, and ELAN! Remember, you've only got 5 DAYS LEFT in Summer Game 2016! MAKE THEM GOOD ONES!! AND THANKS FOR PLAYING!!!
Blog Post
Badge Drop #10 is the PENULTIMATE POST!!!
by nicole
Can you BELIEVE it’s ALREADY (nearly) HERE? Is your mind BOGGLED that it’s FINALLY (almost) OVER? Are you AMAZED to hear that after a LONG and GLORIOUS summer, it’s finally, truly, really…the SECOND-TO-LAST BADGE DROP OF 2016?!?!?!?!
Okay, sure, it’s not the VERY LAST one. But who needs to be the ULTIMATE when the PENULTIMATE is so incredibly IMPORTANT?! Where would we be without the second-to-last rung on a ladder? FLAT ON OUR BUTTS in a STEW of EMBARRASSMENT, that’s where! And what would we do without the second-to-last PIECE of your “CATS AT PLAY” JIGSAW PUZZLE? You’d be left FRUSTRATED and FOREVER WONDERING if that cat on the right HAS A NOSE OR NOT!
And what on EARTH would we do without the PENULTIMATE LETTER in the ALPHABET? It would be MADNESS! The sun would be ELLOW! We’d all be pedaling around on BICCLES! And badges would all drop on FRIDA—which would be SUPER weird, not to mention UNCOMFORTABLE FOR FRIDA.
And speaking of Badge Drops, HERE IT IS!
Sorry, Frida.
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There they are. The FINAL FANTASTIC FEW. Because while this may not be the VERY LAST Badge Drop of 2016, it certainly is the very last drop of ALL NEW seek-and-find badges before next week’s MASTER BADGE DROP!!! So if you want those lovely, shiny MASTER BADGES that proclaim to the world that you are an OBSESSIVE COMPLETIONIST and PROUD OF IT, you’ll have to BUCKLE DOWN and POWER UP your laptop or your phone or your feet to finish ALL THOSE BADGES that you’ve been saving for a rainy day!
We really hope you appreciate the PENULTIMATE-NESS of this post and other NOT-QUITE-LAST things--and how CONFUSED we’d be without them!
Good luck, gamers, and THANKS FOR PLAING!!!!
Blog Post
Badge Drop #9: Stop Us If You've Heard This One
by Sara W
KNOCK KNOCK!
Who's there?
BADGES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
BADGERS?!
No! Not badgers! BADGES! You know, BADGES?! As in, BADGES?
Oh! Well. That's great, then! Where?
RIGHT HERE! As always, every Friday, all summer, around, you know, dinner-time-ish!
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YOU GET A BADGE! AND YOU GET A BADGE! All the badges you can earn until your fatigued fingers fail, friends.
We've got badges about OUTER SPACE! Badges about MUPPET MELODIES! Badges about STUPEFYING SNAKES! Badges that will make you power up and POWER ART! Badges about BADGERS - no, wait, sorry. No badgers.
And on Monday, August 15th, we've got MASSIVE POINT POTENTIAL. Attend the AADL Board of Trustees meeting and get POINTS!!! OR, attend the AADL Board of Trustees meeting and MAKE A PUBLIC COMMENT and get HUNDREDS OF POINTS!!!!!!
POINTS, you guys!!!!!!
Oh, and one more thing. KNOCK KNOCK!
Who's there?
NEW PRIZES!!!!!!!!!
...New prizes who?
NEW PRIZES IN THE SUMMER GAME SHOP EVERY FRIDAY!!!!!!!
Go crazy! Go wild! Buy a hat! Buy a bag! BUY AN APRON!!!! We've got COFFEE (AGAIN!!!!)!!!! And stay tuned...MORE NEW ITEMS ARE COMING, because like Team USA gold medals, they just KEEP COMING!
So badge away, badgers, and as always...
THANKS FOR PLAYING!!!