One of the main attractions in playin ‘The Nethernet‘ is the ability to lead people a merry chase through the internet. In its beta days, I created a ‘puzzle’ mission that ostensibly taught students how to research properly using internet resources. It took the player by the hand through a number of related websites, pointing out the who, what, when, where, why of that particular site, as it pertained to research.  Handy for distance ed students.

To make sure that students were paying attention, I tossed in a broken link at the end – the mission could not be completed unless the student correctly divined what URL to go to. The performance of the task demonstrated that the learning had taken place – plus I also got a list of players who successfully completed my mission.

There was a puzzle mission contest for Nethernetians (? perhaps the wrong word) this past April, and my wee little mission won first place. I now have 10,000 more ‘data points’ than I did before.  The accomplishment would be more meaningful had more than three people submitted their puzzle missions, but hey, they loved me! They really loved me!