Here's something you guys might find interesting, which took a year (well, technically eleven months) to come up with. It's a puzzle, of sorts.
The thumbnails for the 2012 Maps Of The Month are related to each other in interesting ways. This was something I discovered by accident partway through the year, and from then on I wanted to keep it going. Before you get all up in arms, I never let the urge to find links between thumbnails influence my picks for the Maps Of The Month, though it often did influence the thumbnails I eventually chose. Very very interestingly is that the few times when I almost gave up trying to force a pattern, I then noticed accidental links (better than what I could consciously come up with!) that actually allowed this to keep going. It almost became a game for me, and now it's a game for you to figure out the connections.
So, without further ado, the puzzle. There's no prize for solving these, but let's see how many you can get (ideally without reading posts previous to yours).
To easily see all twelve thumbnails, you can look
here.
January & February-central figure.
February & March-common element.
March & April-obvious link.
-but there's something else here in common...think placement. (This was one of the accidental ones I really like, I didn't even have to change the composition of the shot!)
April & May-fairly obvious.
May & June-okay, this one is pretty lame...I guess just think of how one thing is expected with the other.
June & July-a bit more obscure, you'd have to be aware of the stories of both the series of the games represented as to why the areas in the thumbnails are significant. Note that I said "series", not "game", implying more than one. (This was another accidental one that I think is really cool, I hope someone knows what I'm referring to!)
-another obscure one, you'd have to be familiar with one of the two games. Look at all the text on the thumbnails. (Yet another awesome accidental one! Also see the August & September clue.)
June & August-similar sort of area (note that I said June & August, not July).
August & September-see the second June & July clue, the same thing happened here. (I swear this too was accidental and I love how it worked out!)
September & October-in hand.
October & November-number, alliteration (weak, I know).
-think about how the figure(s) are placed based on their surroundings.
November & December-different perspective.
(Now I'm probably not going to consciously continue this little game, though if you read the description for the December 2012 Maps Of The Month, you may now understand a controversial choice I made back in September, so no doubt January 2013's MotM will be connected as well.)
