The Midship Detective Agency Experiment

Before my recent cruise on the Fantasy, I wrote about what I was planning to do on this cruise.  One thing I planned to do was to bring my Midship Detective Agency badge from an unfinished game on the Dream onto the Fantasy and attempt to finish the same game on a different ship.  The goal of this experiment was to learn more about the how the game works and how game progress is saved.  I thought the progress would be stored to the badge, and I just had to find out if I was right.

This is the painting that didn't let me finish my game on the Dream.  It was a game of Midship Defective Agency.

To do my experiment, on embarkation day before leaving Port Canaveral, I found some Enchanted Art (that's the official name of the animated pictures around the Dream and Fantasy) to test my Dream badge.  I excitedly took it out of my backpack and held it up to the painting.  To my surprise and amazement...

...it didn't work.

As it turns out, game progress is stored to the ship the badge was registered to.  It isn't saved to the badge, which was what I initially thought.  Because of this, the Fantasy unfortunately didn't recognize my badge and I had to start over.  I was sad I couldn't finish, but this raises even more questions.  If I go on the Dream again with the same badge, will it still have my progress from August even though I used it for a new game on the Fantasy?  Do the ships reassign badge numbers?  If this is true, would I have someone else's progress saved to my badge?  Could I ruin someone's game by using the same number that they are using?  That would be fun and really awkward if I encountered the other person.

I played through Midship Detective Agency multiple times on this cruise, and while writing this post I thought of another question, unrelated to how saving data works.  Is the character that committed the crime the same in each playthrough of the scenario?  I doubt this is true, because it would take the whole detective part out of the Midship Detective Agency.  Midship Already Know The Answer Agency doesn't sound nearly as fun.  On my next cruise I'll play through the same scenario twice to find the answer.

I've said this many times before, but I love the amount of detail everywhere on the Disney ships, and the Midship Detective Agency desk is no different.

This newspaper on the Midship Detective Agency desk is actually accurate!  The Fantasy's maiden voyage began on March 31, 2012, meaning the Midship Detective Agency also launched on that day.  I'm sure the Dream's Midship Detective Agency desk has the date of its own maiden voyage also.

This is dated April 1, on the second day of that first cruise.  Pete says, "You'll never catch me, Mickey Mouse!"  He was right, because in all three detective cases, Pete is never a suspect, so it's impossible to catch him.

The Fantasy still uses telegrams?  Maybe that's what the Radio Studio is used for.

This "page" forgot number 6: Take pictures of everything because it might be important.  Wait, no, that's just my rule.

This painting on deck 5, somewhat hidden outside the Bibbidi Bobbidi Boutique, isn't for Midship Detective Agency.  It's actually a pirate ship game, where you sail the ship around and collect treasure.  I thought I'd mention it here because it's kind of similar to Midship Detective Agency.

Finally, if you've ever wanted to play Midship Detective Agency on disembarkation morning, it's closed.  This makes sense, since the crew is busy preparing the ship for the next cruise and I don't think they want people running around playing it.  So if you want to play it, don't wait until the last minute!

I'm happy I found the answer, even if it wasn't what I was hoping for.  The Midship Detective Agency Experiment Part 2 is coming in a year if I don't forget!