MIT Puzzle Hunt Review

[FlameBlade]

Just having had an experience of my first ever MIT puzzle hunt, and hoo boy, having no real prior experience of puzzle hunt in the past, this is equivalent of diving into the deep end!

Fortunately, I was on a great team ~30 active participants, with a whole shebang of set up that made this much more rewarding experience.

So, as a part of review, I thought I'd write about what I have experienced, and what I have seen, and what kind of range we have to deal with. First off, the puzzles are on much harder end than what you all might be used to, but fortunately, there is a *huge* range of types of puzzles there is. Any knowledge you may have (common or obscure) -- all fair game. There's even a puzzle that is basically baking instructions, 91 steps long, essentially making everything from scratch's scratch -- if you checked out what trona ore is used for, you will be duly impressed to the detail this puzzle involved.

Going on, the first round is a gentle introduction to the hunt -- a set of easier puzzles to allow us to get into mood, and get a general idea of what is involved. Each puzzle on its own may have one layer, or several layers, all requiring some kind of final extraction based on indexing that may be provided, whether it's alphabetical or based on puzzle's theme. There was one puzzle where the indexing was based on how you chain the clues together. So essentially, each puzzle has some clues, then you somehow tie clues together to produce the final solution because clues would often have some kind of hint of how to properly process the puzzle.

Yes, I know, it's confusing, but all puzzles have layer to layer to layer to them. Once past the first round, we go into main round, which is an impressive MMO engine that lets us to "runaround" to find more puzzles and solve puzzles in the world. There are distinct areas in the runabout, where it's identified by categories, each with its own puzzles. When enough puzzles are solved in that category, there may be a meta puzzle that ties all the answers from that category together to get a solution for this particular set. So goal is to solve enough puzzles to see if we can get to solution for meta, which will allow our team to really advance the story in a big way.

All of that to find the coin hidden. Find the coin, win the hunt. Of course, that took place from Friday to Monday morning, but a team ~100 people large found the coin Sunday night. The number of puzzles number about ~200, though, there's a persistent joke that there's really an infinite amount of puzzles, because one of the category is "infinite corridor" with infinite number of puzzles, and when you figure out how infinite corridor is sequenced, you get the meta. That category is one of my team's favorites.

Topics of puzzles, selected:
4-player Baba is Me.
Lobster word-transformation team game
Super Mario Maker 2 levels to include a very impressive auto-mario level.
One puzzle involving Diplomacy move orders.
Bridges (Hashi), but with a twist.
Cryptic crossword
Interpreting mysterious pictures into clues, hoping they make sense.
Straight-up crossword, but with a hidden twist that isn't apparent until you play it, and end up having to redo the crossword.
Google Doodle pictures tangled together to make new google doodles
Baking recipes (two puzzles of this variety)
Interpreting maladies from doctor's prescription note.
GameCube trivia knowledge, to include finding commercials from early 2000s, and running around on emulation platform, and figuring out accessories for Gamecube.
Zork-style adventure game.
Harry Potter puzzle, but that wasn't at all obvious initially.
Puzzles that make use of foreign language.
Luge dating simulator, anime style.
Emoticon descriptions and making faces based on the descriptions (not emoji!)


that's only scratching the surface...it's quite a beautiful experience to see sheer genius from puzzlecrafters, and also puzzle solvers.

[FlameBlade]

Our team of about 30 finished in top 41 out of 340 something (for solving at least 1 main round meta. We solved 3 collectively.), by the way, with 138 + infinite number of puzzles solved.

[DMDarcs]

First puzzle I solved: Musical Theatre Guild.

Flavor text - "Wait, which guild is this?

You are presented with 11 fragments from Broadway theatre posters. You are told that the Musical Theatre Guild is looking for someone who can play both rules. For each theatre poster, you are given two sets of clues: for example, "the leader (3)" along with "the zombie shaman (9)". Go.

How it was solved: (spoilers)
When I checked in on this puzzle the first half was already solved. Each poster was identified with the correct musical, and the first clue for each puzzle was solved, naming a character from the musical. After staring at the puzzle for a few minutes, I realized the last clue (alongside part of the poster for Hadestown), was next to the clue "the scourge diva (6)." Now, I've only ever heard that phrase in one other place - Magic: the Gathering, also abbreviated MTG. In Magic, the plane of Ravnica has a set of 10 guilds. Each of these guilds is based around two colors. Each of the Broadway posters was involved around the same two colors. Answer all the other clues with characters, locations, or roles within that guild. Noticed that the clues covered every guild except the Simic Combine. Trying to combine the Broadway clues with the Magic clues, I noticed each pair had only one letter in common. Extracting those letters spelled out the solution.

[FlameBlade]

One of the easier puzzles I have solved

"Express yourself"

Which contained only a picture of text exchanges, with 22 messages, and 4 "typing". Each message is something like "I filed my teeth so they fit diagonally with one other".

I absolutely loved this, because as a team, we were trying to figure out how to best express each message. Spoilers because the puzzles will eventually open up for everyone to see, but I recommend people trying it when it becomes available.

First, we just populated the spreadsheet, trying to match it all nicely...eventually, we realized that it's likely upper case alphabet, and started to try to fit well. There were a couple such as "I have a beak!" "I have a beak, but in other way!" -- those took us forever but eventually realized that it clued in two letters that only can be possible. Eventually, it lead to final set of 4 letters, but we had some errors, but upon re-reading some clues, and fixed the errors and got an apt that absolutely fits the puzzle by which I immediately submitted and got "correct!"

[FlameBlade]

you miiiiiight be able to see the puzzles here: https://perpendicular.institute/ just to see the sheer magnitude of the puzzle hunt.

[Kyle]

That is a walled off link. I don't have MIT credentials.

Thanks, Obama.

[Mike]

That is a walled off link. I don't have MIT credentials.

Thanks, Obama.

I'll send you my password.

[Mike]

Oh. Turns out the public access button gets you there

[FlameBlade]

Mike, had no idea you signed up.

[Mike]

Mike, had no idea you signed up.

I didn't. I was teasing my brother, and then realized you don't need credentials anyway.

[FlameBlade]

Regardless, two groups where the puzzles should be easier are students and yew labs. Can't guarantee that they all are doable, but there are tons of interesting stuff in there.