MIT Puzzle Hunt Review
Posted: Tue Jan 19, 2021 12:36 pm
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.
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.