![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Mirror MIT Mysteries
Jan. 22nd, 2021 07:34 pmOther stuff a bit farther in the past:
Last weekend was the 2021 MIT Mystery Hunt, written by [whoosh!] ✈✈✈ Galactic Trendsetters ✈✈✈ [neowwww!], and it was incredible puzzling fun. This year's hunt took place at the MYST 2021 physics conference, having hunters explore an alternate universe and MIT's alternate-universe counterpart, the Perpendicular Institute of the World (aka ⊥IW, "The Perp"), and solve the anomalous effects caused by the introduction of some misplaced objects.
Somewhat surprisingly, Galactic actually came up with the alternate-universe concept and the MMO-esque "projection device" game that was a central part of the Hunt's structure well before it became clear, late last March, that an in-person gathering at this-universe MIT would probably not be happening after all. And they manged to run a remarkable Hunt, with great puzzles and so much of the usual MIT flavor, despite the logistical hurdles of doing everything remote.
My team, Death & Mayhem, came in second this year, and we were within ten minutes of the first place team, Palindrome. So a good showing, and we don't have to write the next hunt! (As much as I like winning, this is not a great year for me to help write Hunt.)
Puzzles and solutions can now be found on the Hunt site. Some of my favorites from this year:
Hockfield Court - From this year's intro round. If you've never solved a Mystery Hunt puzzle, try this one, it's extremely bite sized. Five crossword clues and a title, that's all there is to it! (As always, the answer to Mystery Hunt puzzles is a word or phrase.)
Hey, Can You Give Me A Hand With This Puzzle? - A great example of an intro round puzzle that teaches solvers some useful things!
Infinite Corridor - The Mystery Hunt round where the madlads did it, they achieved infinite puzzles! Well, actually 100,000 puzzles. Or, to look at it another way, five. One of the puzzle types, Infinite Corridor Simulator, is the core of the round's extremely clever self-referential metapuzzle.
⊥IW.giga - A round with a nested upside-down meta structure where you work your way down to eventually backsolve ⊥IW.nano. Helping (okay, mostly watching) people figure out the mechanic behind Level One and get that perfect leap of a backsolve answer was amazing.
🤔 - An unusual crossword puzzle with animated clues.
Title of the Puzzle - Straightforward but funny.
Successively More Abundant in Verbiage - I enjoyed helping solve this puzzle.
A Bit of Light - A fun decoding puzzle, which I also helped solve.
Complexity Evaluation - A very complicated math puzzle.
Befuddled - I helped solve this esoteric programming puzzle. It's a fun one, though it was super frustrating until I noticed an important detail we'd overlooked.
Last weekend was the 2021 MIT Mystery Hunt, written by [whoosh!] ✈✈✈ Galactic Trendsetters ✈✈✈ [neowwww!], and it was incredible puzzling fun. This year's hunt took place at the MYST 2021 physics conference, having hunters explore an alternate universe and MIT's alternate-universe counterpart, the Perpendicular Institute of the World (aka ⊥IW, "The Perp"), and solve the anomalous effects caused by the introduction of some misplaced objects.
Somewhat surprisingly, Galactic actually came up with the alternate-universe concept and the MMO-esque "projection device" game that was a central part of the Hunt's structure well before it became clear, late last March, that an in-person gathering at this-universe MIT would probably not be happening after all. And they manged to run a remarkable Hunt, with great puzzles and so much of the usual MIT flavor, despite the logistical hurdles of doing everything remote.
My team, Death & Mayhem, came in second this year, and we were within ten minutes of the first place team, Palindrome. So a good showing, and we don't have to write the next hunt! (As much as I like winning, this is not a great year for me to help write Hunt.)
Puzzles and solutions can now be found on the Hunt site. Some of my favorites from this year:
Hockfield Court - From this year's intro round. If you've never solved a Mystery Hunt puzzle, try this one, it's extremely bite sized. Five crossword clues and a title, that's all there is to it! (As always, the answer to Mystery Hunt puzzles is a word or phrase.)
Hey, Can You Give Me A Hand With This Puzzle? - A great example of an intro round puzzle that teaches solvers some useful things!
Infinite Corridor - The Mystery Hunt round where the madlads did it, they achieved infinite puzzles! Well, actually 100,000 puzzles. Or, to look at it another way, five. One of the puzzle types, Infinite Corridor Simulator, is the core of the round's extremely clever self-referential metapuzzle.
⊥IW.giga - A round with a nested upside-down meta structure where you work your way down to eventually backsolve ⊥IW.nano. Helping (okay, mostly watching) people figure out the mechanic behind Level One and get that perfect leap of a backsolve answer was amazing.
🤔 - An unusual crossword puzzle with animated clues.
Title of the Puzzle - Straightforward but funny.
Successively More Abundant in Verbiage - I enjoyed helping solve this puzzle.
A Bit of Light - A fun decoding puzzle, which I also helped solve.
Complexity Evaluation - A very complicated math puzzle.
Befuddled - I helped solve this esoteric programming puzzle. It's a fun one, though it was super frustrating until I noticed an important detail we'd overlooked.
