Comments | dumble: Mystery Hunt thoughts

dumble

Mystery Hunt thoughts

Jan 20, 2009 16:20

Thoughts on this year's Mystery Hunt from a member of Codex Magliabechiano ( Read more... )

Comments 12

motris January 20 2009, 17:53:01 UTC

I enjoyed On Beyond Zyzzlvaria when I tested it although it was much much harder then so I was not sure how teams would like the current form. We were just given the numbered list of images (no specific grid/labels pointing immediately to Seuss, and certainly no indication the symbols were "rules" and not letters in an odd way). While we got most of the book assignments by pattern matching, it was very enjoyable to finally break into how the symbols were really "rules" and then it resolved very nicely. The current form is much friendly since it seems to clue the rules, but half the fun is IDing them all anyway.

dumble January 20 2009, 18:05:40 UTC

I can imagine it would have been much harder without being told that the symbols were rules rather than letters! As it was, the puzzle wasn't so much in figuring out what to do, as just in doing it.

selinker January 22 2009, 08:14:43 UTC

After I wrote On Beyond Zyzzlvaria with Foggy, we tested it on Thomas and Zack, who can safely be said are in the top five logic puzzle solvers in the country. The fact that it took them any time at all to figure out the puzzle was about rules was enough of an incentive to add the rules. It was editor Mark Gottlieb who came up with the idea of Ooblecking them.

dumble January 22 2009, 12:50:14 UTC

Woohoo! Thanks again for an awesome puzzle!

cnoocy January 20 2009, 20:48:24 UTC

On Beyond Zyzzlvaria was my favorite as well. My teammates kept saying it was the most me-like puzzle they'd ever seen that I didn't write. (I wrote Squiggles in the Matrix Hunt.)

jcberk January 22 2009, 04:10:38 UTC

Squiggles is still my favorite puzzle ever, but I enjoyed On Beyond Zyzzlvaria for similar reasons. I agree it was friendly to solve - I'm looking forward to finding out what the three symbols we didn't finish identifying were (I guess items of clothing was one of them?). Need to learn to write these kinds of puzzles to create greater supply....

dumble January 22 2009, 12:46:52 UTC

I clearly need to go solve Squiggles now! (I didn't participate in the Matrix hunt.)

WUM was "contains an item of clothing", as in STOLE, THAT, and HATCHES.
I'm pretty sure we identified them all, if there are others you want to check.

cnoocy January 23 2009, 17:38:24 UTC

Thanks!

mindspillage January 20 2009, 23:17:36 UTC

Glad you liked the description; I was glad the analogy didn't fall flat. :-) And I loved the Buy Vowel O thing... heh.

Hoping to meet you onsite next year!

barawulf January 20 2009, 23:53:52 UTC

It was a very good hunt, esp. onsite ( ... )

dumble January 21 2009, 16:47:30 UTC

Yeah, we clearly should have rebooted Combat Sector earlier. Or just generally had more people looking at it. Oh well. There's always things you "should have" done. =) You're also totally right about the errata. We should definitely be better about labelling things with big ERRATA signs next year.

I never really looked at the Dr Who round. I should go back and take a better look at it, once the hunt website comes back up. (I've also never seen Dr Who, but I assume that once you've gotten past the part where you have figure out how doctor and companion puzzles line up, that won't matter any more?)

Also: Happy (almost) Birthday!

leech January 21 2009, 03:25:19 UTC

Question: did the order in which the rewards were displayed on the website matter?

My team liked to refer to this order as "God-given".