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Every year, some people at MIT organize the Mystery Hunt, a world-famous puzzlehunt that occurs in mid-January. Hundreds of people the world around join many teams that engage in tons of puzzle-solving action every Martin Luther King Jr. Day weekend, starting Friday just past noon.

I'm a captain of one of those teams, and I'm inviting all of you fellow CoN members to join our team.

Historically our team has been based around a bunch of MIT-based friends, but as many of us have graduated and moved away from the Boston area, I decided to formally take our team online, and that opens us to accepting anyone who'd like to participate online. (No limits to team size.) There are a few events that take place on the MIT campus, but most of the puzzles will be available on an online server run by the organizers.

General info about the Hunt:
* What's the point of the Hunt? The objective is to find a coin hidden somewhere on campus. (No, you can't sequence break this; the organizers have Schrodinger's Gun powers.)
* What's the prize? You get to write next year's Hunt. Don't worry, we won't come anywhere close to winning; our team's next achievement is to solve three metapuzzles (we got two last year).
* How do the puzzles work? Puzzles all have strings of letters (usually words or phrases) as solutions. Puzzles are grouped into rounds; their solutions themselves are the clues to a round metapuzzle, and the solutions to the round metas are the solution to a meta-meta that should, within the context of the theme of the Hunt, find you the coin.
* Themes? Yes, each year's Hunt is based around a certain theme, such as time travel, a murder mystery, a board game, or a journey through hell. You can see past Hunts here.
* When is Mystery Hunt? The 2011 Hunt will begin at 12:17 PM on this coming Friday, 14 January 2011. It will end 50 hours later (early Sunday afternoon) unless the coin has not been found yet; and there will be a wrap-up Sunday evening. (In the unlikely case it goes over, remember that it's likely to end by the end of Sunday anyway; most hunts are 40-50 hours in length and the longest on record was 63 hours.)
* It's MIT stuff! I'm not smart! Don't worry. First, MIT students are not much magically smarter (only memetically so), and besides, it's not students writing it anyway. Second, all sorts of random knowledge are potentially useful for Hunt, including: prescription medications, lolcats, the British comedy show Look Around You, board games, Absolut Vodka advertisements, movie quotes and MacOS voices, participants in The Amazing Race, anatomy/neurology, and Frontier Airlines jets.
* What's the minimum commitment? None. No commitment necessary. Just show up and help out with any unsolved puzzle of your choice.
* Are there any requirements to join? None at all. Except "not being part of another team". Because cheating at this is just incredibly lame and pointless.
* What's the team's name? "Duck Soup on Troper Steroids". We used to be named Duck Soup, after the Marx Brothers movie, but this year, as I mention below, we're being hosted online by TV Tropes, whose founder (an MIT alum himself) came up with the new name. If you think it's lame, then I can try to change it next year.

This year, I'm having our team's online base hosted by TV Tropes. It's in the forums, but you'll need to make an account to see it--and that's incredibly easy: Just go here, and come up with a username and password (preferably one you DON'T use for secure purposes), and you're set! Then go to the forums and check out the left column of the forums, specifically the Soup Bowl. Or just use these links (after you've created an account):
* Welcome thread
* Introductions thread

If you are in the Boston area and would like to join up with our on-campus contingent, please let me know via private message.

Finally: Paging laszlow! I sent you an e-mail many weeks ago inviting you and your puzzling friends on board! The invitation remains open!

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Check the "What games are you playing at the moment?" thread for updates on what I've been playing.

You can find me on the Fediverse! I use Mastodon, where I am @[email protected] ( https://sakurajima.moe/@glennmagusharvey )

Quote (Glenn Magus Harvey @ 11th January 2011 17:41)

* It's MIT stuff! I'm not smart! Don't worry. First, MIT students are not much magically smarter (only memetically so), and besides, it's not students writing it anyway.

Having spent three years on the MIT campus, I can vouch for this, whatever the rest is worth. They're not really smarter at all.

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"To create something great, you need the means to make a lot of really bad crap." - Kevin Kelly

Why aren't you shopping AmaCoN?

Round 1 was Mario-themed and now Round 2 is Mega Man-themed.

Y'all are missing out!

Note to laszlow: Remember last year when we found cheat codes that actually weren't cheat codes?

Well you should have been around for the puzzle about cheat codes that actually IS about cheat codes!

This post has been edited by Glenn Magus Harvey on 15th January 2011 18:05

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Check the "What games are you playing at the moment?" thread for updates on what I've been playing.

You can find me on the Fediverse! I use Mastodon, where I am @[email protected] ( https://sakurajima.moe/@glennmagusharvey )

this really seem to be interesting, but MIT is way above my league. I'm to math as a horse is to flying. Good luck for you guys!

note: here in my country guys from MIT are pictured like gods, really.

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Live Long and Prosper!

Oh, the Mystery Hunt isn't actually written by MIT students (or profs) anyway. It's basically an annual event featuring lots of crazy puzzles about just about anything. Lots of pop culture gets referenced, far more than book knowledge, so if anything, a recognition of pop culture, as well as an ability to notice patterns and look at stuff in totally unintended ways.

This year's Hunt is over now. Here are the puzzles of this year's hunt--the best-administered Hunt I've yet participated in (I've been doing it since 2007).

The theme of the 2011 Hunt was videogames. It had five rounds, themed on Mario, Mega Man, Zelda, Civilization, and Katamari Damacy, and culminated in an endgame involving Mario and Peach going through a Portal-based runaround on-campus. Click on each round to see it puzzles and metas. You can also see the solutions.

Our team solved 21 of 122 puzzles and 1 of 20 metapuzzles. Yeah, it's pretty darn hard, but this is about par for how we usually do--we're in it just for fun anyway. I'd hope that it were longer, but then again part of the tradition is that it's a mad dash to solve as many puzzles as possible within the span of about 50-60 hours in a single weekend.

Y'all are invited to join next year, when I plan on captaining a team with heavy online participation again. I have no details yet on how that'll work; I'm still collecting feedback from this year's participants about how well our team worked this year.

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Check the "What games are you playing at the moment?" thread for updates on what I've been playing.

You can find me on the Fediverse! I use Mastodon, where I am @[email protected] ( https://sakurajima.moe/@glennmagusharvey )