ChatterBank1 min ago
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That's two very good puzzles in a row to start 2018 - let's hope the run continues.
As per last week, even after the mechanism for entry was determined (quite early on in my case), it continued to be a real challenge to fill the grid - I still had to reverse-engineer the very final clue I solved.
Excellent - thanks to the Miss Terry setter(s) whoever they turn out to be.
As per last week, even after the mechanism for entry was determined (quite early on in my case), it continued to be a real challenge to fill the grid - I still had to reverse-engineer the very final clue I solved.
Excellent - thanks to the Miss Terry setter(s) whoever they turn out to be.
Late reporting in due to computer problems. How annoying these pesky things are at times! I thought I wouldn't have to use DOS commands ever again.
However, the puzzle was neat and an impressive construction. Clues were fine -- about the right difficulty.
Enjoyed the humour at the end.
Not sure it's devious enough to be a Mr. E puzzle but many thanks to the setter, whoever you are!
However, the puzzle was neat and an impressive construction. Clues were fine -- about the right difficulty.
Enjoyed the humour at the end.
Not sure it's devious enough to be a Mr. E puzzle but many thanks to the setter, whoever you are!
I have to say (and sorry again for the grumpiness of my earlier answer - which still partially stands) I wasn't familiar with the MIT mystery hunt, and thanks to fyellin for causing me to look it up. I'll be really interested to see how this (very, very good) Listener puzzle integrates into it. I hope it's more than "just see how many puzzles you can google" - I'd be very interested to see what's behind all of this.
I'm still very grateful to Miss Terry (Hunter?) for an excellent puzzle with several aspects that raised a smile.
I'm still very grateful to Miss Terry (Hunter?) for an excellent puzzle with several aspects that raised a smile.
I've never participated myself, but my understanding is that the hunt is a series of challenges that can be executed in parallel. Each challenge is a series of puzzles in which solving one puzzle leads to another.
For this challenge, at one stage you received an incredibly easy non-cryptic puzzle. Clues like "__ Kruschev" (6) and "Capital of California" (10).
There was a fake post-it note attached saying: "This is terrible! We asked for a tough cryptic crossword to include in the Hunt, but this is neither tough nor cryptic. The whole puzzle is very circumspect." Sure enough, if you read the border of the finished grid, it said "SOLVE LISTENER NOW". The final box was needed to move on to the next stage.
For this challenge, at one stage you received an incredibly easy non-cryptic puzzle. Clues like "__ Kruschev" (6) and "Capital of California" (10).
There was a fake post-it note attached saying: "This is terrible! We asked for a tough cryptic crossword to include in the Hunt, but this is neither tough nor cryptic. The whole puzzle is very circumspect." Sure enough, if you read the border of the finished grid, it said "SOLVE LISTENER NOW". The final box was needed to move on to the next stage.
Fyellin, I don't suppose you have a link to it? For no reason other than I'm genuinely intrigued. If you do (no obligation of any sort of course) I'm olichant08 at gmail dot com.
I'm just fascinated to understand how something as tricky as the Listener could be just one element for a much wider puzzle when the only way you could realistically solve it (absent prior experience) would be to take massive shortcuts. I ask the question openly - I'm sure (and hope) there is much more than meets the eye.
I'm just fascinated to understand how something as tricky as the Listener could be just one element for a much wider puzzle when the only way you could realistically solve it (absent prior experience) would be to take massive shortcuts. I ask the question openly - I'm sure (and hope) there is much more than meets the eye.
As a Mystery Hunter who stumbled across this while trying to find the solution now that Hunt has ended (the official solution only links to the Listener solution which doesn't seem to be uploaded yet), I can explain the scale of Mystery Hunt! Hunt is a 3-day weekend with 100-130 devilishly hard puzzles (no instructions are given, so figuring out what to do is part of the puzzle, and the answer is always a word or phrase which is interesting when you start off with what looks like a pure logic puzzle) designed for teams of 20-100+ solvers with computers (some puzzles require writing or running particular programs to solve) and full access to the internet (allowing a large range of esoteric trivia to be used). The solving process is very collaborative, with many people contributing to solves, and the puzzles are correspondingly complex. Puzzle solutions unlock more puzzles and feed into "meta-puzzles" and sometimes even meta-meta puzzles to solve the hunt.
Puzzles are designed with the knowledge that people have access to Google, so there's usually more to it than simply figuring out what's being clued. In particular, there's usually a deeper puzzle beneath an easy-seeming surface puzzle, and hunt writers find clever ways to obfuscate music clips or images so they can't be simply searched.
Since there's no team cap, you can also ask anyone for help, because it's like adding team members which is acceptable. We ask friends with certain pop culture expertise for help all the time, and one puzzle had clues spoken by small children that none of my teammates could understand, so we asked our parents to translate. However, I feel it should still be the team doing answer extraction even if data is gathered from other sources, and posting on a forum of strangers for a solution feels like crossing a line.
As for scale: this year's hunt should be available with the other hunt archives in a few days, but I'll summarize in case you're curious. 2018's theme was Pixar's Inside Out, with puzzles occurring inside the head of Miss Terry Hunter (hence Miss Terry being the puzzle author; in reality Miss Terry is three people who will be credited on the Hunt solution page when it becomes public). The hunt began a relatively easy starter round (that still took my team the whole weekend) of solving puzzles that fed into (relatively easy for Mystery Hunt but still requiring some leaps) emotion metas. Then the hunt really picked up, with 4 differently-themed islands (Pokemon Island, where solving a puzzle would unlock an "evolved", more difficult version and solutions could be used in Pokemon fights; Games Island, where the puzzle answers filled in a Catan board to give meta clues; Sci-Fi Island, where each side of a cube contained a meta puzzle based on a different sci-fi property; and Hacking Island, based on locations around MIT campus and MIT "hacks" or pranks). Each island had metas and meta metas using the answers to the meta puzzles. The puzzle that this Listener was part of was on Games Island, which had a relatively slow 1 puzzles solved -> 1 puzzle unlock rate, so the high school team must have been desperate to unlock another puzzle or felt like one more answer would have helped them solve the Games meta puzzle.
If you have more questions, want to see the Hunt website before it becomes fully public, or (shameless plug) are interested in joining a team, even to solve remotely (my team could use some support on cryptic-style puzzles...), please feel free to email my team at readytostayinsideout [at] gmail [dot] com.
Puzzles are designed with the knowledge that people have access to Google, so there's usually more to it than simply figuring out what's being clued. In particular, there's usually a deeper puzzle beneath an easy-seeming surface puzzle, and hunt writers find clever ways to obfuscate music clips or images so they can't be simply searched.
Since there's no team cap, you can also ask anyone for help, because it's like adding team members which is acceptable. We ask friends with certain pop culture expertise for help all the time, and one puzzle had clues spoken by small children that none of my teammates could understand, so we asked our parents to translate. However, I feel it should still be the team doing answer extraction even if data is gathered from other sources, and posting on a forum of strangers for a solution feels like crossing a line.
As for scale: this year's hunt should be available with the other hunt archives in a few days, but I'll summarize in case you're curious. 2018's theme was Pixar's Inside Out, with puzzles occurring inside the head of Miss Terry Hunter (hence Miss Terry being the puzzle author; in reality Miss Terry is three people who will be credited on the Hunt solution page when it becomes public). The hunt began a relatively easy starter round (that still took my team the whole weekend) of solving puzzles that fed into (relatively easy for Mystery Hunt but still requiring some leaps) emotion metas. Then the hunt really picked up, with 4 differently-themed islands (Pokemon Island, where solving a puzzle would unlock an "evolved", more difficult version and solutions could be used in Pokemon fights; Games Island, where the puzzle answers filled in a Catan board to give meta clues; Sci-Fi Island, where each side of a cube contained a meta puzzle based on a different sci-fi property; and Hacking Island, based on locations around MIT campus and MIT "hacks" or pranks). Each island had metas and meta metas using the answers to the meta puzzles. The puzzle that this Listener was part of was on Games Island, which had a relatively slow 1 puzzles solved -> 1 puzzle unlock rate, so the high school team must have been desperate to unlock another puzzle or felt like one more answer would have helped them solve the Games meta puzzle.
If you have more questions, want to see the Hunt website before it becomes fully public, or (shameless plug) are interested in joining a team, even to solve remotely (my team could use some support on cryptic-style puzzles...), please feel free to email my team at readytostayinsideout [at] gmail [dot] com.
At the risk of further clogging this thread (I just find it extremely interesting!) there are some further insights here for anyone who is interested - https:/
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