So the MIT Mystery Hunt was last weekend! I once again had the pleasure of solving remotely with Left as an Exercise for the Reader. And best of all, we didn’t win! (Seems like at the time the coin was found, we were in 15th, which I’m quite pleased with.) For those of you who were there, you may appreciate my proudest moment: backsolving “Best of Five” from the Tea Party meta… without having a clue what was going on in the Tea Party meta! (I had maybe 5 or 6 backsolves this hunt, which is up from a resounding 0.)
If you didn’t compete, but would like to try your hand at a few puzzles, here are five of my favorite puzzles to have worked on this hunt:
- Bumblebee Tune-a
- Can + Tab + Rig + Ian
- Disemvoweled
- Common Bonds
- Introduction to Collegiate Notetaking
(You can get the solution to a puzzle by clicking on the “solution” link in the upper right.) If you played in the Mystery Hunt, what was your favorite puzzle?
Neville Fogarty 
this puzzle has everything
That’s funny – I worked on “Best of Five” and we ended up backsolving it from the Tea Party meta too. (I had figured out how it worked, but it was going to be very tedious to finish, and the meta team already had the backsolve ball rolling. Although, the meta itself took many more hours to fall – I felt like it was the hardest meta by a wide margin.)
This was my first Hunt (I was onsite with Setec Astronomy) and it was amazing. How long have you been participating?
This was only my third hunt. I’ve yet to participate on-site myself; the timing just doesn’t work out with my own school schedule.
“sledgehammered” was a fun crossword-ish puzzle. “initial impressions” was a nice one to introduce to beginners. my favorite was the white queen meta structure, which was simply mind-blowing, but i didn’t actually work on any of the white queen round puzzles (i was asleep at the relevant hours).
Does Medusa’s Lair have a meta?
No meta this time, Dave.
Thanks, Neville. I’ve been out of the loop and haven’t been doing your puzzles for a while, or I would have known. Have a great weekend.
Dave
Semi-dupe at 6A and 36D. Nice puzzle regardless.
Good catch, Andrew. Someone’s losing a thumb over that one!
I didn’t know the cockroach had a name! *does research* Seems like it’s just a filmmakers’ nickname. I don’t think it could have been used in the movie.
It’s true… but I couldn’t pass up the cluing combo :)
I liked Walk Across Some Dungeons, though it wasn’t a puzzle in the same sense as other Hunt puzzles.
I definitely enjoyed the levels of that one that I was able to complete! But after a while it got capital-H Hard.
One of my favorites so far. And I think I may have solved the meta!!