Mystery Hunt Roundup 2025!
Jan. 30th, 2025 04:11 pmYes solutions have been up for a while but I've been busy! Anyway, Mystery Hunt this year!
I once again went up to Boston for Mystery Hunt this year. Still on Plant.
The Hunt had an interesting structure this year. The first round had five different metapuzzles -- four ordinary metas and one supermeta, although I believe it was designed to be solvable without solving all of the other metas first -- and solving each one of the five unlocked a different subsequent round. Each of these later rounds had their own metapuzzle or metapuzzles, and solving the metapuzzles for all rounds unlocked the runaround. We made it to all five of the later rounds, but didn't solve any of their metas.
The other way the structure of the hunt was unusual was that, rather than solves unlocking specific puzzles, instead they separately "discovered" puzzles and gave you keys. You see, when you discovered a puzzle, it would still be locked -- they'd give you a name and a minimal description that they considered spoiler-free -- and you had to spend a key to unlock it. The idea was that this would allow teams to focus their efforts on the sort of puzzle that they prefer. I think this was a positive effect, but there was also a negative one. You know how clues and free solves require strong team leadership to make sure they get used? I think keys have a similar sort of thing going on. Without strong leadership a team might just not spend their keys and not unlock enough puzzles!
Also, one of the subsequent rounds this year was a fish round, and, I have mixed feelings about that. I mean, it's nice to have some easy puzzles, but they're so long, and it's kind of exhausting to solve so many puzzles and still not unlock the meta. If you want to have a fish round, maybe break it up into several rounds, rather than making it one long one?
The other reason I'm maybe a bit cool on fish rounds is that if there's always easy puzzles available, it becomes less appealing to sit down with the harder ones and stare at them and try lots of things. It's distracting! At least it's not like last year where, AIUI, the fish round barely contributed to progression... here at least it was a necessary part of making it to the runaround. But, yeah, if you want to have easier puzzles, maybe just mix them in with the other puzzles as an occasional "here have an easy one" rather than sticking them all in one round to make sure one's always available?
I'm actually a little unsure I helped all that much this year! I mean I definitely contributed to the team but I feel like I was often so distracted... well, I guess I'll go over the individual puzzles and see!
(Also: Li-Mei was on the writing team this year! Hi Li-Mei! :) )
( Cut for spoilers )
OK and I think that's all I have to say about this year!
Next year I think I might go to the JMM because it'll be in Washington DC, so I'll probably stay home for Mystery Hunt and solve remotely. But we'll see...
-Harry
I once again went up to Boston for Mystery Hunt this year. Still on Plant.
The Hunt had an interesting structure this year. The first round had five different metapuzzles -- four ordinary metas and one supermeta, although I believe it was designed to be solvable without solving all of the other metas first -- and solving each one of the five unlocked a different subsequent round. Each of these later rounds had their own metapuzzle or metapuzzles, and solving the metapuzzles for all rounds unlocked the runaround. We made it to all five of the later rounds, but didn't solve any of their metas.
The other way the structure of the hunt was unusual was that, rather than solves unlocking specific puzzles, instead they separately "discovered" puzzles and gave you keys. You see, when you discovered a puzzle, it would still be locked -- they'd give you a name and a minimal description that they considered spoiler-free -- and you had to spend a key to unlock it. The idea was that this would allow teams to focus their efforts on the sort of puzzle that they prefer. I think this was a positive effect, but there was also a negative one. You know how clues and free solves require strong team leadership to make sure they get used? I think keys have a similar sort of thing going on. Without strong leadership a team might just not spend their keys and not unlock enough puzzles!
Also, one of the subsequent rounds this year was a fish round, and, I have mixed feelings about that. I mean, it's nice to have some easy puzzles, but they're so long, and it's kind of exhausting to solve so many puzzles and still not unlock the meta. If you want to have a fish round, maybe break it up into several rounds, rather than making it one long one?
The other reason I'm maybe a bit cool on fish rounds is that if there's always easy puzzles available, it becomes less appealing to sit down with the harder ones and stare at them and try lots of things. It's distracting! At least it's not like last year where, AIUI, the fish round barely contributed to progression... here at least it was a necessary part of making it to the runaround. But, yeah, if you want to have easier puzzles, maybe just mix them in with the other puzzles as an occasional "here have an easy one" rather than sticking them all in one round to make sure one's always available?
I'm actually a little unsure I helped all that much this year! I mean I definitely contributed to the team but I feel like I was often so distracted... well, I guess I'll go over the individual puzzles and see!
(Also: Li-Mei was on the writing team this year! Hi Li-Mei! :) )
( Cut for spoilers )
OK and I think that's all I have to say about this year!
Next year I think I might go to the JMM because it'll be in Washington DC, so I'll probably stay home for Mystery Hunt and solve remotely. But we'll see...
-Harry
