[Palindrome] Mystery Hunt Demystification

[Thomas Weisswange <aldesuda optonline net>]

Once again, I am reposting a wonderful article written by Eric Albert.  
Enjoy!

THE HUNT

The home page for the MIT Mystery Hunt is:
   http://web.mit.edu/puzzle/www/
The place to find some prior Hunts and their puzzles (some with complete 
solutions) is:
   http://web.mit.edu/puzzle/www/hunthistory.html
A copy of a 1991 article I wrote about the Hunt for Games magazine is 
available at:
   http://web.mit.edu/puzzle/www/gamesarticle.html

You should understand that my article is a *romanticization* of the 
hunt. Any activity in which a couple of hundred lunatics do bizarre 
things for several days straight is bound to have some striking moments, 
and I colorfully chronicled those.  Such an activity is also bound to 
have many moments of tedium and frustration.  Sometimes those moments 
stretch into hours.  I carefully skipped over those parts, but do not 
fool yourself: every hunt has them.

(These tough stretches are where the personalities of team members can 
really influence the pleasure of the situation -- for better or for 
worse. See below for more on this.)

My Games article was written long ago, and fashions in hunts ebb and 
flow over the years.  Hunts back then had much more running around the 
campus semi-mindlessly (for example, trying to find a plaque with a 
specified set of words on it) and more borderline-to-outright illegal 
stuff (breaking into rooms, say, or going out on the roofs).  Recent 
hunts have been *much* more puzzle-oriented, with the MIT campus more of 
a backdrop than a main stage.

To get a feel for recent hunts, check out the hunthistory URL above and 
look at the puzzles for the last couple of years.

* * *
THE TEAM

New team members often mention their fear that they are "out of their 
league" and that they will be of little or no help during the hunt.

Nothing could be farther from the truth.

While I always enjoy having superbright ultraknowledgeable folks on the 
team, I remind you that our primary mandate is To Have a Good Time.  The 
correlation between megabraininess and fun-ness is unclear at best, and 
may even be negative (though I doubt it).

But even if our only goal were to solve all of the puzzles quicker than 
any other team (which is, I agree, one brand of Fun), pure analytic 
power would not be sufficient to get the job done.  Not by a long shot!

To choose just a few examples from previous hunts:

1) We were given a set of plastic baggies, each baggie containing a 
spice. We had to identify each spice.

2) There was a scavenger hunt in which we had to track down many odd 
objects.  One was a rubber-band ball at least 2" in diameter.  No one on 
the team had one, so my then three-year-old son made us one.  He also 
lent us a blue stuffed animal.  Those were real, important contributions 
that materially helped the team effort.

3) We were given a videotape which contained, among other things, short 
cartoon clips.  We had to identify the (sometimes obscure) Disney 
character in each clip.

Other Hunts have required knowledge of breakfast cereals, rock and 
classical music, the ingredient lists of various brands of soda, the 
physiognomies of teen heartthrobs, the names of Pokemon characters, plus 
other trivia of all shapes and sizes.  Not to mention the large number 
of "aha!" puzzles in each hunt, where analytic thought seems to only 
make things worse, and you have to wait for inspiration to strike.  
("Say... how about if we wrap that dotted piece of string around a Coke 
can?")

Every team member on every team I've run has contributed usefully. 
Remember, we have to solve the bulk of the puzzles -- solving 50% of 
them really, really fast and then getting stuck doesn't help much.  So, 
if you're willing to hand over a nude photograph of yourself, or you 
happen to have an unopened snack food in your pantry with an expiration 
date that's long past, your contribution is just as crucial as the 
person who conquers the Vignierre cipher in their head, or who can read 
Indo-European like a native.

Most important of all:  NO ONE can solve the hunt alone.  I doubt that 
any *ten* people would have a competitive chance, nowadays.  There are 
too many puzzles, and they are too hard.  Winning is not a sprint, it's 
a marathon.

Sprinting is easy: just put your head down and go.  Marathons require a 
whole different level of maturity and understanding:  when to press, 
when to regroup, how to pace yourself.  A marathon team needs a dozen 
non-analytic qualities to succeed.  Perhaps most crucial is that 
hard-to-define but you-know-it-when-it's-there thing called "team 
spirit" or "morale."

Hunts are long.  Things get stuck.  Puzzles have bugs, making them 
unsolvable.  People start to fray around the edges.  Pure brain-power 
teams lose their advantage, squabbling acrimoniously or breaking into 
smaller teams which will be swept away.  Better constructed teams trade 
some weary jokes, then go out for pizza (or even go to bed), coming back 
refreshed and alert, ready to kick puzzle butt.

I've yet to meet *my* perfect Mystery Hunt team member but, when I do, 
I'll recognize them by the following key phrases: "The tireder I get, 
the cheerfuller I get", "When I'm under stress, I relax by giving back 
rubs to everyone around me", and, of course, "I think the best part of 
team-solving hypercomplex puzzles is checking other people's work."

All team members can (and will!) help this team.  Smart folks are 
welcome, and should remember to bring their brains.  But everyone else 
better show up, too.

-- Eric