The Team Formerly Known as the Team Formerly Known as the Team Formerly Known as the Team Formerly Known as the Team Formerly Known as the Team to Be Named Later, the winner of MIT Mystery Hunt 2023 and often referred to shorthand as ttbnl, creates some legendary puzzles!
In this MIT Mystery Hunt, the kick-off starts off as the Meeting of Interplanetary Theorists, who voted to demote Pluto. However, the deities of Greek mythology crash the scene and send the hunters to the Underworld. The first part involves finding a way out of the Underworld, but upon doing so, they learned from Hermes that Hades still needs to be restored via the shades in order for the universe to remain stable. Hermes lends the Mercury as a way to fast-travel to parts of the United States to recover the shades and restore Hades/Pluto.
Death and Mayhem brought the shades back first and will bring on the mayhem a year later in MIT Mystery Hunt 2025.
- Block Puzzle: The puzzle "Marathon Block Pushing Game" is a gigantic sokoban.
- Continuity Nod: As with past puzzles from the MIT Mystery Hunt, some puzzles make callbacks to past puzzles or even hunts. One example is "Amykos' Briefs", which cites past MIT Mystery Hunt puzzles and is a brief based on that.
- Crossover Cosmology: The New York City round features characters from other mythologies, which later appear in the metapuzzle "Scheduling Conflicts".
- Escaped from Hell: Solvers find a way to escape from the Underworld after being sent there, but that's not the only problem they have to solve.
- First-Episode Twist: Promotional material leading up to the hunt sets up a space-theming ... but during the Meeting of Interplanetary Theorists, the Greek gods crash the scene and send the hunters to the Underworld.
- Hydra Problem: The Everglades round feature the Hydra in which the structure serves as the unlock mechanic.
- Judgement of the Dead: As part of a task to escape the Underworld, the metapuzzle "Judges of the Underworld" involves finding a way to pass the Underworld Courts.
- Legacy Boss Battle: When considering a metapuzzle as a "boss battle" for a puzzle round, there are two examples.
- The puzzle "The Myriad Gamut of Hera" is explicitly a callback to the two other Juno puzzles from past hunts. Naturally, similar gimmicks are used, but since this is a metapuzzle, the 50 feeder answers from The Hole in the Ceiling of Hades are used.
- The feeder puzzle "The Hermit Crab" involves a hermit crab reusing the metapuzzle shells from past puzzlehunts. Solvers need to go to the respective hunt's metapuzzle but will need to use the metapuzzle shell differently.
- Magic Versus Science: More like Greek mythology versus science, but this is the major premise of the plot point of the hunt.
- Pieces of God: The shades of Hades serves as this.
- Pinball Scoring: Naturally appears in the pinball puzzle "Game To Be Themed Later" — the scores are multiples of 1000, and they need to be tracked as one plays an actual pinball game to extract the answer phrase.
- Road Trip Plot: The overworld section serves as this, in which solvers use Hermes's Mercury to travel to various points in the United States to retrieve Hades's shades.
- Shout-Out: The puzzle "ENNEAGRAM" is explicitly a shout-out to "Octogram"
, a puzzle game made by the late Jack Lance. - Special Guest: Michael Brown, who famously voted to oust Pluto from its planetary status, makes a reprise in the opening skit.
- String Theory: The puzzle "Deep Conspiracy" is presented as this.
- The Ferryman: Charon serves as this for a bit in the premise of the metapuzzle "Charon", but later on the three-headed dog Cerebus guides teams to Hades's shades.
