2012 Mystery Hunt!

The 2012 MIT Mystery Hunt is coming up very soon. Let's make a team to tackle it, like we did last year!

What is the MIT Mystery Hunt?

Main article: MIT Mystery Hunt

It's an annual puzzle-hunt held in January, where teams of people come together to solve lots of puzzles and metapuzzles in order to recover a special coin. In recent years, Hunts have generally been themed on a certain topic (such as time travel, space sci-fi, or videogames), giving it a bit of an alternate reality game feel; these themes are typically relevant in metapuzzles.

Teams are of unlimited size. Anyone can participate no matter where they're from or what their background, as long as they're not also hunting for another team. So yes, all of you are welcome to join, and feel free to bring your friends! No commitment or experience is required.

The Hunt these days consists of over 100 puzzles, typically organized into rounds of 5 to 15 puzzles each; each round also has a metapuzzle that uses the solutions to its component puzzles. For one January weekend, conveniently the one before Martin Luther King Jr. Day in the U.S. (so people can sleep in afterwards), participants work on puzzles upon puzzles round the clock, until a team recovers the coin, and wins the Hunt. Typically, Hunts last around 48~60 hours.

The winners get to write next year's Hunt. Don't worry, we're nowhere near that good.

The 2012 Hunt

The 2012 Hunt will begin at noon eastern time on Friday the 13th of January, 2012, and ends...well, whenever.

• the Mystery Hunt homepage: http://web.mit.edu/puzzle/www/ (includes old Hunts you can look through)
• the TV Tropes subforum that we used last year: https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/conversations.php?topic=ducksoup

Do you live or go to school nearby?

Oh by the way: If you live around the Boston/Cambridge area, we would LOVE to have an on-campus delegation from our team. Every Hunt has some events that take place on-campus, and while they're rarely needed to solve individual puzzles, they are sometimes needed for a few metas. And the intro usually draws this immense crowd in the entrance lobby of MIT, while the wrap-up at the end where the writers talk about the Hunt and some of the solutions also takes place on campus.

Plus, if we can get a base on the MIT campus itself, huddling getting together in an MIT classroom and working through the night and day and night and day solving puzzles is actually a surprisingly fun experience. Just make sure to bring lots of scratch paper, writing utensils, and extension cords. You can also locate your base off-campus if you wish, such as out of your own house or office or dorm lounge if you're at a nearby college. (For on-campus bases, team leaders have to go and request one.)

Join us!

If you want to join us, go here and make an account: http://ducksoup.vbprog.zonexus.net/ . As a bonus for joining, you get to work on puzzles that arks and I have written. They're MH-style puzzles, so if you haven't ever seen MH puzzles before, here's a good intro. The puzzles (at least mine) are a tad easier than standard MH puzzles but that's so that you can reasonably solve them on your own.

Our forum uses an applicant confirmation system to keep out spammers. But just make it obvious who you are and I'll approve the application and let you in. I'll be checking it at least once a day from now on.

I know, last year we were hosted here on the TV Tropes forums themselves. However, in the interests of organizing our team more easily, I've decided to get our own forum. It's got lots of nice features, such as the ability to edit each others' posts so we don't have to wait for mods to change stuff as we're busy solving puzzles. Also, you can opt in/out of receiving e-mails that the organizers send to the entire team.

Oh yeah, our team is named Duck Soup, but it seems that a lot of the old guard are not going to be participating, so if you wanna change the name, I'm open to that.

edited 12th Jan '12 3:39:58 PM by GlennMagusHarvey

Bumping thread, because you should still join our team, and it's not too late! It's never too late for Caltrate!

And you should help solve arks's puzzle! here it is

And mine too: here they are

You can submit your own if you write your own!

You get e-mails by subscribing to the ducksoup mailing list, right?

It's sad to hear the old guard is leaving. How many people will we have on campus?

Yes, you should. There have only been two e-mails so far though and they were both sent before UE and I got around to implementing this e-mail system. Both of them are about registering one's team, and no other details.

The team registration page is on the MH website itself.

Still looking for people in the Boston area who would like to do the Hunt—you can be our meatspace delegation!

There's a pool party for people who will be around on Saturday afternoon (January 14th)!

edited 4th Jan '12 9:00:39 PM by GlennMagusHarvey

Don't we have a whole subforum for this...?

We're moving to a dedicated forum offsite, so that you can get e-mails from the organizers directly concerning the Hunt, if you're on the team. (Among other reasons.)

edited 8th Jan '12 9:59:46 AM by GlennMagusHarvey

So, does that mean the subforum will be archived?

That subforum probably will.

Though I won't be the to do it since I don't have the perms.

Why do you ask, by the way?

The 2012 Mystery Hunt begins this coming Friday, at 12 noon eastern standard time!

Join our team forums to see announcements from the Hunt organizers.

If you want to join the pool party, please let me know by tomorrow (Wednesday) 5 PM eastern standard time.

Also, I've registered us as a team of mostly remote solvers. (We have like a couple people who might be on-campus.)

This can change if you want in on the on-campus action.

The team that wrote last year's Hunt is going to hold a workshop to introduce people to the Mystery Hunt tonight. The event will take place 7 to 8 PM eastern standard time in room 6-120 on the MIT campus.

Here is a link to the event details: http://math.columbia.edu/~nsnyder/workshop

You are welcome to come even if you can't be around for the Hunt itself.

(I wonder if it will be streamed.)

Oh yeah, we have an IRC channel now. It's #ducksoup on irc.esper.net. So if you're there for #yackfest or #tropers, just type /join #ducksoup and you'll be in.

edited 12th Jan '12 3:01:53 PM by GlennMagusHarvey

What's the username and password we use tomorrow to access the puzzles?

The username is DuckSoup, and the password is tropers.

I've posted it in the first post of the team info thread on our forum. Thanks for reminding me.

edited 13th Jan '12 9:39:29 AM by GlennMagusHarvey

Ah, thanks.

The Hunt has begun!

Well, it's still the kickoff. The puzzle server is at borbonicusandbodley.com , but it's not ready yet.

Edit: It seems to be ready. Logging it doesn't work yet. Lemme check that out.

Edit: No, not yet.

edited 13th Jan '12 9:23:39 AM by GlennMagusHarvey

username is DuckSoup and is case-sensitive. password still the same. hunt will begin at 1 PM (in about 20 minutes).

We ready to roll?

Can you make a Conversations list for the actual puzzles — I've got some info on "Middle See"

edited 13th Jan '12 10:22:16 AM by Madrugada

Yes! The first ten puzzles have been posted.

Though I actually have to run to lunch; back in a bit.

We've solved our first puzzle!

Because I was confused. I kind of lurked that forum for awhile, wondering what it was and why nobody posted there, when I was brand new at TV Tropes.