Mystery Hunt thoughts

Jan 20, 2009 16:20

Thoughts on this year's Mystery Hunt from a member of Codex Magliabechiano ( Read more... )

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barawulf January 20 2009, 23:53:52 UTC
It was a very good hunt, esp. onsite :)

I liked the Reverse Dimensions (ie, Doctor Who) meta a lot -- it fell really fast and naturally after someone noticed the combine-double-letters-to-make-8-by-8 thing.

Just as the hunt ended I was leading a group in starting over from a clean slate on the Combat Sector meta -- the thing that killed that meta was (a) lack of cluing (great we've got these things but no obvious shape to put them in!) and (b) errata! because we are a large team, it was hard to have a canonical 'correct' set of meta data, esp. with physical pieces flying about.

(as a consolation, my reboot strategy was beginning to work-- the correct letters and some words from the real answer were popping out)

I don't think the ordering on that page was significant. Red herring.

I played through the example game of Escape from Zyzzlvaria during the hunt, but never a free-play game. Though I did buy a real copy at the wrapup and fit it somehow into my suitcase :) Funnily enough, I've been planning a sci-fi themed party this weekend for my birthday, so I think I'll set up the phase 1 meta-meta for my friends to work out on my kitchen table.

--Barak

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dumble January 21 2009, 16:47:30 UTC
Yeah, we clearly should have rebooted Combat Sector earlier. Or just generally had more people looking at it. Oh well. There's always things you "should have" done. =) You're also totally right about the errata. We should definitely be better about labelling things with big ERRATA signs next year.

I never really looked at the Dr Who round. I should go back and take a better look at it, once the hunt website comes back up. (I've also never seen Dr Who, but I assume that once you've gotten past the part where you have figure out how doctor and companion puzzles line up, that won't matter any more?)

Also: Happy (almost) Birthday!

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