The Keyring Problem
This isn't my recap of the 2011 Hunt. I don't know that I'll have the energy to do a really good full-length one like I did for 2009. For what it's worth, it was definitely an A++ Would Do This Team's Hunts Again sort of Hunt, even more so than S.P.I.E.S. was.
My one major gripe with this Hunt was with two of Zelda's three metas. I may write a post elaborating at some point, but this isn't that post either. In case that post doesn't get written, my main point would be this: if a meta's constrained enough that the only final answers you can come up with deviate from the format solvers have been taught to expect, don't write that meta. Find a way to un-constrain your idea, or write a different meta entirely.
This isn't either of the ridiculously overdue P&A logs I've meant to post for a while now, either, but those are forthcoming, I swear.
What this is is a post about a thing.
It's a thing in puzzle hunts, though thankfully it was mostly absent from the most recent MIT Mystery Hunt. I've heard it called the Taipei Problem, after a memorable example from the 1999 Hunt. I like to call it the Keyring Problem, because of how I visualize it. It occurs to me that maybe the analogy could possibly be of use; it seems like a useful addition to the vocabulary of Hunt-style puzzle criticism.
Imagine you're playing an adventure game. You've collected the seven talismans and put them in their appropriate pedestals, you've dodged the swinging blades, you've narrowly survived the battle against the horde of marmosets and their twenty-foot-tall boss with heat vision, and you're standing at the final locked door.
Now one of these happens:
A: You've picked up a single key during your journey. You put it in the keyhole and turn. It fits! Hooray! This game was awesome.
B: You've picked up a keyring during your journey. It contains dozens of unlabeled keys. You cringe at the prospect of trying each one in turn until one works, but you don't really have any other choice. If you're lucky, the right one will be among the first ones you try, and you'll get through. If you're unlucky, you'll start to second-guess yourself after the third or fourth key. Maybe the right key isn't on this keyring, but on another keyring that was hidden in some secret passage you missed? Maybe one of the keys you already tried was the right one, but the lock's just finicky? And one or two key attempts after that, you realize you're officially No Longer Having Fun, you turn off the game and switch to another one, and the satisfaction you derived from that marmoset battle retroactively becomes indignation at having fought all of those marmosets for nothing.
In other words, a puzzle constructor needs to be very careful that, if there's a step where a solver has a bunch of data that needs to be manipulated in a specific way to proceed, it's the only reasonable way that data could be manipulated.*
There's actually a third scenario, A.5: You've picked up a keyring during your journey. It contains dozens of keys. But someone's thoughtfully painted the door lime green with orange spots to match one of your keys, so you try that one. It fits! Hooray!
That is, if there's a step that could possibly be a keyring for solvers, the constructor should try to present the puzzle in such a way that one method of data manipulation is clearly the best method to use. Careful use of helpful blanks and/or enumerations, suggestive layout, clueful puzzle titles, and even the dreaded flavortext can make solvers not resent the marmosets.
It may be apparent at this point that I just really like saying the word "marmoset".
In writing this, I've just realized that this is probably the reason unmotivated anagrams, especially as intermediate instructions, were quietly taken out back and shot a few years ago - they're essentially keyrings with N! keys on them.
I said the keyring problem was mostly absent in the 2011 Hunt, and in my experience that's true. There were exceptions, though. I've heard people saying that Mario Clash had this sort of problem, and a lot of my teammates were reduced to clawing at Rocky Horror's endgame and howling.
Does anyone else have any stories of Keyring Problems from Hunts past, MIT or otherwise?
*Unless, of course, the keyring is a feature, not a bug. Ginormous from 2005 is a fine example of a good puzzle where the keyring is the whole point.
My one major gripe with this Hunt was with two of Zelda's three metas. I may write a post elaborating at some point, but this isn't that post either. In case that post doesn't get written, my main point would be this: if a meta's constrained enough that the only final answers you can come up with deviate from the format solvers have been taught to expect, don't write that meta. Find a way to un-constrain your idea, or write a different meta entirely.
This isn't either of the ridiculously overdue P&A logs I've meant to post for a while now, either, but those are forthcoming, I swear.
What this is is a post about a thing.
It's a thing in puzzle hunts, though thankfully it was mostly absent from the most recent MIT Mystery Hunt. I've heard it called the Taipei Problem, after a memorable example from the 1999 Hunt. I like to call it the Keyring Problem, because of how I visualize it. It occurs to me that maybe the analogy could possibly be of use; it seems like a useful addition to the vocabulary of Hunt-style puzzle criticism.
Imagine you're playing an adventure game. You've collected the seven talismans and put them in their appropriate pedestals, you've dodged the swinging blades, you've narrowly survived the battle against the horde of marmosets and their twenty-foot-tall boss with heat vision, and you're standing at the final locked door.
Now one of these happens:
A: You've picked up a single key during your journey. You put it in the keyhole and turn. It fits! Hooray! This game was awesome.
B: You've picked up a keyring during your journey. It contains dozens of unlabeled keys. You cringe at the prospect of trying each one in turn until one works, but you don't really have any other choice. If you're lucky, the right one will be among the first ones you try, and you'll get through. If you're unlucky, you'll start to second-guess yourself after the third or fourth key. Maybe the right key isn't on this keyring, but on another keyring that was hidden in some secret passage you missed? Maybe one of the keys you already tried was the right one, but the lock's just finicky? And one or two key attempts after that, you realize you're officially No Longer Having Fun, you turn off the game and switch to another one, and the satisfaction you derived from that marmoset battle retroactively becomes indignation at having fought all of those marmosets for nothing.
In other words, a puzzle constructor needs to be very careful that, if there's a step where a solver has a bunch of data that needs to be manipulated in a specific way to proceed, it's the only reasonable way that data could be manipulated.*
There's actually a third scenario, A.5: You've picked up a keyring during your journey. It contains dozens of keys. But someone's thoughtfully painted the door lime green with orange spots to match one of your keys, so you try that one. It fits! Hooray!
That is, if there's a step that could possibly be a keyring for solvers, the constructor should try to present the puzzle in such a way that one method of data manipulation is clearly the best method to use. Careful use of helpful blanks and/or enumerations, suggestive layout, clueful puzzle titles, and even the dreaded flavortext can make solvers not resent the marmosets.
It may be apparent at this point that I just really like saying the word "marmoset".
In writing this, I've just realized that this is probably the reason unmotivated anagrams, especially as intermediate instructions, were quietly taken out back and shot a few years ago - they're essentially keyrings with N! keys on them.
I said the keyring problem was mostly absent in the 2011 Hunt, and in my experience that's true. There were exceptions, though. I've heard people saying that Mario Clash had this sort of problem, and a lot of my teammates were reduced to clawing at Rocky Horror's endgame and howling.
Does anyone else have any stories of Keyring Problems from Hunts past, MIT or otherwise?
*Unless, of course, the keyring is a feature, not a bug. Ginormous from 2005 is a fine example of a good puzzle where the keyring is the whole point.