Quick Mystery Hunt Rant

[tablesaw]

The MIT Mystery Hunt was this weekend. I solved from home with IIF, and had a great time. The hunt ran super long, though, which means that not only is there lots to say, there's also a lot to still recover from.

I'm going to collect my thoughts (probably after the puzzles are back online), but in the meantime I really hope that this comment isn't going to set the tone for responses from this year's creators, Manic Sages.

On the other hand, walking around and seeing different teams and contrasting their approaches to the Hunt was quite interesting. Even other top teams like Death From Above (in the lead through most of the Hunt) and the eventual winners John Galt (second up till Sunday before establishing a convincing lead) were all smiles and obviously enjoying themselves when I visited. Then I got to Luck, and some of you (not all) seemed to be locked into a grim death march, desperate to get to the end.

I know Luck really wants to win, and we probably made it impossible for a mid-sized team this year. But keeping morale up should help your odds of being the victor in future years... :)

I'm too punchy (as in, wanting to punch that commenter) to adequately explain why, so I'm just leaving it here, because it's my blog.

I think IIF had a fantastic showing this year (waiting to see more when stats come out), and I hope that next year I can finally make it back to Boston (and complain about how cold it is).

Comments

[motris.livejournal.com]

The Hunt should be about having fun and/or about having the competition for the coin. And when neither is working out for our team, we are going to be upset. It is not really even about the fact the coin may or may not have been in reach (we believed it always was, and was correct). And it should not be about criticizing the team I was playing with or its approach. With mostly Hunt constructing veterans on it, we were deep into seeing how many errors of judgment were made. I'd start with just the first Event puzzle - something that after 3 hours all teams were sent out of the room with limited data. Something that GC slowly sent us dozens of character strings, that eventually led us to another task -- unlikely to be achieved in the room -- that several hours later for my team finally finished a puzzle. Events should be fun social activities that may even be group solves. They should not drain the participant's spirits, and take a dedicated effort of many others to eventually finish. FAR too hard. Don't attack the team, accept the criticism.

[zotmeister]

To adapt a line from Tenjho Tenge: I've known Derek for a few years now, we've played games together, we've discussed puzzles... but the man that left that comment is someone I've never met. - ZM

[jadelennox]

If you can't make it back, we will love having you in chat, as we always do. And if you can make it back, we will bring you sweaters and hot water bottles. :-)