Mystery Hunt Con Report
Jan. 18th, 2021 04:25 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
writerkitMostly I'm just beyond exhausted. Mystery Hunt is probably the most exhausting event I do every year even when we do it in person; I recall my first Mystery Hunt I was only physically there on Friday and afterwards I was more exhausted than after an entire Arisia. That's gotten a bit better with time and acclimation-- this was my third Mystery Hunt-- but Friday night still ended the same way it's ended the last two Mystery Hunts: Mathfriend gently suggesting that I'm not having fun anymore and would feel better after sleeping.
Mystery Hunt this year was really cool and had some incredibly high production values: they built us an entire MMO with a recreation of the MIT campus and had Hunt in that. According to wrap-up, they were planning that before the lockdowns started with the idea that they'd have a lot of "some team members need to be in the spot in the MMO and some need to be in the corresponding spot in physical reality," but once it became apparent that we couldn't have it in person, the virtual world took on more importance. They took the opportunity to do some neat things they'd never be able to do in physical reality, like designing a round around the Infinite Corridor being truly infinite and having some puzzle unlocks that were dependent on exploring the virtual world.
The story was also very cute and creative, centered on the experimental cosmology department at MIT opening a portal to a perpendicular universe and sending some stuff through, and then sending a professor through. Initially the problem is just "there are errors in the cross-universe communication device we need to fix," and then "we need to fix the portal so we can rescue Professor Yew," (with the MMO's conceit being that it's a projection device to let us safely project avatars of ourselves into the "Perpendicular Institute of the World") but eventually Professor Hemlock, one of the theoretical cosmologists from the other side, comes through into our universe to yell at everyone for scientific irresponsibility because if we don't get all matter back into its correct universe both universes will collapse; they're not meant to mix that way. And no one on our side even thought to ask whether dangerous side effects were possible.
(Professor Hemlock gets the best line in the whole thing: "I'm a theoretical cosmologist at the Perpendicular Institute of the World." "Oh! We're experimental cosmologists." "Yes, I noticed.")
Also cute: while the final runaround took place in game, there were also a couple of the organizers running masked around the deserted MIT campus streaming the equivalent runaround in the real world.
As usual my part in it was mostly the corraling of the non-puzzle puzzles-- there are always one or two that are like "Go make a thing." This year I baked sugar cookies in the shape of the team emoji and sent a picture in, and made sure the pictures of team members eating and drinking (as a subtle hint to not get so involved in puzzling you forget to eat) got sent in. Also one of the items on the obligatory scavenger hunt puzzle was "library stacks," which was right up my alley. (With a pun, not with going into a library.) But I also got to contribute somewhat to the *actual* puzzles this year. Not a huge amount, but I made real, measurable contributions to our progress. Which I think is a first. (I was also intensely delighted when the aftermath of baking the cookies was a Zoom call with HQ. I got my very own mini-interaction!)
We were able to order physical puzzles (as "conference swag", since we were all there for an experimental cosmology conference) ahead of time, although the one I ordered was sufficiently complex that we did not solve it and after solutions were posted I was staring at the solution and I *still* don't get it. I'm going to try again tomorrow with more brain. (I am getting the sense that my weekly call with Mathfriend is going to be *entirely* occupied by post-gaming Mystery Hunt this week.) I am regretful about not ordering the water bottle puzzle because then I would have a Mystery Hunt water bottle.
We were among only twelve teams to finish the entire hunt, but closer to the bottom than the top timewise-- which is *fine*, because the winner has to run next year's, and running Mystery Hunt is a huge undertaking. (As our team leader put it: "we finished comfortably out of contention.") Winner seems to move back and forth between the same few teams each year. We often finish, because we want to see the entire hunt. We are actually one of the larger teams-- certainly larger than some of the ones known for winning-- but we're very casual about it, and heavy attention to efficiency counts for a lot with winning.
(Dinner tonight was delivery food. I in no way have the spoons to think about cooking. Fortunately I was bright enough to take tomorrow off...)
Mystery Hunt this year was really cool and had some incredibly high production values: they built us an entire MMO with a recreation of the MIT campus and had Hunt in that. According to wrap-up, they were planning that before the lockdowns started with the idea that they'd have a lot of "some team members need to be in the spot in the MMO and some need to be in the corresponding spot in physical reality," but once it became apparent that we couldn't have it in person, the virtual world took on more importance. They took the opportunity to do some neat things they'd never be able to do in physical reality, like designing a round around the Infinite Corridor being truly infinite and having some puzzle unlocks that were dependent on exploring the virtual world.
The story was also very cute and creative, centered on the experimental cosmology department at MIT opening a portal to a perpendicular universe and sending some stuff through, and then sending a professor through. Initially the problem is just "there are errors in the cross-universe communication device we need to fix," and then "we need to fix the portal so we can rescue Professor Yew," (with the MMO's conceit being that it's a projection device to let us safely project avatars of ourselves into the "Perpendicular Institute of the World") but eventually Professor Hemlock, one of the theoretical cosmologists from the other side, comes through into our universe to yell at everyone for scientific irresponsibility because if we don't get all matter back into its correct universe both universes will collapse; they're not meant to mix that way. And no one on our side even thought to ask whether dangerous side effects were possible.
(Professor Hemlock gets the best line in the whole thing: "I'm a theoretical cosmologist at the Perpendicular Institute of the World." "Oh! We're experimental cosmologists." "Yes, I noticed.")
Also cute: while the final runaround took place in game, there were also a couple of the organizers running masked around the deserted MIT campus streaming the equivalent runaround in the real world.
As usual my part in it was mostly the corraling of the non-puzzle puzzles-- there are always one or two that are like "Go make a thing." This year I baked sugar cookies in the shape of the team emoji and sent a picture in, and made sure the pictures of team members eating and drinking (as a subtle hint to not get so involved in puzzling you forget to eat) got sent in. Also one of the items on the obligatory scavenger hunt puzzle was "library stacks," which was right up my alley. (With a pun, not with going into a library.) But I also got to contribute somewhat to the *actual* puzzles this year. Not a huge amount, but I made real, measurable contributions to our progress. Which I think is a first. (I was also intensely delighted when the aftermath of baking the cookies was a Zoom call with HQ. I got my very own mini-interaction!)
We were able to order physical puzzles (as "conference swag", since we were all there for an experimental cosmology conference) ahead of time, although the one I ordered was sufficiently complex that we did not solve it and after solutions were posted I was staring at the solution and I *still* don't get it. I'm going to try again tomorrow with more brain. (I am getting the sense that my weekly call with Mathfriend is going to be *entirely* occupied by post-gaming Mystery Hunt this week.) I am regretful about not ordering the water bottle puzzle because then I would have a Mystery Hunt water bottle.
We were among only twelve teams to finish the entire hunt, but closer to the bottom than the top timewise-- which is *fine*, because the winner has to run next year's, and running Mystery Hunt is a huge undertaking. (As our team leader put it: "we finished comfortably out of contention.") Winner seems to move back and forth between the same few teams each year. We often finish, because we want to see the entire hunt. We are actually one of the larger teams-- certainly larger than some of the ones known for winning-- but we're very casual about it, and heavy attention to efficiency counts for a lot with winning.
(Dinner tonight was delivery food. I in no way have the spoons to think about cooking. Fortunately I was bright enough to take tomorrow off...)
