MIT Mystery Hunt

20,000 Puzzles Under the Sea

Jan. 2014 - Jan. 2015

[ Unavailable ]

Description

Trailer

Gameplay

Dr. N. invited intrepid steampunk explorers to join an expedition. At kickoff, Dr. Nautilus revealed that she and her assistant Julie Verne were sending teams to search for magnetic "nautilodestones" to power their amazing inventions. The hunt consisted of three main phases - the Workshop, the Dive, and Atlantis. Each phase had several groups of puzzles in a sort of tiered heirarchy. The answers in each puzzle were used to solve a meta-puzzle for that group, and the answers for each group’s meta-puzzle would in turn be used to solve a capstone puzzle for that phase. As you solved more puzzles, your team was able to scroll further down on the Hunt website, portraying how deep into the ocean you could currently traverse.

Credits

Postmortem

One Fish Two Fish Random Fish Blue Fish (MiT Random Hall Puzzle Team)

So funny story. The year before, my sister asked if I wanted to help her Mystery Hunt team. That was my first year participating, and we won. As is tradition, we had the honor of writing the hunt for the next year: 2015. This was a year-long endeavor of puzzle creation, testsolving, event logistics, and staffing. I had a blast. In the end, I only designed one puzzle for the hunt (Steve's Parable, far down in Atlantis). However, I also test-solved a number of other puzzles that were included in the Hunt, to make sure that they were in fact solvable within a reasonable amount of time.

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