Unfortunately, I did not get this successfully testsolved, although,
for whatever comfort it may provide, I did engage in several interactive
rounds of nerfing it.
As usual, there had to be something here. In fact, this year, there
are several somethings. Hype!
This is based on an idea by chaotic_iak.
You can check your answers
here. Text above this horizontal rule is not part of the puzzle.
ETA 11/17 16:15 UTC−5: Adjusted spacing between the bottom numbers after
feedback. The puzzle is otherwise the same, and solving should not be
significantly impacted.
Well, it’s been over a week, which is a long time for blog posts to
be delayed after the event they’re documenting in probably all of the
world except my blog. So.
I guess this post should start with a bit of background. I’ve been
puzzlehunting for… wow, three and a half years now. I was introduced to
puzzlehunts from AoPS, when some fellow members got together a team for
CiSRA
2011, and I think I’ve participated to some degree in every known
internet Australian puzzlehunt since.
But as for my experience with the MIT Mystery Hunt in particular, I
sort of hunted with a decidedly uncompetitive AoPS team in 2012 (I think
we solved one puzzle exactly), but my serious hunting career began when
dzaefn recruited me into the Random team (then Random Thymes)
for the 2013 hunt (and I did
blog obliquely about it). We didn’t win (and I actually didn’t
participate that much because I was traveling with family) but the next
year (as One Fish Two Fish Random Fish Blue Fish (1f-2f-17f-255f (I am
evidently in a parentheses mood today because as you’ve probably
noticed, the amount and depth of parentheses in this sentence are
positively alarming (lol)))) we won.
And I do have a half-written post about that which will never get
posted (and I also didn’t participate that much, because my
family was moving that weekend) but okay, let’s just drop any semblance
of chronological coherence on this blog and dump a short version of the
list of puzzles and parts towards which I contributed solving, as I
wrote them down one year ago:
Unfortunately I don’t have time for anything more complex, so here’s
a low-effort illogical puzzle for the occasion. (It has been
testsolved, at least. Thanks, Yoshiap.) It also features a brand new
category, so as not to distract the people on LMI.
If you don’t already know what occasion it is, it’s easy to find out
by looking through my archives or possibly anywhere else I’ve left a
trail online. Or you could solve the puzzle! (Or you could
scroll down to read the
solution!) If this puzzle had an answer, it would be a nine-letter
word, although like most of mathematics, it’s less about the answer than
about the path you take to get there…
2017 edit: A warning that this has somewhat linkrotted and is harder to
solve, but theoretically still possible.
Edit 11/19 7:23 AM UTC+8: Fixed some transcription errors on right:
R4C17 is D instead of N, and R15C17 is G instead of E.
Neither change should greatly impact solvability. Thanks to ksun for
pointing out an error.
Logic puzzles are easy to construct if one doesn’t have some specific
pattern or theme in mind. It’s just that, given the increasing number of
constructors and puzzles with amazing themes, I don’t think it’s very
meaningful for me to just construct more puzzles of the same genres by
putting down clues randomly. That’s why, for my seventeenth birthday, I
took the puzzlehunt route and made something without instructions that
is not completely solved by logical deduction. Still, I’ve provided all
the information needed to do this puzzle initially, so I hope my not
getting the inductive bits test-solved can be excused.
This is nowhere near the top, but compared to the usual results of
whatever AoPS team I form, it’s amazing. By far the best result of AoPS
was on CiSRA in 2010 (46th with 58 points), before I discovered puzzle
hunts in AoPS; unfortunately due to people getting older and the influx
of younger and younger people to the fora, there are less possible
teammates each year and they have less time, so here I am by myself.
(Also I could have accepted an invitation from a guy in the
some-form-of-Elephant team, but I figure if you can win two MUMS hunts
in a row you don’t need any more people.)
So winter vacation started and parents had planned a trip to southern
Taiwan, to get closer to nature and walk around and stuff.
Also, the MIT Mystery Hunt, the absolute granddaddy of all the other
puzzlehunts in terms of age, structure, and size, happened this weekend.
Originally, I didn’t have a team and just planned to look at the puzzles
after they got archived and try solving some puzzles read the
solutions while constantly thinking, “How could anybody ever solve
that?” Because of that, I wasn’t planning to even bring my laptop at
first; then I could force myself to study some long-overdue ring theory
during the nights. I was taken aback by a private message on Saturday
morning from somebody with many different names inviting me to
remote-solve for Random Thymes.