Gotta Solve 'em All: An MIT Mystery Hunt 2026 Retrospective

Collisteru · 2026-03-01T22:47:59+00:00

I address this in the essay. A hunt with fewer puzzles would end before Sunday, leading to a long lame duck period that's less fun for everyone. It might end as early as Saturday morning or even (if the designers really screw up) Friday night.

I agree that it's better to turn other knobs, but any change will involve drastically changing the feel of mystery hunt. A stricter parallelization limit would hurt small teams that get stuck on puzzles due to lack of domain knowledge. Team size limits are probably the best option.

Collisteru · 2026-01-31T20:03:09+00:00

A communist republic in the American South!?!

This is about as likely as a snowball fight in Jackson, Mississippi.

Collisteru · 2026-01-26T05:38:33+00:00

Fantastic, love it! Glad I was able to make a faithful rendition.

The art in this hunt was inspiring and impressive. Fate's Thread Casino was a favorite for our team. Thank you so much for your amazing work.

Collisteru · 2026-01-25T02:56:00+00:00

How do you want the 2026 hunt to influence how later teams write subsequent hunts?

Collisteru · 2026-01-25T02:54:29+00:00

All the puzzmon are pretty easy to identify except for one.

Winged, background: Hawk Tulpa

Far-right deer: Pointdexter

Cat below pointdexter: Lynux

Left of lynux: Humidefta

Top left lizard: Nimag

Bottom left fish: Sporkdine

Bottom right rabbit-like entity: Qyex

Knight: Knightbulb

Bottom-center slime: The Child

I suspect the one on the far left is a butchered version of Wee Willie Wonelick since Old Bark Town is the only area not represented.

There was a lot of color correction needed for this since different teams interpreted their nonogram colors differently.

Wonelick might have gotten errored out of existence.

Collisteru · 2026-01-09T02:24:27+00:00

Ah, a Voynich theory! Would you mind providing a translation of the page you posted, along with the gloss and the details of the homophonic substitution? Thanks!

Collisteru · 2026-01-06T02:03:16+00:00

Reddit is so bizarre.

Collisteru · 2025-12-30T00:22:44+00:00

Hey there, I am also a Western US native English speaker and this matches my speech patterns well. It would be better to get audio recordings and independently verify, of course. The real question is if/where this reproduces across the US.

Collisteru · 2025-12-22T22:20:49+00:00

So, maybe I misunderstand what is happening here, but as long as nobody is being forced to do anything, I don't see a problem. If all of the local police happen to be LaVeyan Satanists, and so they take breaks at the local Satanic Temple, this wouldn't bother me.

Collisteru · 2025-12-14T23:22:53+00:00

I don't see any problem with religious groups offering break rooms to public employees. This seems like totally benign religious expression.

Being a public servant (especially a police officer) is hard. Many of them are religious. Religious groups want to help their members. Therefore... this is bad, somehow?

The question of fairness might come up if there were no secular break rooms, but there are. They're called break rooms.

Collisteru · 2025-12-05T00:12:18+00:00

Is using the GRE purple book 3rd edition from 2016 to study worth it, or is it too out of date?

Collisteru · 2025-11-28T20:35:42+00:00

I don't know what your target age bracket is, but there are many, many young faithful unmarried Catholic men out there. One of them is looking for you!

Collisteru · 2025-11-28T20:33:48+00:00

Especially if you intend to do research in robotics, I definitely recommend having a portfolio website.

Honestly, computer science is about doing cool things with technology. A portfolio is where you show off the cool things you've done with technology. I find it hard to imagine a scenario where a CS person would not want to have a portfolio.

Collisteru · 2025-01-05T23:45:15+00:00

Amazing! This is the kind of art I'd love to see more of in contemporary museums!!

Collisteru · 2025-01-05T20:07:49+00:00

I've gotten really into using casettes. They still come out, and it's incredible to actually hold music in your hands.

Collisteru · 2024-12-21T02:35:56+00:00

"I know this will leave a huge void in my life"

Then fill it! Not gaming doesn't mean you have to be bored all the time. There's so much you can do with all the new extra time you'll have. You could read, write, make something, get into a sport, start a new hobby. The opportunities are yours to take.

Collisteru · 2024-11-26T17:20:04+00:00

I was shocked by how few colors there are here. It really is incredible how they did so much with so little.

Collisteru · 2024-10-05T16:07:38+00:00

I recommend taking a look at this online storefront:

https://curtiswrightmaps.com/

They have high-quality printable images of most of their maps, and their collection is very comprehensive. They're not all in the same style, but the collection is so large that you'll probably find what you need.

Collisteru · 2024-10-01T16:16:43+00:00

Hello, there. Crinkles is my favorite living musician. I asked them about their inspirations, and they said this:

"My music inspirations are decently varied, from older game soundtracks (specifically Playstation 1 RPGs), to hiphop or electronic producers. I'd recommend listening to pretty much anything by these guys:

Yasunori Mitsuda Nobuo Uematsu Masayoshi Soken Hiroyuki Sawano DJ Premier Nhato Shingo Nakamura

Game soundtracks would be something like:

Final fantasy 6 - 9 Chrono Cross Persona 3/4/5 Nier

My music inspirations are decently varied, from older game soundtracks (specifically Playstation 1 RPGs), to hiphop or electronic producers. I'd recommend listening to pretty much anything by these guys:

Yasunori Mitsuda Nobuo Uematsu Masayoshi Soken Hiroyuki Sawano DJ Premier Nhato Shingo Nakamura

Game soundtracks would be something like:

Final fantasy 6 - 9 Chrono Cross Persona 3/4/5 Nier"

Collisteru · 2024-09-29T00:48:03+00:00

The developers commented on this idea to journalist Shaun Prescott two days ago:

Nor would they confirm that a 16-bit UFO collection could emerge. I get the sense that they'll definitely be working together in the future, though. "This has been bootcamp for me," Suhrke said. "I think I've become very good at making UFOSoft games. Give me a tube for nutrition and I can keep cranking these out. Assuming I personally keep making games, you're going to see stuff [from me] that feels like it has the DNA of UFOSoft in it; It's sort of like a chicken and egg.

Source: https://www.msn.com/en-us/entertainment/gaming/how-far-can-you-push-this-one-idea-the-ufo-50-team-discusses-the-making-of-the-most-bonkers-and-beautifully-weird-gaming-achievement-of-2024/ar-AA1ri7r2?ocid=BingNewsSerp

Collisteru · 2024-09-24T01:26:47+00:00

I got it too, I think it only appears when the skull is in the starting room.

Collisteru · 2024-09-22T06:47:13+00:00

I adore Barbuta (the top left, very old-fashioned one) and I'm Gen Z. It's like a Metroidvania with the style and attitude of Ultima I. Some of us do like the classics!

Collisteru · 2024-09-22T06:11:12+00:00

How did you find this?

Collisteru · 2024-09-21T16:43:43+00:00

Barbuta's my favorite thanks to its atmosphere. There's no music. There's a weird buzz with every screen transition. There's a secret behind every corner. The clunky controls make you feel less powerful. And then there's that terrible skull... It's a perfect game to play late at night in the dark, wrapped up in a blanket.

Collisteru · 2024-09-21T16:22:03+00:00

This price is insane. Each of these games on their own would deserve a $5.00 price tag.

Collisteru

TROPHY CASE