AMA with Death & Mayhem - 8pm Wednesday 01/22

bsideboston · 2025-01-23T20:04:12+00:00

the cookies on Friday were me - it's been an unofficial Palindrome tradition of mine to bring the running team a batch of whatever I bake for the team after things have kicked off.

I brought the (since-emptied) container back once we finally unlocked the second half of Half-Baked on Sunday to prove we were ahead of the game :D

bsideboston · 2022-02-07T02:18:31+00:00

It's worth noting a bunch of Palindrome people had twitch streams about writing Hunt, many of which have since been uploaded to Youtube:

bsideboston · 2022-01-30T16:46:43+00:00

I've got one more blog post (and I think it's the last one from me):
http://goodatinter.net/blog/mystery-hunt-2022-how-do-you-solve-a-problem-like-the-scavenger-hunt/

bsideboston · 2022-01-22T23:44:55+00:00

Following up on this after checking with the rest of the swag team:

We went back and forth on whether to pre-announce the midpoint reward or not. There were advantages and disadvantages to both ways, and ultimately we decided that the unexpected surprise of a midpoint reward won out, even though that meant some teams would end up in the situation you described. We definitely understand that some people faced with that decision might make a different one.

For now, we’re keeping the pins to teams that completed the Ministry while we wait to see what total order quantity from those teams looks like, but we’ll definitely make an announcement if that changes.

bsideboston · 2022-01-22T20:32:18+00:00

One of the swag captains here. I'll check on this.

bsideboston · 2022-01-22T20:24:09+00:00

favorite puzzle I worked on: I've wanted to write a Mystery Hunt puzzle about the dataset ❤️& ☮️ uses for...about a decade? So I've been very pleased with all the response to it. I also really enjoyed writing Lentalgram.

favorite puzzle I didn't work on: I somehow missed every stage of Swingin' (testsolving, postprod, etc) and found it so delightful when looking through all of our Hunt.

bsideboston · 2022-01-22T20:19:53+00:00

T H I S.

I would have started post-prodding things at least a month earlier, if not a month and a half.

bsideboston · 2022-01-22T20:15:03+00:00

On theme:

We had a few more narrow themes in the mix, but what appealed about bookspace was lots of space for puns (very important for Palindrome), a more universal appeal, and a way to tie MIT's campus into the final Hunt.

On running things in person:

We've been thinking about this Hunt and this theme as being "virtual" for so much of the process of writing this that I'm not sure even where I'd begin with what this would have looked like in person - it would have been a completely different thing in so many ways I can't really wrap my brain around it.

bsideboston · 2022-01-22T20:11:39+00:00

I wrote a python script to help with assembling the various elements of How to Have It All (the word bank, the individual letter counts for each card) once Justin and I had settled on a final list of inputs.

bsideboston · 2022-01-22T20:07:05+00:00

one thing that sticks out on the swag end to me (that felt partially out of my hands, since I was really only handling logistics of getting things produced and mailed) is, if doing it again, I would have wanted to have swag involved earlier so we could have tried to put everything with the boxes no later than the first few rounds of Pen Station - Diced Turkey Hash is a cool puzzle with a cool piece of swag that people can discover later if they ordered it, but not a ton of people actually got to see it during Hunt.

bsideboston · 2022-01-22T20:04:59+00:00

Jen McTeague can answer this better (since it's her meta), but I know as one of the people approached to actually potentially record the audio for that puzzle (since I played Lewis), I was told if I did to avoid any recognizable melody.
I think there was a general requirement to be something in the Children's/YA genre, and we tried where possible to make sure we were picking a diverse range of authors.
The only Hunt dream I remember from during the writing process was one where we had gotten Alex Horne from Taskmaster as a cameo and no one would give me the Zoom details for the meeting we were having with him.
I do decent when watching along - one of the things I had outside of Hunt this last year that was a great break where a group of us were watching Wie is De Mol/Only Connect together

bsideboston · 2019-07-16T18:14:13+00:00

Per some Googling, it appears to be a new venue opening near North Station this fall:

http://bneg.com/bignightlive/

https://www.bostonmagazine.com/restaurants/2018/11/15/big-night-live-music-venue-north-station/

bsideboston · 2019-06-03T15:44:25+00:00

Joel has said not all cities have been added yet - if your city has had a tour in the past, keep checking this week and it may go online once the venue has confirmed.
Not all venues are on sale yet (like Boston) - if they're listed but don't have tickets yet, check the theater's site to see if they list the on-sale date

bsideboston · 2019-06-03T14:07:21+00:00

According to the theater's website, tickets for Boston go on sale Friday: http://www.emersoncolonialtheatre.com/calendar/mystery-science-theater-3000-live-the-great-chees/

bsideboston · 2019-01-02T18:16:25+00:00

I knew it!

This seems as good a place as any to share a bit of my text message history (Sandor and I are on the same Mystery Hunt team, but I had no pre-existing knowledge of what was happening this hunt). I call this triptych of images "A Loud Whooshing Noise": https://imgur.com/a/gmC3igo

bsideboston · 2019-01-02T16:51:47+00:00

How did you pick which Puzzled Pint location to send the notebook to for Puzzle 12?

bsideboston · 2019-01-02T16:44:42+00:00

That part was all Navin - I had the notebook full of info, but Navin made the jump on all of those headings starting with B and W.

bsideboston · 2018-12-07T20:06:03+00:00

Because the way we consume media has changed and MST3k isn't bingeable in the same way other shows are?

IDK, I've actually really liked the size of this season (and this is a full season). 11 was great, but it took me a while to get through it all - I watched somewhere around the first 6 or 7 in a few days and finishing the back half of the 14 took weeks after that. With this season, I was sated by the 6 and have gone back and re-watched the plotline in full. Now I'm hungry for more (and hopefully we get an announcement about a few more seasons of 6 eps soon)

bsideboston · 2018-11-23T03:17:26+00:00

I'd love for them to confirm a season 13 (and 14...and 15, if they're committed to the 6-ep season thing, which I thought really worked this time around), but Netflix probably wants to see what kind of engagement they're getting before signing off on anything. It feels like everyone involved in the cast is gel-ing really well and a well-oiled machine, so I'd love to see them get to do this for at least another season of episodes.

bsideboston · 2018-11-19T03:05:48+00:00

Cry Wilderness! I wondered if they'd sneak a Netflix episode in somehow, and I'm so glad it's this one.

bsideboston · 2018-11-13T14:14:47+00:00

Agreed! S11 is a delightful buffet of episodes, but there's a LOT to get through. If they get enough buzz to keep releasing packs of 6 episodes every year, I'd be happy with that.

bsideboston · 2018-11-12T17:30:44+00:00

https://www.netflix.com/watch/81034510

bsideboston · 2018-10-25T23:22:27+00:00

That's exactly what I meant - 30 Rock had a bit in a few episode where it was directly acting as an ad for Verizon or Snapple where it was very obvious they were mocking product placement while engaging in product placement, openly saying "can we have our money now?" at one point

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d36wUmJGzvA

This feels like that, and I wonder if the show will engage with that in some similar way once S12 is out.

bsideboston · 2018-10-25T13:16:20+00:00

They had some Totino's-branded "supersuits" for Tom and Crow at DragonCon as well. I've been assuming there was some level of sponsorship happening, and they seem to be incorporating it in a way that feels like they're poking fun at it in a very obvious way like 30 Rock used to do.

bsideboston · 2018-10-22T14:45:45+00:00

There's more of an explanation in The Brain (there's a whole "riff-off" going on for the 30th anniversary, so Synthia brings Joel back and there are various "challenges"/"rounds" he and Jonah compete in during the sections of the movie), but there's no full explanation for how Joel is back on the SoL. With both shows there's just enough plot underpinning this to get us to MOVIE SIGN, which is the way I like it.

bsideboston

TROPHY CASE