Puzzles from Down Under
Los Jefes did the online Melbourne University Puzzle Hunt again this year. I find this an interesting event in a few ways, the first of which is the timing. The puzzles are released every day over the course of a week at noon Melbourne time, which is 7:00pm PST, so every evening we get a fresh wave of five puzzles that take over our evening and various other bits of non-work time the next day.
Another interesting aspect of the event is the nature of the puzzles, which tend to be somewhat oblique. These puzzles would annoy me if they appeared in the events we do regularly, but in an event that happens over a longer time span and where we take a more recreational approach, I find them entertaining. They tend to stick with me through the day and often provoke interesting, though totally unintended, trains of thought. For example, Steve Googled the text from the first panel of Barn Dance and found a totally unrelated, but very distracting video. Similarly, when we (and nearly all other teams, based on the standings) were blocked on Pocket Monkeys, Nikhil started wondering if it was based on the QBasic Gorillas video game, which led to a few of us playing around with that for a while. Jeff and I found that Offhand's message could be interpreted to include the phrase, "Russian space potato", which first sounded improbable, but then became intriguing when we discovered there is in fact a Chinese space potato. Alas, it turned out the puzzle was merely intended as reference to Sputnik, which was much less interesting.
Jeff's favorite unintended result from this Puzzlehunt was the audio file which he created while trying to solve Tracks after Jay and Michelle had solved the first half of the puzzle. He knew he needed to interpret the numbers from the first half of the puzzle as music and this is what he wound up with by interpreting the numbers as positions on a music scale. According to the answer page, the numbers were supposed to be guitar tablature for the opening to Stairway to Heaven, so it sounds like we were a bit off...
Some puzzles also cause you to learn quite a bit more about Melbourne that you otherwise would. As a result of Orientation, I can now tell you the exact location of all the ATM's at the University of Melbourne. I even checked out parts of their campus on their 3D campus tour. It looks nice. And, as a result of International Relations, I can tell you each of the sister cities of Melbourne, as well as that Osaka is home to the regional snack takoyaki. Take a close look at the second image in the left column of that puzzle and perhaps you will notice the subtle shading of octopus meatballs. Those are no mere meatballs, as our team had thought throughout the event.
Overall, it was a fun distraction for most of my non-work waking time during the week, but by the end I was happy to have some spare time again to catch up on all the things I should have been doing that week instead!
Another interesting aspect of the event is the nature of the puzzles, which tend to be somewhat oblique. These puzzles would annoy me if they appeared in the events we do regularly, but in an event that happens over a longer time span and where we take a more recreational approach, I find them entertaining. They tend to stick with me through the day and often provoke interesting, though totally unintended, trains of thought. For example, Steve Googled the text from the first panel of Barn Dance and found a totally unrelated, but very distracting video. Similarly, when we (and nearly all other teams, based on the standings) were blocked on Pocket Monkeys, Nikhil started wondering if it was based on the QBasic Gorillas video game, which led to a few of us playing around with that for a while. Jeff and I found that Offhand's message could be interpreted to include the phrase, "Russian space potato", which first sounded improbable, but then became intriguing when we discovered there is in fact a Chinese space potato. Alas, it turned out the puzzle was merely intended as reference to Sputnik, which was much less interesting.
Jeff's favorite unintended result from this Puzzlehunt was the audio file which he created while trying to solve Tracks after Jay and Michelle had solved the first half of the puzzle. He knew he needed to interpret the numbers from the first half of the puzzle as music and this is what he wound up with by interpreting the numbers as positions on a music scale. According to the answer page, the numbers were supposed to be guitar tablature for the opening to Stairway to Heaven, so it sounds like we were a bit off...
Some puzzles also cause you to learn quite a bit more about Melbourne that you otherwise would. As a result of Orientation, I can now tell you the exact location of all the ATM's at the University of Melbourne. I even checked out parts of their campus on their 3D campus tour. It looks nice. And, as a result of International Relations, I can tell you each of the sister cities of Melbourne, as well as that Osaka is home to the regional snack takoyaki. Take a close look at the second image in the left column of that puzzle and perhaps you will notice the subtle shading of octopus meatballs. Those are no mere meatballs, as our team had thought throughout the event.
Overall, it was a fun distraction for most of my non-work waking time during the week, but by the end I was happy to have some spare time again to catch up on all the things I should have been doing that week instead!
posted by La Roja at
1:47 PM
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