Hunt To Solve Puzzles Scheduled For Break

by Heidi Huettner

The famous/infamous Hunt, the interactive treasure hunt-style day of puzzle-solving, will mystify Rice students at large this Easter weekend, instead of frustrating only Brown students, as it did last year. No, that's not giving the Hunt its due [although I didn't actually see the first one].

The Hunt made its debut last year, a product of the imaginations and work of Brown students Brian O'Neil, Bowie Hinger, Harlan Howe, and Mark Engelberg. Engelberg said that last year, a group of Brown students decided, "There's no event that really gives students a chance to challenge themselves and think creatively in a fun way."

They based the Hunt in part on experiences some of them had at the "Tropic Hunt" in Miami and Caltech's "Ditch Day."

Last year, participants spent the day going from place to place throughout Houston, looking for clues that would lead them to four two-digit solutions. These four pairs of numbers were then to be used to access clues to the fifth and final puzzle, and the first team to get the final solution was to be awarded a $200 first place prize.

Unfortunately, things did not turn out quite as planned. Engelberg said, "There were too many large intuitive leaps… The [puzzle booklet] was extremely confusing-there weren't clear starting points. People couldn't even find some of the puzzles, let alone solve them. There wasn't enough feedback along the way."

Groups were supposed to pick up a Macintosh disc at the Galleria as part of one of the first four puzzles. The disc contained clues to the final puzzle, which could be accessed with the four two-digit answers. Engelberg noted, "Unfortunately, due to the difficulty, a substantial number of teams didn't even get the computer disc." He said that KTRU, which was originally going to broadcast just one clue to start the final puzzle, ended up broadcasting others, until some groups were finally able to solve the puzzle.

Engelberg also thought that this year's Hunt should be more manageable. "The puzzles are being tested to make sure they're solvable, and the puzzle book will offer more clarity. Also, this year there will be a theme linking the puzzles in some way, although Engelberg said it would not play a part in every puzzle. Last year, he said, many people were confused by a long story about Alice in Wonderland that was included as a clue to one of the puzzles. Some thought the entire Hunt was based on the story.

Brett Nelsen, a participant last year, said, "We had to figure out what happened to Tweedledee and who was his best friend."

"[The puzzle book] mentioned that there were so many days until Christmas but it was off by like 50 days. I ran back to the car to get my calendar. I wouldn't answer [my teammates, who were mystified by my behavior] - I was just running back and forth. I took my group over to the sundial by the museum of Natural Science. I got up and stood on Christmas [or where the sun would pass at Christmas] and said, 'This is it. This spot is important.'

"On the sundial you were supposed to stand on Christmas day and then look into the face of the obelisk and on that you were supposed to see the reflection of Miller Outdoor Theater. And you go over to Miller Outdoor Theater and you're supposed to walk to some row and find a seat that's out of order." For the curious, the seat number was 14.

Nelsen said he never figured out why Christmas was so important, but said, "We were one of the groups who just kind of had a lot of fun and did out best to solve the puzzles….Our group never made it to Miller Outdoor Theater because they were so amazed at watching me run around Hermann Park."

Danil suits, a junior at Brown, tried an unusual approach to the Hunt. Suits entered the event solo. He had no team, no car, and a pair of rollerblades. "I had a fabulous time," Suits said. "Eventually I finally got so tired of my inability to solve anything that I decided to try and guess the solution of the final puzzle….I looked on the map and t-shirt and noticed that Marble Slab hadn't made an appearance in any of the puzzles [while several other sponsors had]."

Suits, convinced the entire Hunt would converge on Marble Slab, waited. When it became obvious he was mistake, he "munched on ice cream." It was a perfect way to end a day rollerblading around, not doing anything productive.

Suits, a math major, became convinced during the afternoon that 1+33 was anything but 34. He went to a nearby 33 story hotel to find another clue, where the staff was displeased by his presence. They had evidently fended off 20 or 30 Huntsters who had the same idea.

Suits plans to compete on a team this year: "I would not recommend that anybody try to do a solo flight of the Hunt." He said bouncing ideas off of teammates would have been helpful.

David Broman, a Brown sophomore, said he "read a lot into the clues" and one teammate thought "we needed to find statues without breasts." The teammate led his group to the Fairy fountain, because he thought the statues there were breastless.

Broman also got his group to the Harvey Suites Hotel where he told an Arab-looking gentleman, "Ya Khachoo vam dat moy zhizn," which means "I want to give you my life" in Russian. "I confused one person, let me put it that way," said Broman.

Broman wasn't bitter about these results. "I had a blast…There are many ways to view the Hunt. All I wanted to do was to see a bunch of the neat things they had….It confused the heck out of me but it was a lot of fun."

The Hunt Solution Set was compiled after the event and included the original puzzles, as well as explanations for the solutions. It also recounts the 10 best "solutions" people accidentally believed. Two Brown sophomores who terrorized an IHOP, frantically rooting through newspapers and other trash. The man at the counter read one of their shirts and said, "Oh, are you on a hunt?"

"YES! YES!" they screamed back, hoping the uninformed man knew a clue to the puzzle.

Another person, at the radio's suggestion, started dialing random phone numbers and got a mental institution. He started screaming into the receiver, "THE ANSWER IS 22!! WHAT IS THE MASTER CLUE?!?!?!? I NEED THE MASTER CLUE!!!"

One puzzle required that the participants cut out three ads from different parts of the puzzle book and superimpos them to get a phone number.

Another required that participants go to the Harvey Suites to a tea party room set up there, where the coordinators were dressed as Alice in Wonderland characters. The Solution Set explains that to solve "Part C" of one of the puzzles, you need to ask who Tweedle Dum's best friend was. You are then led to ask the Cheshire Cat, or rather, his smile, on a mirror.

If you line up the smile in the mirror with the cat on page 24 of the puzzle booklet, the letter B falls on the Mad Hatter's name, which is unreversed in the mirror. The solution? The Mad Hatter is Tweedle Dum's best friend.

Whew! Did I mention that there was a "Part D?"

Funny, Engelberg told me, "When we put up the booklets we feared it might be too easy." Last year's Hunt gave new meaning to the problem of "Too close to see." Engelberg said, "The Hunt, in its barest form, would be a crossword puzzle, but what we've tried to do is add actors, interesting locations and well-constructed presentations just to make it an interesting puzzle."