New and Improved

[tahnan]

I had heard good things about New and Improved, a puzzle in this year's Mystery Hunt, so I figured I might as well go solve it. I've had it open in a tab for something like three weeks now, after all.

I started listening, started taking notes, got to the end, and thought, "You know how this puzzle should work?" It turned out that that's exactly how the puzzle did work. It's a great puzzle with a terrific concept (and I say that not having actually thought of it, because I only had the "it should work this way" thought after getting enough evidence that it even could work that way). Well done, person who I can't identify by name because they still haven't posted answers, but who I think I recall being Jangler!

(But seriously, it's been a month. How about answers?)

Comments

[jedusor.livejournal.com]

We're almost there! I really shouldn't have said at the wrapup that we would start posting answers soon without checking that we were actually planning to post solutions as they were written. Turns out the plan was to wait until they were all in and post them all at once, which means moving at the pace of the slowest traveler. Sigh.

[tahnan.livejournal.com]

Well, it wasn't just your promise; /dev/joe posted to the Mystery Hunt community on the 6th that "most of [the solutions] have been prepared". And perhaps a general expectation...maybe y'all should start publicly shaming anyone who doesn't have their answers in? ;-)

[davidglasser.livejournal.com]

I suspect that's a better way to ensure that eventually 100% will be posted, though.

Yeah, this was a super fun puzzle to solve.

[cnoocy]

Were you in the room when rikchik and I were solving that? We were probably a bit obnoxious with all the fun we were having.

[tahnan.livejournal.com]

No, I think I slept through that round. I woke up to find us calling in variants of "OTIS MADE A ROBOT".

[tinhorn2.livejournal.com]

Yup, was Jangler. And I'm going to go out on a limb and suggest that answers will be posted today or tomorrow. (I hope I'm not proven wrong.)

[jangler-npl.livejournal.com]

Aww thanks! :) I think answers will be posted sooner rather than later.

[42itous.livejournal.com]

Yeah! I loved solving that one.

[(Anonymous)]

I thought Ebony and Ivory (http://www.mit.edu/~puzzle/10/puzzles/1983/ebony_and_ivory/) was really elegant. It had a theme, and, goddamn it, it was sticking to that theme come hell or high water.

I woke up to a table full of bits of paper, and thoroughly beating my head against them for a good while. :)

[jtoomey.livejournal.com]

Sorry, that was me. :)

[tahnan.livejournal.com]

Oh, that puzzle was indeed beautiful. Mind you, we said "the hell with the spirit of 1983" and typed in all the words rather than cutting out and shuffling little pieces of paper. But there was still a lot of head-beating, and some really nice epiphanies.