You’ve been following along with all of the puzzles this week, now it’s time to find out how everyone did. First off, let’s talk about the puzzles themselves. You may recall that we offered teams the ability to take two hints, then get the answers to the checkpoint, all at a cost of 5 minutes per hint/answer. The number of hints and answers given for each checkpoint tells us the difficulty each checkpoint:
| Puzzle | Hint 1 | Hint 2 | Answer | Total | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Grayling | Find the picture | 1 | 0 | 0 | 1 |
| Rohn | X Marks the Spot | 2 | 0 | 0 | 2 |
| Takotna | Braille puzzle | 3 | 1 | 0 | 4 |
| Skwentna | Cipher | 3 | 3 | 0 | 6 |
| McGrath | Word Search | 3 | 3 | 0 | 6 |
| Nikolai | Jellybeans puzzle | 6 | 3 | 0 | 9 |
| Ophir | Word Scramble | 4 | 3 | 2 | 9 |
| Kaltag | That’s Just Dandy | 6 | 3 | 0 | 9 |
| Shageluk | Dartboard | 6 | 5 | 2 | 13 |
| Anvik | Double letters/Laundry | 10 | 6 | 4 | 20 |
Using this table to analyze the overall puzzles, I’d say that Grayling though McGrath were about the difficulty I was going for for most puzzles. After all, this is supposed to be an afternoon’s fun, not a mind-bender! One or two puzzles like Nikolai, Ophir, or McGrath is OK – you want to throw the teams a bit of a curveball, after all. Three is a bit much, though. And Shageluk and Anvik were rather beyond the pale – it wasn’t my intention to make these as difficult as they turned out, and it was a learning experience that will be used to improve future puzzle hunts.
So, how did everyone do? Unfortunately, Team Slobber and Team Rawr did not finish – we called things at a little after three hours in, since it was getting on to be time to start dinner preparations. They seemed to have fun all the same, and that was what mattered. As for the other teams:
| Raw Time | Hints/Answers | Penalties | Subtotal | Trivia Answers Correct |
Trivia Bonus | Total | Place | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Minot (Artemis & Dbruin) | 2:19:00 | 5 | 0:25:00 | 2:44:00 | 19 | 0:01:54 | 2:42:06 | 3 |
| Team Awesome (Woody & AidenDingo) | 2:13:00 | 13 | 1:05:00 | 3:18:00 | 15 | 0:01:30 | 3:16:30 | 7 |
| Team Hot Tub (Madius & Spork) | 2:38:00 | 6 | 0:30:00 | 3:08:00 | 22 | 0:02:12 | 3:05:48 | 4 |
| Isentropic/Failing Illini (Hartree & Roho) | 2:35:00 | 1 | 0:05:00 | 2:40:00 | 27 | 0:02:42 | 2:37:18 | 2 |
| Easy As Jam (Aureth & Jenne) | 2:36:00 | 9 | 0:45:00 | 3:21:00 | 23 | 0:02:18 | 3:18:42 | 8 |
| Die Piggies! (Rama & RB) | 1:57:00 | 8 | 0:40:00 | 2:37:00 | 20 | 0:02:00 | 2:35:00 | 1 |
| Team Burnout (Stevie & Zexyz) | 2:31:00 | 9 | 0:45:00 | 3:16:00 | 19 | 0:01:54 | 3:14:06 | 5 |
| Coondog (DataHawk & Linnaeus) | 2:45:00 | 13 | 1:05:00 | 3:50:00 | 36 | 0:03:36 | 3:46:24 | 9 |
| Ginger Squee (Jen & Quasi) | 3:08:00 | 2 | 0:10:00 | 3:18:00 | 25 | 0:02:30 | 3:15:30 | 6 |
Some notable teams here:
Isentropic/Failing Illini and Team GingerSquee tried to tough it out by taking as few hints as possible, which was very impressive, but unfortunately hurt their overall times.
Coondog smoked the field with their fantastic score on the trivia quiz, but were done in by their hints.
Artemis and DBruin powered through the puzzles and came in third place, each winning a $10 iTunes gift card.
Hartree and Roho skipped almost all the hints and used their 2nd-place trivia quiz finish to come in second, each winning a $15 Starbucks gift card.
But it was Rama and RB who blew through the puzzles more quickly than any other team, enough to make up for their hints, to become the first champions of the New Year’s Puzzle Hunt! For their efforts, they each received a $25 Visa gift card.
I hope that everyone who participated enjoyed themselves. Takaza and I had a blast putting together and running the puzzle hunt. Will there be one next year? Perhaps 🙂 Then again, you may see a puzzle hunt at an event near you, sooner than you expected!
What more than a better way to have New Years at Wuffmeet! Thanks again for the good time with great people. 🙂