MIT Mystery Hunt 2022

MIT Mystery Hunt 2022 was the 42nd iteration of the MIT Mystery Hunt, with kickoff occurring on January 14th, 2022. Run by Palindrome, the hunt technically began prior to kickoff, with a series of optional Prologue puzzles released on December 13, 2021, and carrying an "intelligent/superpowered animals" theme known as Star Rats. This is the first recorded instance of a hunt releasing a round's worth of puzzles prior to the start of the hunt.

Plot
The plot of the hunt began with the pre-hunt set of puzzles, which detailed a story hook for a future hunt revolving around the retrieval and research of a series of super-powered and super-intelligent rats. When kickoff occurred in January, the opening skit seemed to be continuing with this theme, including reference to the Institute for the Acquisition and Study of Hyperintelligent Creatures (IFTAASOHC), but was interrupted by the Hayden Library (the intended starting location for the hunt proper) disappeared into a large hole and was replaced by a large vortex which had sent the former contents of the library flying. This revelation forced the hunt organizers to "drop the skit" and send teams to investigate the incident, in particular the puzzles that seemed to be appearing on the pages of the books that remained. Before teams could fix the problem, however, they were sucked into the hole itself into a different world, a place which solvers would eventually learn was called "Bookspace".

Teams at first found themselves at a location called The Ministry of Intertextual Transportation, and were confronted by six "Ministers"; people who were in charge of particular types of books and written media and sharing their names with libraries or collections on MIT campus. After accusing solvers of causing the hole, as well as other destruction within Bookspace, the Ministers recruited solvers to assist in figuring out what was actually causing the damage, as well as how to stop it. While doing so, teams were approached by Tock the Watchdog, a character from Norton Juster's The Phantom Tollbooth. He offered to help return the teams to the real world once they had stopped further damage from occurring.

After identifying and subduing the creature that had been wrecking Bookspace, solvers discovered that their way home wasn't as clear cut as it had seemed; due to the previous damage to the realm, people, places, and object had begun to fade from existence. Tock explained that normally any damage would be reversed by something called the Plot Device, but that had also been destroyed prior to the teams' arrival. In order to return home, teams would have to explore the different regions of Bookspace and collect components that would help to rebuild the device. A location called Pen Station acted as a hub for travelling to the different regions, which were all themed after particular book genres (horror, romance, how-to, etc.). Once the Plot Device was reassembled and powered up, Tock informed the teams that there was one more problem. They could use the tollbooth to travel back home, but required fictional currency to power it; something that the solvers, being from the real world, did not have. After searching through Bookspace, they managed to find something that fit the bill, and were able to travel back home just before the "real" hunt on MIT's wrapped up.