Codex
Codex is a team that participates in the MIT Mystery Hunt. The team was founded in 2002 as an off-site team in Harvard, and hunted onsite starting in 2003. Codex won the 2011 MIT Mystery Hunt and thereafter ran the 2012 hunt. The team generally chooses a different historical codex to name themselves after each year. A group of Codex members additionally ran the QoDE Puzzle Hunt in 2021, and this group also does other online hunts together.
History[edit | edit source]
The team formed in 2002 and still maintains a number of its founding members. In 2004 Codex picked up a contingent from Albany, who had begun puzzling with ACME but decided to keep hunting (rather than writing) the year after ACME won. When Pturnips disbanded in 2007, the contingent from ACME (Reloaded) as well as most remote members joined Codex (with on-site members typically joining Central Services).[1] Codex has puzzled with several remote groups, including Grey Labyrinth and a group in Redmond, WA. In 2009, a group from Google Mountain View (MTV) signed on; leaving again in 2019 to hunt as Frumious Bandersnatch. Codex is one of the most "remote-friendly" of the larger, Coin-contending teams in the Hunt today.[2]
Codex was victorious in 2011, and subsequently were responsible for creating and running the 2012 Hunt, themed after The Producers. They came extremely close to victory in 2015, but were stymied near the very end by an unintentional red herring. In 2018, per the recommendation of the that year's authors Death & Mayhem, Codex split into two "codecs" to better "have fun" with a Hunt geared towards certain sized teams. A vast majority of the on-site members played as Vorbis, while the more experimental but scrappy Ogg was almost entirely comprised of remote solvers. Satisfied with the results of the experiment they reunited the following year.
The team also has a strong core of Wikipedians and staff from the Wikimedia Foundation, and was one of the first teams to build their own hunting framework website, the Codex Blackboard, which initially had a wiki-like interface and later had managed spreadsheets. The team was also one of the first to bring computers for every hunter.
Team Names[edit | edit source]
Codex team names are generally historical codices, with some exceptions (such as Ogg and Vorbis in 2018, as well as CODEX-21 in 2021). The two characters in Codex's 2012 hunt renamed their surnames Bialystock and Bloom (in the musical The Producers) to Borbonicus and Bodley, two additional historical codices, returning to Codex Zouche-Nuttall the following year. The team name in the 2022 hunt run by Palindrome, Codex Vindobonensis 751, is notable for including a mysterious (and as of currently unsolved) palindrome, "METROHOCANGISSITISSIGNACOHORTEM".
Hunt performances[edit | edit source]
MIT Mystery Hunt[edit | edit source]
| Date | Hunt | Rank | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2022-01-14 | MIT Mystery Hunt 2022 | 19 | as Codex Vindobonensis 751 |
| 2021-01-15 | MIT Mystery Hunt 2021 | 7 | as CODEX-21 |
| 2020-01-17 | MIT Mystery Hunt 2020 | 8 | as Codex Argenteus |
| 2019-01-18 | MIT Mystery Hunt 2019 | 8 | as CODEX VOYNICH |
| 2018-01-12 | MIT Mystery Hunt 2018 | 8 | as Codex Vorbis |
| 2018-01-12 | MIT Mystery Hunt 2018 | 26 | as Codex Ogg |
| 2017-01-13 | MIT Mystery Hunt 2017 | 6 | as Codex Grolier |
| 2016-01-15 | MIT Mystery Hunt 2016 | 5 | as Codex Rotundus |
| 2015-01-16 | MIT Mystery Hunt 2015 | 9 | as Codex Atlanticus |
| 2014-01-10 | MIT Mystery Hunt 2014 | 4 | as Codex Gigas |
| 2013-01-11 | MIT Mystery Hunt 2013 | 7 | as Codex Zouche-Nuttall |
| 2012-01-13 | MIT Mystery Hunt 2012 | Host | |
| 2011-01-14 | MIT Mystery Hunt 2011 | 1 | as Codex Alimentarius |
Other team names:
- 2023: Codex Tianshu
- 2010: Codex Seraphinianus
- 2009: Codex Magliabechiano
- 2008: Codex Bodley
- 2007: Codex Ixtlilxochitl
- 2006: Codex Dresden
- 2005: Codex Maya
- 2004: Codex Borgia
The names of the team in 2003 and 2002 have been lost to the mists of time.
Other hunts[edit | edit source]
| Date | Hunt | Rank | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2022-06-18 | Huntinality 2022 | 20 | as Creative Operations & Design Executives |
| 2021-10-01 | Teammate Hunt 2021 | 21 | as Send In the Qlowns |
| 2021-09-10 | QoDE Puzzle Hunt | Host | |
| 2019-03-15 | Galactic Puzzle Hunt 2019 | 23 | as Bifolium, Son of Codex |
