Magic 8-Ball (MIT Mystery Hunt 2020)

Magic 8-Ball
MIT Mystery Hunt 2020
Wizard's Hollow
Author(s)Brent Holman
AnswerClick to revealCORNUCOPIA
Statistics
No. solves62
No. total guesses73
Links
PuzzleLink
SolutionLink

Magic 8-Ball is an assembly puzzle from the Wizard's Hollow round of the 2020 MIT Mystery Hunt.

Puzzle Elements[edit | edit source]

Flavortext - Here at the magical gift shop, we specialize in all sorts of enchanted trinkets. This one requires a bit of assembly to function properly, so sharpen up your tools and your eye for detail!

The Magic 8-Ball keeps things on a first-name basis, but its prognostications can be vague at times. You’ll have to discover how to interpret its messages before you can gain its bountiful knowledge. When in doubt, trust the King!

 

Some Assembly Required - The puzzle consists of 20 pieces; these must be assembled into one icosahedron. The assembly is given by pasting matching 8-shapes together; this will require an eye for detail, as the flavortext claims. While this can be done with Spatial Reasoning, the easier solution is to print the page out and match shapes manually.

Morse Code - The assembled icosahedron reveals three Morse Code messages, which can be read starting from the arrows on the 8 face: CHESSEX D20/START AT 1 WITH/SORCERERS STONE.

Spatial Reasoning - Chessex is a dice-manufacturing company; its D20s all have the same faces in the same orientations. Using the given 8 as a baseline, the solver can now associate each face with a number.

Trail of Transformations - Each face has a transformation and an offset. Starting at the face labeled 1 with the phrase SORCERERS STONE, the solver should apply the given transformation, then proceed to the face produced by adding the offset to the current face.

Hint in Flavortext - The Magic 8-Ball keeps things on a first-name basis, but its prognostications can be vague at times. You’ll have to discover how to interpret its messages before you can gain its bountiful knowledge. When in doubt, trust the King!

Knowledge Required (Literature) - The first few transformations require knowledge of the Harry Potter series, keeping in mind that the output should only be the first name.

Knowledge Required (Religion) - One transformation asks for an item eighteen places after GENESIS; with the flavortext's explicit note to "trust the King", this resolves to PSALMS.

Knowledge Required (Popular Music) - One branch after the split asks twice for an album-band relationship (FOXTROT -> GENESIS, SAMPLES -> AUTOPILOT).

Asked and Answered - A less direct form, but the answer generated from the clues can be described as "bountiful".