Roadtrip (MIT Mystery Hunt 2020)

Roadtrip
MIT Mystery Hunt 2020
Creative Pictures Studios
Author(s)Mike Springer
AnswerClick to reveal🏐
Statistics
No. solves13
No. total guesses15
Links
PuzzleLink
SolutionLink

"I liked the book better."

Roadtrip is a puzzle from the Creative Pictures Studios round of the 2020 MIT Mystery Hunt.

Puzzle Elements[edit | edit source]

 

Initialization - The list of authors under the grid of emoji has a suspiciously large number of authors that start with vowels. Reading the first letters spells out an instruction: THE SIXTEEN AUTHOR'S BOOKS EACH CLUE AN EMOJI PAIR. GO VERY CLOSE TO AND USE ZAPPAR APP AT EACH LOCATION PLAQUE. COLLECT PIXEL FIGURES FROM THE NEWLY CLUED AUTHORS.

Knowledge Required (Literature) - The puzzle provides a list of authors "on loan". The emoji below the authors can be paired up to clue books by authors in that list.

I Have Traveled Forty Paces - Clicking any pair of emoji (even ones that don't clue a book) provides a series of numbers (and the occasional letter). These are room numbers at MIT. In lieu of actually going to MIT, the static version provides pictures of the relevant locations directly; if you pick a wrong pair, it instead gives a "wrong room" image.

Interactive - For each room given by a correct pair of emoji, the room's plaque will interact with the Zappar app to provide another string of emoji that clues a book. Its author is in the list of authors.

Bitmap - Clicking on each author's name reveals a bitmap; assembling the bitmaps of each of the books' authors draws out the answer.