Mastermind mastery
As stated on this blog, I participated in the Mastermind Hunt in San Francisco on Saturday. My team, Friday the 13th Part VI, took top honors, largely due to some of my teammates' penchant for running between clue sites. Indeed, most of the ninety-ish minutes of our journey was hoofing it around the city and solving simple challenges based on what we could observe at certain locations.
Determining those locations constituted the meat of the puzzling. Teams opened their clue packets at the very start of the game and divvied up the brainteasers, which were bite-sized and mostly wordplay-related. Aside from one puzzle on which a teammate was sort of flying blind without all the information, these posed little difficulty. An hour or so later, we were crossing the finish line.
For experienced puzzle hunters, there's not much to dissect in an event like this. They're small brain ticklers that are taken down in short order, perhaps after one relatively simple insight. That's fine, though. It's important to bear in mind that races like this aren't designed for the hardcore folks who love blowouts like Bay Area Night Games and the MIT Mystery Hunt. If you're looking for a stiff puzzling challenge, you probably want to look elsewhere. But if you want some lighter mental fare followed by some exercise around the city, a Mastermind Hunt is worth spending an afternoon on.
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October 25th, 2012 - 11:30
I like how you put BANG and the MIT Mystery Hunt in the same category.
My impression of the Mastermind hunt was “like the Chinese New Year hunt, only without all the suck”.
October 25th, 2012 - 11:31
Heh, well.
And yes, that is a perfect comparison and now I’m angry I didn’t write it.
October 26th, 2012 - 07:29
No need to be angry. You can be glad you inspired it!