MIT MYSTery Hunt puzzle stats

Last weekend I participated in the 2021 MIT MYSTery hunt on the team I’m not a planet either. During the hunt, I recorded the time each puzzle was unlocked by the team and then later solved, so I’ve decided to assemble some statistics on the team’s puzzle solving. Click on the graphs to make them full screen.

In these graphs I’ve specially separated out the puzzles that were in the Infinite Corridor round (except the Infinite Corridor meta itself). This round contained hundreds of thousands of randomly generated puzzles; solving the meta required only solving specifically chosen puzzles from the round, and there was no need to unlock or solve the others once you have figured out how the meta works. In darker colors the graphs show only the ordinary puzzles, while in lighter colors are shown all puzzles including the puzzles from the infinite corridor.

Red shows when puzzles were unlocked, and green shows when puzzles were solved. The large burst of puzzles from the infinite corridor were when the meta was being worked on. Surprisingly I don’t see a clear daily cycle in when puzzles were solved.

In total, the team unlocked 330 puzzles and solved 144; among finite puzzles, we unlocked 191 and solved 103. Below is every puzzle solved by the team, and how long they took to solve, with a resolution of about 1 minute.

Rule of Three was the fastest solved puzzle, as it was automatically solved at the same time as it was unlocked. I believe Puzzle 23 was solved immediately after unlocking it by redeeming a token earned in a different Cafe Five. While we never figured out how to solve Library of Images puzzles, we were able to backsolve several of them from information in the Infinite Corridor meta (which then allowed us to solve other Library of Images puzzles, whose answers were then used to solve the meta). As the pair working on Infinite Corridor Simulator puzzles got experienced with the necessary steps, they were ultimately able to solve them in less than three minutes each. While I’m not familiar with how ‘A Cheat Code’ was solved, it was presumably the puzzle solved from scratch in the fastest time.

At the long end, there are several events and metas which are naturally unlocked much before they can be worked on. ‘Voltage-Controlled’ was a greatly intimidating puzzle which a few people worked on occasionally for most of the hunt. ‘Water Bottle’ was a much anticipated puzzle in which we inadvertently broke the automated system, leaving the puzzle unsolvable without the organizers’ help.

As always, I greatly enjoyed mystery hunt this year (and needed a few days to get enough sleep to fully recover) and hope those who also participated found something to recollect from the weekend in the above!

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