23rd Annual MIT Mystery Hunt

"Be Noisy!"

It was very tricky coming up with the eight hotel answers. Finding words that both clued board squares and fit into a metapuzzle was quite a difficult task, and we constantly bickered over the eight different hotels. We'd initially considered making the eight hotel answers fit into a framework, but we gave up on the idea-- we didn't dare add an extra constraint to the eight hotel answers.

Of course, none of the teams knew this. Two separate teams solved all eight hotels and found a hidden message! A lovely pattern appears when the eight hotel answers are listed in the order they were presented:

BILLGATES
REALTY
BENJAMINS
LUXOR
MANSION
DONORS
MISERLY
BANKING

Two teams tried to "BE NOISY" and they were surprised when that wasn't fruitful. We, however, were infinitely more surprised to learn that the message was inadvertently buried in our puzzles.


Contact: MIT IAP Mystery Hunt -- puzzle@mit.edu