Great Minds Think Alike

It wasn't easy coming up with all of this year's puzzles - just look at all of the ideas we had to reject!
  • "You want solvers to identify a bunch of characters from Greek mythology using only clues to four-letter substrings of their names? How many teams do you expect to solve THAT?"
  • "A virtual runaround of human anatomy disguised as a logbook? How many teams do you expect to solve THAT?"
  • "You want to divide a bunch of Chinese characters into two components of specific types, clue those components, and have teams identify the original characters? How many teams do you expect to solve THAT?"
  • "A list of film roles that can be paired up so that the actors that played them starred in exactly one movie together, and teams have to discover what all of the movies have in common? How many teams do you expect to solve THAT?"
(Lazyr Zone, Reverse Dimension x 2, Virtual Sectors)

  • "You want solvers to identify bell-ringing methods from diagrams? How many teams do you expect to solve THAT?"
  • "A mini-runaround leading to a plaque of George Eastman, and a bunch of things to find on images around it? How many teams do you expect to solve THAT?"
  • "An online personality quiz where solvers have to figure out what answer properties lead to different results? How many teams do you expect to solve THAT?"
  • "You want to write a puzzle about the board game TransAmerica and trans fatty acids? How many teams do you expect to solve THAT?"
  • "A puzzle about a Set variant that uses a nonabelian group to determine triples? How many teams do you expect to solve THAT?"
  • "A puzzle about Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me's 'Not My Job' segment? How many teams do you expect to solve THAT?"
(Dossier 2, Dossier 5, Dossier 6, Page 6, Page 8, Page 9)

  • "Let me get this straight: you want teams to go to a restaurant, get a handout, track down eight other restaurants from pictures of a single letter in their signs, find those places on a labeled map, use those labels to pull digits out of pi, and decode those digits of pi using phonespell? How many teams do you expect to solve THAT?"
  • "A Hurricane Katrina-themed trigram assembly puzzle? How many teams do you expect to solve THAT?"
  • "You want to give teams a bunch of ambiguous logic puzzles and have them work out exactly how many solutions each one has? How many teams do you expect to solve THAT?"
  • "A crossword on a Klein bottle? How many teams do you expect to solve THAT?"
  • "A pair of diagramless Siamese Twin crosswords with an extra set of decoy clues thrown in? How many teams do you expect to solve THAT?"
(Advanced World Domination, Finance, Law and Government, Mass Manipulation, Writing)

  • "You want to have solvers work out what letter in a theoretical computer's memory represents what operation such that the computer's output makes a sensible sentence? How many teams do you expect to solve THAT?"
  • "You want solvers to identify a bunch of musical instruments by sound, then index into the names by the notes they're playing? How many teams do you expect to solve THAT?"
  • "A virtual runaround of the New York City subway system? How many teams do you expect to solve THAT?"
  • "A puzzle about horses that came in the top three of the Kentucky Derby? How many teams do you expect to solve THAT?"
  • "You want teams to reassemble a massive hexadecimal fraction using images that clue parts of the song 'One Week'? How many teams do you expect to solve THAT?"
(Blue Star, Orange Star, Purple Circle, Red Circle, Yellow Circle)

  • "You want teams to track down a bunch of campus phones you've marked with colored circles? How many teams do you expect to solve THAT?"
  • "A paper jigsaw puzzle that leads to a giant telephone pad? How many teams do you expect to solve THAT?"
  • "You want teams to identify room descriptions of Infocom games and notice each room has an object that's a specific color? How many teams do you expect to solve THAT?"
  • "You want teams to translate a Japanese poem and find a hidden message in its non-repeated lines' first words? How many teams do you expect to solve THAT?"
  • "A puzzle based on the Bible Code and the Apocrypha? How many teams do you expect to solve THAT?"
  • "A tile jigsaw puzzle that leads to a bunch of breeds of sheep? How many teams do you expect to solve THAT?"
  • "A puzzle about The Vagina Monologues? How many teams do you expect to solve THAT?"
(Aztec x 2, NeoTokyo, Timbuktu, Titanic, Vatican x 2)

  • "A story excerpt that teams have to cut into strips and wrap around a specific type of bottle to read a message? How many teams do you expect to solve THAT?"
  • "A bunch of clues that look like cryptic crossword clues, but are actually references to On Beyond Zebra? How many teams do you expect to solve THAT?"
  • "You want to make solvers identify pictures of a bunch of campus bathrooms and plot them out on a map? How many teams do you expect to solve THAT?"
  • "A text stereogram that teams have to reassemble column-by-column? How many teams do you expect to solve THAT?"
  • "You want to make teams decipher animated gifs of scrolling music player displays with most of the pixels broken? How many teams do you expect to solve THAT?"
  • "You want teams to reconstruct from notes, either physically or virtually, a laser drawing device and figure out what its output would be? How many teams do you expect to solve THAT?"
  • "A list of clues to first and last names of CBS reality show contestants? How many teams do you expect to solve THAT?"
  • "A bunch of Java clocks that encode book titles in various ways based on how they tick or how their hands move? How many teams do you expect to solve THAT?"
Facility R x 2, Section 1, Section 5, Section 6, Section 7, Training x 2)