Find the original Hunt pdf here to try the Hunt!

Congratulations to the Hunt Winners and everyone who made it to the end!

I am so sincerely happy that the puzzle hunt went well! People played and I tried to give nudges here and there since some intended connections may have been a bit far – ultimately, several people made it to the end and I think there was some amount of fun to be had. I am grateful to each of you who tried it and appreciate all the feedback I have received. There were a few bumps early on that are great lessons for the future, as I ironed out some website issues and fixed a typo in the Hunt itself. For the most part, the Hunt went very well – while writing it, I learned that it is easy to make a Hunt that no one can solve, and much harder to make one people will be challenged by while being able to actually solve it (and hopefully have some amount of fun). I know that my reliance on US pop culture may have somewhat favored US-icans, but, well, we write what we know  ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ I wrote it so that hopefully anyone would be able to track the answers down, once you had an idea what you were looking for.

Growing up, I got to participate in some of the city-wide Puzzle Hunts in Miami (the Tropic Hunt has been an annual puzzle hunt originally written by Dave Barry – in the 80s, my family did some of the early, county-wide Hunts as well as neighborhood-focused ones that came after – more info about the Tropic Hunt here). In recent years, I have struggled to solve some excellent Hunts (usually in teams with others more capable than me), attempting to take on MIT and other excellent hunts! There is a Discord group dedicated to such Hunts, so if you are interested in joining, let me know and I can send you an invite if you need.

This year, I created a pseudonymous account for Discord, super-sneakily asserting that I was “Not an Old Member of this Group.” Somehow, many people saw through this sophisticated ruse. I posted the Hunt (in the form of a pdf) on the Discord Mechanical Puzzle group and the aforementioned Puzzle Hunt group, claiming I had found it online (mostly facetiously as it was pretty clear I had not); if you would like to give it a shot before reading the walkthrough you can find the content of that pdf here.

The Hunt consisted of the pdf, which contained clues that led you to a “hidden” page on my website; this contained further clues to help people deduce the puzzle and codeword needed to win. Throughout, there were clues as to when and where to contact me with the solution. I thought it might be cool to provide a walkthrough of the hunt, in the event that someone might care to take a look:

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Puzzle Hunt Sheet:

On November 28, 1989, a future Judge and her furry friend were trapped in a car, tuned to Song of the South; making the best of a colorful situation, they created a Hokey Pokey for the modern era whose title could help clarify parts of the story below. They stepped forward and back and wondered: How many and when?

Paragraph 1 of the Hunt Sheet

Para 1: This refers to the song Opposites Attract by Paula Abdul and MC Skat Kat: Paula has been a Judge on American Idol or the Voice (or something like that); Song of the South is a Disney movie that mixed live action and animation, as in the music video for Opposites Attract; and, Hokey Pokey / “forward and back” because the song’s dance is vaguely reminiscent (e.g. “2 steps forward, 2 steps back”). “Parts” is in italics to help indicate that you will want to find the opposite of the italicized parts of the story (3rd paragraph of the Hunt). The last sentence of this paragraph is to help you know what to do once you have deciphered the meaning of the story (we will come back to this).

Meanwhile, in the 21^st Century, a blogger kept having visions of yet another musician, this one a crooner from a bygone era; the blogger’s sight blurred as he struggled to focus, ten blinking blue eyes staring back into his. He wondered where they were, doubting they would come and follow him home. Pack-ed into the baritone was the following story – I hope you can make better sense of it than I:  

Paragraph 2 of the Hunt Sheet

Para 2: This is primarily referring to me (crooner, ten blue eyes (Frank was known as Ol’ Blue Eyes), baritone) – the hunt was posted by me under a different name so the connection to me was not immediately apparent. You will notice that some letters are bolded: www dot com; it also says that they should “follow me home.” This means that once you have figured out solution to the story, you will have something to enter as part of my blog’s address: fivesinatras.com/——–. 

Story: The story consists of five sentences; each sentence gives you a different movie franchise. “How many and when” + the hunt’s name (Mr, Mrs, etc = title & “order”) means that you will need to know how many movies in each series and then order them based on which came first. I will include each clue as well the explanation.

• Story Clue 1: On the day after the saddest night on tv, an athletic killer stalked the halls of a hotel’s most popular floor.
  • Friday the 13^th (12 movies, 1980):
    • The opposite of saddest night is “happiest day,” referring you to the tv show Happy Days, whose theme song tells you that Saturday is, in fact, the aforementioned happiest day. “After” is in italics, directing you to its opposite (“before”) and so: Friday.
    • Many hotels (in the US anyway) skip the 13^th floor due to superstition.
• Story Clue 2: Down in the steam tunnels, a killer who reminded me of a topiary gardener I like to call Edward Burton, his face wrinkled with fear, pointed with every finger on his right hand at the teens who spent their day dreaming. 
  • Nightmare on Elm Street (9 movies, 1984):
    • Freddy lived in the steam tunnels with a burned (wrinkled) face, and knives (points) on the fingers of his right hand, focusing his ire on teens.
    • Edward Burton the topiary gardener refers to Edward Scissorhands by Tim Burton (whose hands were also tipped with blades). 
    • “Day dreaming” is in italics, its opposite leading you to “nightmare.”
• Story Clue 3: Meanwhile, it was either a wild-eyed scientist, or a kid, that showed up asking about that book, the one called something like Nothing Loud off the Eastern…. well, I suppose by now the moment has passed.
  • Back to the Future (3 movies, 1985):
    • The start of this sentence contains a direct quote from the second movie (“it was either a wild-eyed scientist……… asking about that book”).
    • The opposite of Nothing Loud off the Eastern…. refers to the book All Quiet on the Western Front; the opposite of the missing word, “Front,” is “Back”.
    • Opposite of “passed” (pronounced “past”) is “future.”
• Story Clue 4: Later that night, a tall hearse driver dropped his poking ball when there appeared before him something real and tangible.
  • Phantasm (5 movies, 1979):
    • The killer in the Phantasm movies is known as the Tall Man; he drives a hearse and kills with flying balls from which blades emerge.
    • “Something real and tangible” would be the opposite of a “phantasm.”
• Story Clue 5: It must have been Christmas, because my friend was once again trapped inside, building kids’ toys, held hostage but feeling grateful that, all in all, the way he got to live was pretty easy.
  • Die Hard (5 movies, 1988):
    • This may be the easiest one, but it is probably my favorite clue in the story:
      • The first two movies take place on Christmas.
      • “Trapped inside, building….. held hostage” refers to the plot of the first movie.
      • “Live” and “easy” are in italics = “die” and “hard.”

When you arrange the number of movies in each franchise into chronological order (based on the year the first movie was released) you get: 512935. Go to fivesinatras.com/512935 and you get to the Hunt page. Unfortunately, WordPress automatically added the page to my site’s menu and so it could be found with a bit of sleuthing during the first few days. I also heard that the address might autofill on some browsers (but at least you would need to know how it began). Good lessons for me.

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Hunt Sheet Poem (scroll down for solution)

Solve the hunt to know where to go,

And in that place a clue will be shown.

Decipher the code and then let me know,

it does matter where and when people might, though.

 

Come find me in the hostile place we’re all known,

And on the right day (no matter time zone),

Come and say the secrets you’ve been shown,

For a chance at the prize wrapped up in a bow.

 

I’ve already told you the where, and so:

La Navidad no es la única festividad dentro 

de una semana de Año Nuevo.

Poem at the bottom of the Hunt sheet

Poem: The poem at the bottom of the Hunt Sheet tells you what to do once you have solved the puzzle. First you must decipher the codeword on the website and let me know via DM/PM (these letters are bolded). “Hostile place” is a hint for discord, where you can find me (@fivesinatras). Finally, the last sentence tells you that there is a holiday within one week of New Year’s. The sentence is in Spanish because Three Kings’ Day is a holiday commonly celebrated in Spain (and Cuba, among other Spanish countries); it is on January 6, which is when you were meant to tell me the codeword and the puzzle via Discord DM (I accepted anyone who let me know the date, word, and puzzle regardless of when they let me know, although most of them still followed up on the 6^th, which is awesome).

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Webpage (this is where you are directed upon solving the Hunt Sheet Story

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Webpage Poem (scroll down for solution)

Give Tommy’s friend Jenny 7 pieces of pie;

but make sure it’s spotless before you try.

Add what is left to Her Majesty’s most famous spy,

and make sure he stands backwards (I hope you know why).

It now needs the birthday with greetings and wine,

from four bug’s military band that sneezes and cries.

 

The answer can’t be whatever you please,

so replace the first part with what some say at sea.

All of the answers to clues such as these,

are just so you’ll know my favorite ______.

One more thing to do for the holiday lottery,

in addition to the codeword, I need you to remind me,

so go ahead and look at the pics:

I keep Dam forgetting… which puzzle it is?

I know it likes the sea, birds and having fun,

so share with the klass before this is won.

Follow the rules and you might be the one!

 

The instructions have told you what to do now,

and where and when and why and how.

Poem from the Hunt Webpage

Poem: The poem is intended to lead you to four numbers, which must be added/subtracted to give you a final number:

• “Tommy’s friend Jenny” refers to the song “Jenny” by Tommy Tutone, which famously gives us Jenny’s phone number: 867-5309.
• “7 pieces of pie” refers to the first 7 digits of pi; “spotless” as you need to remove the decimal: 3141592.
• The spy is James Bond (007), who stands backwards to become: 700.
• The last bit refers to the song When I’m Sixty-Four, from the Beatles album, Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band:
  • “Birthday greetings and wine” is a quote from the song;
  • Four bugs = the Beatles
  • Military Band (Sgt.) that sneezes (Pepper) and cries (Lonely).
• It says to “give” the pieces of pie, so you are subtracting this from Jenny’s number. You then add the backwards spy and the beatles: 
  • 8675309 – 3141592 + 700 + 64 = 5534481
  • You now use a basic substitution cypher (A1B2) to get: EECDDHA
• The poem then tells you to replace the “first part” (the letter “E”) with “what some say at sea” (a pirate’s favorite letter is…..?) = RECDDHA
  • The letters can now rearrange to: CHEDDAR. 
    • The rhyme scheme is also a clue (“sea” and “these” rhyme with “cheese”). Also, the Hunt’s title refers to a snack (“Comidita”).

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Solution: 

• DM me on January 6 on Discord
• Codeword: cheddar
• Party by Klass Jan Damstra

The winners were entered into a lottery to win Party. I also added a second prize, an approved print of Rob Yarger’s Snowflake by Pyrigan Puzzles (which comes disassembled, as figuring out how to build the puzzle box is especially fun), partially as I felt bad for the couple of issues early on and also because I had earmarked it for Secret Santa before figuring out that the intended recipient already had a copy (I guess that is a hint for my Santee).

Again, I am so happy folks had fun with this – any questions or feedback are more than welcome!