Solution: The Archivists
Answer: MEMORY LOSS
Written by Andrew Hauge, Seth Mulhall, Jakob Weisblat, Patrick Xia
Answers used:MATRIX SILVER SKI LIFT TRUE FORM FUNNY PAGES LEATHER COATS
This metapuzzle is about sets of related things.
Solvers are presented with a 3-dimensional room (a "mind palace", we thought of it while writing the puzzle), in which there are 18 objects arranged in a circle.Each object comes from a well-known set, and there are 3 objects from each set.
| Well-known set | Clued with | Which ones appear in this puzzle |
|---|---|---|
| US Coins | People on them | Kennedy, Sacagawea, Jefferson |
| Noble gases | Industrial uses | Neon sign, balloon, projector |
| Colors | Fruits | Apple, banana, blueberry |
| Planets | Planets | Neptune, Saturn, Earth |
| Mohs Scale | Rocks | Fluorite, Quartz, Talc |
| Zodiac | Toys | 2 fish, Crab, Scales |
| US Coins | Noble gases | Colors | Planets | Mohs Scale | Zodiac |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| uqi (penny) | cenuli (helium) | pamono (red) | hen'ogbi (Mercury (INNERMOST!-wanderer)) | amipu (talc) | wegso (aries) |
| ne-uqi (nickel) | onekuli (neon) | emkixa (orange) | olcogbi (Venus (pearl-wanderer)) | catipu (gypsum) | olijo (taurus) |
| saqa-uqi (dime) | liquli (argon) | amelte (yellow) | lahrogbi (Earth (penguin-wanderer)) | rupatipu (calcite) | regdo (gemini) |
| avsaqta-uqi (quarter) | olopuli (kryotpon) | colbao (green) | ihrogbi (Mars (blood-planet)) | oritipu (fluorite) | dikiso (cancer) |
| feqiuta egite (half-dollar) | ruyuli (xenon) | honwze (blue) | saqwnogbi (Jupiter (storm-wanderer)) | sokotipu (apatite) | semzo (leo) |
| egite (dollar) | setruli (radon) | emewle (indigo) | tavrogbi (Saturn (ring-wanderer)) | sizitipu (orthoclase) | eyuvo (virgo) |
| siovqi (violet) | ixnogbi (Uranus (tilt-wanderer)) | wtipu (quartz) | amlo (libra) | ||
| cwrzogbi (Neptune (ice-wanderer)) | oyitipu (topaz) | reqwco (scorpio) | |||
| rokotipu (corundum) | cugaco (sagittarius) | ||||
| dotipu (diamond) | himlo (capricorn) | ||||
| idivo (aquarius) | |||||
| ipmeto (pisces) |
These read off the titles of six puzzles in the hunt. We look at the answers of those puzzles, and we find that their lengths are the same.
| Series | Puzzle Title | Answer |
|---|---|---|
| Coins | Unsafe | MATRIX |
| Noble gases | Colors | SILVER |
| Colors | Peaches | SKI LIFT |
| Planets | Holistic | TRUE FORM |
| Rocks | A Crossword | FUNNY PAGES |
| Zodiac | Word Search II | LEATHER COATS |
Now instead of taking the nth letter of each title for the nth element of each set, we take the nth element of the answer. For example, for the red apple, we take the first letter of SKI LIFT, getting S. Doing this for each answer, we get the following circle:
Reading in a circle, we get the clue phrase IT IS AMNESIA (SIX FOUR). This solves to our answer, MEMORY LOSS.
Author’s Notes
This puzzle started from the question "What do the aliens call Earthly things?". It was fun to brainstorm the different ways in which we could teach the different things through these various artifacts.
The panorama presentation idea came after the second testsolve thought the meta was a little uninteresting. We hope that it made the puzzle more exciting to solve.