Pre-Game Post

One thing I love about interning at Microsoft is their intern events. While their Tech Talks are always interesting (in part because there's free pizza, so even a boring talk is delicious), their Puzzle events are particularly interesting.

There have been two so far. One designed for larger teams where we were given 20-something puzzles to solve, that eventually helped us solve a main meta-puzzle. Our team didn't quite finish, but once we got past some initial speed bumps, we started tearing through puzzles. This was an all day event, so imagine being in a conference room trying to figure out what the heck some clue is referring to with 7 other people.

The other was also pretty fun, and involved smaller teams, but each puzzle was a location that we had to travel to. The day after this one I was pretty sore, but I also had a lot of fun.

Of note is the one coming up this weekend based off of the stuff at this site. It's a 30+ hour straight solve puzzles and drive around in a van fest. I don't know about you, but this sounds awesome, though intimidating to me.

Part of it is just how fun it is to solve some of the pregame puzzles (that I can't link to here, sorry :( ) with everyone else. On a super-huge meta-puzzle, I figured out the solution-question with a typo, and when someone on my team figured out where I was wrong, it was hilarious to see six almost simultaneous e-mails come with people shouting the answer.

I'll definitely report on the experience when I get back.