Puzzle Hunt 8: The Hard Way (February 19-20, 2005)
- Theme: Las Vegas, complete with showgirls and a time-share presentation
- Participants: 57 teams, 643 players (6 teams finished)
- Hosted by: Staggering Geniuses (Amanda O'Connor, Mark L. Gottlieb, Sean Trowbridge, Mike Selinker, Matt Ruhlen, Greg Lewis, Jason Alcock, Matt Dixon, Ron Giesen, Matt Jones, Chris McBride, and Chris Pearo)
- Won by: Cracking Good Toast
- Awards: Giant dice
- Memorable Events/Puzzles: Teams were given a "Las Vegas" (transformed Microsoft Campus) travel brochure at the opening ceremony with seven puzzles and a metapuzzle embedded within. Each of the seven puzzles gave an instruction for cutting out and taping together buildings, cutting holes in the buildings, positioning them on the map, and shining a light through the buildings from a particular position over the map to cast the shadow of a phone number, which kicked off your meeting with the nefarious Mr. Big.
- Portions of this hunt appear in the November 2005 issue of GAMES World of Puzzles.
- Landmarks: Second largest win margin in hunt history (? hours). First three-time winner. First hunt to have a team (not the winning team) to solve all puzzles.
Read more about this topic: Microsoft Puzzle Hunt
Famous quotes containing the words puzzle, hunt and/or hard:
“Scholars and artists thrown together are often annoyed at the puzzle of where they differ. Both work from knowledge; but I suspect they differ most importantly in the way their knowledge is come by. Scholars get theirs with conscientious thoroughness along projected lines of logic; poets theirs cavalierly and as it happens in and out of books. They stick to nothing deliberately, but let what will stick to them like burrs where they walk in the fields.”
—Robert Frost (1874–1963)
“The hunt is up, the morn is bright and grey,
The fields are fragrant and the woods are green.”
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616)
“If you prick us, do we not bleed? If you tickle us, do we not laugh? If you poison us, do we not die? And if you wrong us, shall we not revenge? If we are like you in the rest, we will resemble you in that. If a Jew wrong a Christian, what is his humility? Revenge. If a Christian wrong a Jew, what should his sufferance be by Christian example? Why, revenge. The villainy you teach me, I will execute, and it shall go hard but I will better the instruction.”
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616)