Hotel California

Owner:

Shane

Solution:

AQUILA

Partial Answers

MATCHINPAIRS: Keep going…

6157: Sounds interesting, what do you think you should do with that?

Possible partials:

6152: Close, one of your numbers looks wrong.

GC Notes:

GC to update day-of-game.

Presentation:

Prior to the puzzle, teams should be told they're looking for a peer in whatever search they're on (e.g., Indy's dad, etc). They arrive at a hotel room that has already been torn apart as thought someone was looking for something. A large map is propped against the wall in the room.

Walkthrough:

The map has 12 named waypoints. Hidden throughout the hotel room are 12 journal pages. See below for locations. Each page has four pieces of data for the teams to notice:

Each page is dated with a month and day

Each page names a unique location on the map

On the reverse side of each page is a picture that lines up with a unique section of the map, and has its own waypoint

The data is intended to be interpreted in the following ways:

  • Each month occurs once. One clue this provides is a checksum for how many pages there are (i.e., teams calling for help can say they're missing August and GC can clue them where it is if need be)

  • The days are alphanumerics (i.e., 1 = A, 2 = B, etc.). When ordered by the months, these spell out "MATCH IN PAIRS"

  • The solve for the puzzle involves lining up the pictures on the back of each journal, and drawing a line from the point indicated on the page to the location on the map named on the page.

When teams connect the line from the overlaid page to the city named on the page, four triangles will be formed on the map, highlighting specific locations. Each of these landforms looks roughly like a number. When read from left to right, top to bottom, these numbers are 6, 1, 5, 7. These are a code for the safe (or the lockbox) in the room, which will contain a slip of paper with the spiderdoge answer, and hopefully a macguffin for the plot.

Hinting:

In beta, teams had the following problems:

  • They rat-holed on using the date numbers as indexes into location names

  • Teams wanted the order of the months to be how to link locations

  • One team was stuck on the order of the numbers, wanting to try largest to smallest triangles and other patterns along those lines.

In general, ways to clue teams are the following:

  • Encourage them to see that the months are a checksum; they can use that to figure out how many pages they might be missing

  • Nudge them towards realizing there are as many named locations as pages

  • Discourage them from using the months as an order for linking locations with strings.

Data:

Below is a solution to the puzzle from the last beta team. The tape became loose, but each of the numbers should be visible and this should help make it a bit more clear how pages line up with the map.

Reset information

Pages should go in the following locations:

January – Lampshade

February - Under trash

March - (shower curtain)

April - (under sink)

May - Under bed

June – Fridge

July - Window curtains

August - Suitcase pocket

September – Bible

October - Behind photo

November - Jacket pocket

December - Pillow case