Shattered

Owner:

Jamie

Solution:

PORCELAIN

Partial Answers

WHAT THIS VASE WOULD BE MADE OF IN CHINA: Keep Going

GC Notes:

GC to update day-of-game.

Presentation:

Teams are given a bag filled with white plastic pieces. The pieces each have a letter on them, and some magnets embedded in their sides. There is also one larger, round plastic piece with several letters and magnets on one side.

Walkthrough:

The goal for the team is to reconstruct the shattered artifact, although initially they don't know what the object is. For reference, the whole vase, once reconstructed, is shaped like this:

There are a couple of things for the teams to notice initially:

  1. Each piece has a letter on it. (really obvious)

  2. Each piece has some magnets in it. (pretty obvious)

  3. The magnets are colored depending on their polarity. (might get overlooked)

  4. Some spots where magnets could go are empty. (pretty obvious, although the implications might not be)

  5. Four of the pieces also have pairs of letters on the inside. (might get overlooked)

  6. These same four pieces are missing magnets on one side. (easy to overlook)

Once teams notice the pairs of inside letters, they need to realize these four pieces go together (they're all shaped the same and form a circle, so it's pretty obvious), and then they have to get them to spell a word (slightly harder). They spell DI-AG-ON-AL.

Meanwhile, other people might be trying to put together the rest of the vase. The larger plastic piece is the base of the vase (although some people like to try to make it the top of the object). Generally speaking, by working from the bottom and building upwards, using magnet polarity as a constraint, and realizing that spots with no magnets CAN match with magnets, the vase can be reconstructed.

Once the vase is built, a message can be read vertically-diagonally, starting at the top, like so:

VDFW

BIHA

NASE

TEMC

WAHT

DIHO

NIUE

SLOA

"What this vase would be made of in China". This should mostly be general knowledge: PORCELAIN

Hinting:

One common trap teams might fall into is attempting to match pieces vertically, instead of "DIAGONAL"-ly, in a brickwall-like fashion. If they're having trouble building the vase ask them to describe how they are fitting pieces together. If they're stacking pieces directly on top of each other they're doing it incorrectly.

  • Small hint: Have you discovered any other messages on the vase which might indicate how to build it?

  • Medium hint: Are there other ways the layers might connect to each other?

  • Large hint: Try stacking the pieces together like bricks in a brick wall.

Data:

Put links to files on the Sharepoint and any other raw data.