Kaboom!

Owner:

Patrick

Solution:

HOMECOMING

Partial Answers

N/A

GC Notes:

GC to update day-of-game.

Presentation:

The team is split into two groups. Each group is led to a room containing a complicated control panel for a bomb and a manual for the bomb in the other room.

On each control panel are:

  • A keypad

  • Seven buttons that can change colors, arranged in a hexagonal pattern

  • A set of dials that can be set to various letters

  • Six key switches, each with an LED beside them.

Walkthrough:

This is Keep Talking and Nobody Explodes with a physical bomb. The two groups need to share information to figure out what to do and defuse both bombs in time. (The countdown is fairly generous, and gives more time whenever they accomplish any progress, so as long as they switch between bombs occasionally time won't be a major factor)

Defusing the bomb requires solving four "modules", which can mostly be done independently (except for the Keypad). After solving all the modules, the defuse button works to defuse the bomb. How the modules work is described in the manuals (linked below)

The individual modules work the same for the two bombs, but they have different data, so trying to use the manual on the bomb in your room won't help. Also, none of the modules work quite like the modules in the video game, so knowledge from it won't help that much.

Hinting:

This is really about communicating and following directions. Some notes on specific modules:

Keypad

Describing the symbols isn't too hard. In most cases, any symbol you need to describe is visible to the other group somewhere (on their bomb or in their manual)

The keypad activates the other modules, and has one odd behavior. Since the Maze and Simon Says modules both use the colored buttons, only one of them can be active at once. You need to activate one, solve it, then activate the other.

Simon Says

Because the color mapping is based on the module status lights, it can change as you work on the puzzle. For instance, pushing a wrong button turns one of the indicators red, which may add a new color.

Maze

This is pretty straightforward- any particular combination of colors can only be in one place in the maze, so once you find the spot you can find the sequence of steps to take.

Password

Many of the words on the sheet can be entered with the dials, but only one row has three words that will work. You also need to press the correct dial after entering each word.

Red bomb: friend (6), agency (2), assist (5)

Blue bomb: midori (4), analog (2), tahiti (2)

Key Switches

This is just a matter of following the instructions carefully. The one thing that's possible to overthink is "next to": the topmost key is next to the topmost indicator light, you don't go to the adjacent keys or anything.