Congratulations to the Winners!

Congratulations to Off Like a Dirty Shirt, winners of Normal mode, and Yes!!!!!, winners of Hard mode. For full results, go here.

The Story, in Brief

Teams were welcomed as new employees of the Boston Advanced PHysics Laboratories, the leading provider of science solutions to the greater Boston area and worldwide. The new employees were promised an orientation tour and employee evaluation process, but BAPHL's veteran scientists were far too busy to ferry a bunch of newbies around. Thus, the orientation tour and evaluation process would be conducted by BAPHL's state of the art AI, UNODOS.
Although UNODOS was friendly at first, it was revealed through a series of audio messages that were (supposed to be, but not always) played to teams as they received new puzzles that UNODOS was actually a bit of a psychopath. UNODOS's quirks and the BAPHL technology mentioned in some of her messages bear an uncanny (and in no way coincidental) resemblance to elements of another fictional laboratory setting. The audio messages from UNODOS are reproduced below:
Eventually, UNODOS threatened to terminate the evaluation process via the release of a deadly neurotoxin into the BAPHL evaluation facilities, but not before teams managed to acquire a Boston Advanced PHysics Laboratories Handheld Plothole Device, which can create holes in reality itself. Despite UNODOS's assurance that there is no reality in which teams can survive to escape the BAPHL evaluation facilities, teams were able to use the Boston Advanced PHysics Laboratories Handheld Plothole Device to reveal the whereabouts of UNODOS and how to disable her, thus ensuring the safety of all new BAPHL employees.

The Puzzles

There were two modes of puzzles for this hunt: Normal and Hard. Some puzzles were shared, some were not. Teams were given the first three puzzles at the start of the hunt. When they solved their first puzzle, they were given puzzles 4 and 5. The next solve would unlock 6 and 7, then 8 and 9, then 10 and 11, and then the metapuzzle. This non-linearity meant that a team which solved five puzzles would be able to see the entire hunt, which was a major goal of ours.
The metapuzzle led to the following instructions:
Find UNODOS at the Library/Type in CONTROL-ALT-DELETE
Teams who went to the required location found a laptop running UNODOS, who would taunt teams if they tried to type in anything. If they followed the instructions, however, they would get the following video: End credits.



Credits

BAPHL 2 was brought to you by the following people:
  • Puzzle Construction: Avram Gottschlich, Dennis Loo, Ken Levin, Mike Krebs, Nathan Curtis
  • Test-Solving: Aaron Feldman, Avram Gottschlich, Dennis Loo, Jai Dhyani, Jonah Feldman, Ken Levin, M-E Stewart, Nathan Curtis, Phil Sandifer, Rachel Tanenhaus
  • Puzzle Editing: Avram Gottschlich, Ken Levin, Nathan Curtis
  • Programming: Kristen McNeely-Shaw, Kyle Keen
  • Script Writing: Jai Dhyani, Ken Levin, Nathan Curtis, Phil Sandifer
  • Voice of UNODOS: Nathan Curtis
  • Run-Time Volunteers: Avram Gottschlich, Diana Hsu, Kate Kuznetsova, Ken Levin, Kyle Keen, Max Wang, Nathan Curtis, Rachel Tanenhaus
We would also like to thank the Blue Shirt Cafe, for providing us with space for our headquarters, and Valve Corporation and Jonathan Coulton, for the inspiration for our theme and content.