3.13 Lunch puzzle

Order

3.09.01

Status

::POLISH::

Location

"Paine Memorial High School" -- actually Highlands Rec. Center, 1851 Lexington Ave. San Mateo, CA 94402.

The puzzle will be outside, on the basketball court.

GC PoC: Erik & Melissa

Parking: Outside, parking lot (no teams park there)

Notes: Reserved

Type

Optional Puzzle

Plot Setup

None required

Props

Whiteboard, rainbow colors of dry-erase markers, Ms. Pac-Man arcade game, Ms. Pac-Man cookies

Plot Point to Convey

None

Short Description

Doris the Lunch Lady will give a special prize to anyone who figures out what the Mystery Meat really is.

Open Time Period

When?

Staff Instructions

Your Role: Lab Assistant.

Handout Instructions: Do something.

Site Close Down: Clean up.

Other Instructions:

• Stay in character.
• Except ... if a team says "time out," break character and help them.

Detailed Description

When they get to lunch on Sunday, there's a whiteboard with the school lunch menu, written in several colors and covering all weekdays, weekends, a special, and beverage. It also says that Doris will give a prize to anyone who figures out what the Mystery Meat really is.

Puzzle Answer

ROADKILL

Puzzle Solution

Each item on the menu includes one of the "fruits" in Ms. Pac-Man. Those fruits are, in order of appearance in the game:

1. Cherries

2. Strawberry

3. Peach

4. Pretzel (yes, this counts as a "fruit")

5. Apple

6. Pear

7. Banana

The titles (Monday, Tuesday, Weekends, Liquids, etc.) are written in the colors of the rainbow. Taking the menu items in ROYGBIV order and indexing the "fruit number" into the title gives the answer: ROADKILL.

Lunch items

Menu item	Menu title	Color	Fruit index	Letter
Sloppy Joes... (pretzel)	Thursday	Red	4	R
Mac & cheese... (strawberry)	Monday	Orange	2	O
Tacos & beans... (pear)	Tuesday	Yellow	6	A
Cheese pizza... (banana)	Wednesday	Green	7	D
Assorted sandwiches... (pretzel)	Weekends	Blue	4	K
Fish sticks... (peach)	Friday	Indigo	3	I
Mystery Meat... (apple)	PMHS Lunch Special	Violet	5	L
Cherry Coke... (cherries)	Liquids	Violet	1	L

Credits

Erik Stuart

Manager

Erik

Hints

-The scrawled "Forgot to pac your lunch, Missy?" suggests a Ms. Pac-Man theme.

-Each item contains one Ms. Pac-Man "fruit". There is a Ms. Pac-Man game at the high school, which players can go play in order to figure out the orders of the fruit appearing.

- The word "Liquids" (instead of Beverages or Drinks), the colored titles, and the all-caps titles all suggest that the title words are important data.

- Combining the fruits as index with the titles, and ordering with the canonical ROYGBIV color order, gives an easy answer.

Response to Correct Answer

(Doris, in a sarcastic, scratchy voice): "So ya solved my frickin' puzzle. Whaddya want, a cookie? ... okay, here: have a cookie." She hands each player a cookie resembling Ms. Pac-Man.

To Do

Playtest version 2.

Other Notes

The ROM image is mspacmnf. It's a hacked ROM where Ms Pac-Man runs really fast!