A metapuzzle is a
puzzle comprised of (or using
information given from) answers of a given set of
puzzles.
For example, in the 2000 MIT Mystery Hunt, the round five puzzles (http://web.mit.edu/puzzle/www/00/set5/) yeilded the following words as their answers:
- TITHE
- DORADO
- FARADAYS
- RETRO
- SONIC BOOM
- DOUBLE DARE
- MIRTH
- LAKEFRONT VIEW
In accordance with normal hunt rules, no further explanation on how to solve the puzzle was required, but the hint of "
VON
TRAPP" was given anyway. With that hint, the logical jumps from
the Von Trapp family to
The Sound of Music to
musical scales could be made quite easily (provided that you know your
musicals of course :). Thus, when
rearranged according to the song
Do-Re-Mi from
The Sound of Music and the first two letters of the answer:
- DORADO
- RETRO
- MIRTH
- FARADAYS
- SONIC BOOM
- LAKEFRONT VIEW
- TITHE
- DOUBLE DARE
All that's left is to take the last two
letters from each word, and the solution is the
username:
password set of "
DOROTHY" and "
SOMEWHERE", which makes
perfect sense given that the
theme of that hunt was
The Wizard of Oz.
For more examples of this type of metapuzzle, see the MIT Mystery Hunt archives at (http://web.mit.edu/puzzle/www/hunthistory.html)
As for the "using information given from" part of the one line description, this practice is not a common as the type above, but it still occurs. For example: The Fool's Errand contains both a metapuzzle comprised of peices of a map that you acquire after solving each puzzle (one per puzzle). But it also has a metapuzzle based both off of some of the puzzle answers and a story that runs through the whole game, unlocked piece by piece.
On the far other end of the spectrum, using only information given after completing a puzzle, but not directly from the puzzle itself, the 2001 Microsoft Puzzle Hunt* sits. based on a game of Clue, none of the puzzle's answers were used to construct the metapuzzle. Upon sending in the answer for verification, as is protocol at most of these sorts of events, if the answer was indeed correct, the team received either a clue as to where they could find a piece of the metapuzzle or a piece of the metapuzzle itself. In the end, the winning teams figured out when who murdered who with what in what room, which revealed the location and combination of a safe containing the murder weapons: a dagger, a candlestick and something that I can't remember.
*As there is no node for Microsoft Puzzle Hunt yet (if you make one, please message me), please see Microsoft Puzzle Day for an overview of what it is.