Solution to Enter the Perpendicular Universe

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Answer: TWO-D OR NOT TWO-D

by Chris Jones and Colin Lu

In this round, puzzles are presented as locations on a computer terminal of sorts, and the meta itself shows the “keyboard” of this terminal, which is a standard QWERTY keyboard layout, but with the letters all presented in seven-segment displays.

There are several hints at how to proceed here. The presentation of the keys is a little odd, and solvers may notice that some of the symbols are flips of each other (or themselves). Also, the distribution of letters in the answers is a little odd, and coincides with the letters on the keyboard that can be flipped. Additionally, the flavor text and storyline up until this point discusses going from “MIT” to “⊥IW”, which clues the idea of rotating by 180 degrees.

Each answer in this round, when flipped using the custom font, becomes another common word with a single extra letter. The answers are ordered by their puzzle’s position on the interface after everything has been rotated (as if turning the entire interface upside down).

Puzzle	Answer	Rotated	Word	Extra
Back School To	PLAYSETS	SLASHETD	SLASHED	T
MIT Confessions	TIMER	JAWIL	JAIL	W
Common Knowledge	HOUND	PUNOY	PUNY	O
Don't Let Me Down	SPOILED	PATIODS	PATIOS	D
Unmasked	EIDOLON	UOTOPIA	UTOPIA	O
✏️✉️➡️3️⃣5️⃣1️⃣➖6️⃣6️⃣6️⃣➖6️⃣6️⃣5️⃣5️⃣	EMOJI	IROWA	IOWA	R
Yes or No?	DUETS	SLANP	SLAP	N
For Better or For Worse	BOOTS	SLOOB	SLOB	O
Hockfield Court	SALTED	PALTES	PALES	T
Better Bridges	SASSILY	HTISSES	HISSES	T
Just Index	MERINO	OUIJAW	OUIJA	W
Hey, Can You Give Me a Hand With This Puzzle?	BOND	PUOB	PUB	O
Not Again!	LOOPY	HDOOT	HOOT	D

Reading the extra letters in order gives the answer to this puzzle, and the question to be settled before entering the virtual world: TWO-D OR NOT TWO-D?

Authors’ Notes

At some point fairly early on in brainstorming, one of our team members suggested to call the “alternate MIT” the ⊥IW. This gave a very natural idea for this introductory meta, to use flipping letters as a twist.

However, without additional context, it isn’t really clear how to flip most letters to make other letters, beyond a few clear cases (eg. W ↔ M), and there aren’t enough such letters to make reasonable words.

To make this work, Colin had the idea of styling the round as a computer terminal of sorts, and using the seven-segment displays to both indicate and clue the rotation mechanic.

The specifics of this puzzle went through several iterations, some also using the fact that letters can be made into numbers via rotation. We settled on this version, which seemed to be at an appropriate level of difficulty for the first meta of the hunt, and anyway allowed for much better answers than some of the more complicated versions.