Solution to Love at 150 km/h
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Answer: ARMIN ZOGGELER
by Josh Alman and Nathan Pinsker
Art by Joie Chang
Original music by Leiss and Mitchell Lee
When solving any puzzle, the solver should read and contemplate the first text which appears. In this case, this is the key to solving the puzzle.
First, we begin to play the dating sim. It has original art and music, to best bring out the deep emotions within. We notice immediately that the dialog box background resembles the shape of an elongated luge board. The world and the rest of Hunt melt away as we meet three vibrant characters: Snow, Gina, and Jurgen.
After the prologue, we're presented with an extremely difficult choice:
Who do you desire? Who should you think of as you fall asleep? How can you possibly limit yourself to just one? Little do you know, this seemingly innocuous choice has large repercussions: the fates will align so that you will meet that person in the future. In other words, this choice determines your "route", and the rest of your play session will be spent in the company of your chosen companion.
Each route starts much the same — you meet your chosen companion on a chance encounter, talk to them, and an opportunity presents itself to ask them on a date. You should do so — after all, you only have one chance to live life to the fullest. If you don't, the game ends immediately with nothing but regret as your prize.
But — horror of horrors — another choice, far more difficult than the last, presents itself! What activity should you do for your date? The possibilities seem endless, but you must pick one. Don't dwell on what could have been, enjoy the date for what it is!
At the end, your date will ask you a question. Unfortunately, you won't be able to answer it on your first play — the question will always be about a detail of your date's life that you weren't told about. You need to explore the other routes of your date. The question at the end will remain unanswerable until you've completed all three routes. Much like the sport of luge, you must first commit yourself fully to understanding your date before you can achieve greatness.
Only after completing all three routes for your chosen companion will they ask you a question which you can correctly answer:
- Snow asks what his favorite song is. The answer is YYZ, which we learn near the end of the restaurant date.
- Gina asks what her favorite flower is. The answer is lavender, which we learn on the hot spring date.
- Jurgen asks what one of his hobbies is. The answer is writing (specifically, writing fanfiction), which we learn on the restaurant date.
Once you do so, they'll trust you to share one of the most intimate experiences with them: doubles luging.
You'll be tasked with steering while you and your partner go down the luge track. You'll be asked to follow the course, and need to decide 10 times whether to turn left or right. Needless to say, we should lean in the direction that the course turns. But what should we do if we aren't familiar with the course?
The key insight is that each of these encounters takes place at a real-world location. If we can identify the location, then the sequence of turns we should make will follow. Note that explicit locations aren't mentioned in the puzzle at all, so our task is to infer where we are from activities and context clues. There aren't very many luge tracks in the world (tragically), so identifying the general area of the world likely suffices.
Below is a short list of context clues that we expect will be the more common ways to figure out the location where each route takes place. These aren't the only ways to identify the area; for example, some of the backgrounds hint at the area as well.
Snow (Calgary, Canada)
- The Royal Tyrrell Museum of Paleontology is one of the biggest attractions near Calgary
- Calgary is known for the exciting geology and paleontology of the surrounding area
- Denny's is located near the Calgary luge track and next to the closest hotel
- So is Richard's Dry Cleaning
- Calgary hosts the Honens International Piano Competition
- Snow mentions some Canadiana including poutine, the band Rush, and his toque
Gina (Nagano, Japan)
- Japan has many vending machines
- Nagano is a mountainous area, and the "hot spring" is an onsen, common in Japan
- Japan has flashy arcades with ping-pong
- Japan has very fast trains that service long distances
- The Nagano region is known for chestnuts and apples
Jurgen (Sigulda, Latvia)
- The restaurant serves Nordic food
- The amusement park is Tarzans Sigulda Adventure Park, the largest such park in the Baltics
- Sigulda is well-known for its walking sticks
- Sigulda's churches and castles are popular tourist destinations
Once we've identified the luge track, we simply input the first 10 turns of the doubles course for the corresponding run. In Nagano specifically, the doubles' start isn't mentioned, but Gina mentions we should start at the womens' start. For players who haven't memorized the layout of the world's luge tracks, they may need to look some information up (for instance, by visiting this site, or looking up video of the tracks on YouTube). For the more ambiguous turns of Nagano's track, the checker accepts multiple inputs.
Solution: LLRLLLRLRL
Solutions: LRRLRLRLRR, LRRLRLRRRR, LRRLRLRRRL
Solution: LRLRLRRLLR
After all your work, you arrive at the ultimate experience. The finale provides a breathtaking encounter with more original art and a banger credits track, to which we cannot do justice with only text. It finally gives you the answer you seek: two-time Olympic champion, and man known to friends and foes alike as Il Cannibale, ARMIN ZOGGELER.