Shortcuts

In this puzzle, we are presented with scratch work from several minipuzzles, each thematically named after some type of shortcut or method for quickly going from point A to point B. As we do not have the original puzzles, it is difficult to solve any of these further. However, there is some initial progress that can be made.

We can first notice that the starting cell (top left) of each window is different per puzzle. Putting the puzzles in order on the “main” tab (which is alpha order), we get the clue ROW AS IDX, which we can use as an index into the missing word for that puzzle:

Looking closer at the individual puzzles:

• In Xing, it is possible to find HERECOMESTHESUN in the lower-left. Subsequently, we can find other tracks from Abbey Road (except one), and going in the natural (track listing) order, this spells out SCRABBLE.
• In Flyover, we can index into the states and the letters GWEHT looks similar to an anagram of WEIGHT, with the clue for I missing.
• In the “main’ tab listing the puzzles, all (but one) of the puzzles are “Stuck on sort”

After making half-progress of enough of these pieces, we notice:

• The answer to each puzzle is a single word with a letter missing.
• All of the puzzles can be solved, if only we knew how to sort the entries in the puzzle.
• Each puzzle has an entry marked with “?”

The final observation is to realize that the answer to each puzzle clues the sort order for another one. This forms a chain. Furthermore, it is possible to backsolve each of the minipuzzles to find the missing word or clue in the list, which we can now index into.

Finally, there is an unknown puzzle in the tab that we “lost,” which corresponds to the BASE SET puzzle. The indexed phrase is also incomplete, yielding THIRTYTW?. We can guess that the ??? puzzle sorted by BASE SET would give us O. Base Set refers to the first TCG expansion for Pokemon, and the 32nd card in that set is KADABRA.

Authors' Notes

This puzzle was inspired by the tendency for solvers to “cheese” puzzles by skipping steps, specifically the sort order. All of the minipuzzles were designed so that they were solvable without knowing the sort order (some programming may be required).

In an earlier draft, the chain formed a cycle, where the missing set was the elements, the sort order it needed to clue was LENGTH, and the letter it needed to extract was H. This would have yielded a unique solution of HYDROGEN, even though none of the puzzle or other words was visible.

Appendix: Solutions to Individual Puzzles

Bridge

Each given number in the puzzle refers to a course at MIT. Applying the sort clue ENROLLMENT, we get that the bullet points on the right should correspond to the 2022-2023 undergraduate (clued by UG) populations of the different courses. We notice that we have all top 9 most popular courses except for the 6th, so our missing clue is TWENTY, which will be the last number on the left. After matching the courses to their corresponding populations, the intersected letters in reading order spell ABBEY ROAD, this puzzle's answer.

Without knowing the sort order, we can try all nine-letter answers with a query like this one, assuming our answer will be in reading order.

Crosscut

The "Solution" words are given in alphabetical order. Applying the sort clue SCRABBLE and aligning the words with the "Given" words, we see that exactly one letter is shared between them. In addition, each word in the notes can be paired with a solution word.

This gives us the answer BASE SET. To find the missing word, we use that it must be six letters long, mean 'causes', have an 'e' in the 3rd position, and have a scrabble score of 13. To meet the first 3 conditions, we can use a query like this one, then use the final conditional of scrabble score to get WREAKS.

Without the sort order, we'd like to try all the different combinations while making sure that we don't allow false positives. To do this, we can create a table of all of the possible matching letters and make sure that we use exactly one letter per row and one letter per column.

Flyover

Using the sort LENGTH (sorting the states by their word lengths) and using their associated numbers as indices, we get WE?GHT, giving us the final answer WEIGHT. The missing state must then be six letters long and have an 'I' in the 6th position, which must be HAWAII

Without the sort order, we can try all the different combinations with a query like this one.

Mountain Pass

Taking the first letters of the parks, we get EGHLT, which gives the unique answer LENGTH when a letter is added and then the word is anagrammed. With this, we know we are looking for a national park with first letter 'N', which uniquely gives us the missing answer "NORTH CASCADES"

Smash Through A Wall

Using the sort WEIGHT, we put the characters into the grid in reading order. We know that our missing character is five characters long to complete the grid, and must have a weight that is unique from all of our current characters. This, along with the requirement of spelling out a valid answer, lets us narrow down the missing character to SONIC, with the final phrase reading ANSWER IS DISTANCE.

Without knowing the sort, we can guess that the beginning of the cluephrase is "ANSWER IS", letting us fill out about half of the grid. After that, we can try the rest of the characters in random order to get the final answer. Once we have DISTANCE, the only missing character with five letters in their name and 'N' as the 3rd character is SONIC.

Sprint

Using the sort MEDALS, we sort the olympians by their total medal count. The only olympian with a medal count we don't already have and ten total letters in their name is TAKASHI ONO, our missing clue (using the Wikipedia list of multiple Olympic medalists). Now knowing which olympians go to which white/black dot clues, we can solve the rest of the puzzle as a mastermind, where the eight olympians all give information about one word. This gives us the final answer ENROLLMENT.

Without knowing the sort order, it would still be feasible to try all possible orderings and all possible remaining multiple Olympic medalists with ten letters in their name.

Wormholes

In this puzzle we have a list of asteroids in alphabetical order and a list of indices, presumably in the correct reading order. Sorting the asteroids by their DISTANCE (from the sun), we then know which indices go to which asteroid, giving us the final answer MEDALS. Our missing answer must have 5th letter E (since Lachesis is farthest away it must give the S), and be between Metis and Daphne, which is uniquely BAMBERGA

Without the sort order, we can still try all 720 different possibilities to get the answer MEDALS.

Xing

The word-search style grid contains Abbey Road songs in the shape of letters, with HERE COMES THE SUN being the easiest break-in.

Knowing the sort order ABBEY ROAD, we can order the songs by their track # and read the answer SCRAB?LE, giving us SCRABBLE, with the song I WANT YOU missing. Despite the order being guessable after the songs are found, the answer SCRABBLE still stands out as the best choice.