Welcome to the first annual B&B puzzle hunt! This year’s theme takes its inspiration from the mad world of Alice in Wonderland. After all, we’re all mad here!

Use the clues provided to solve the riddle and claim the prize! If there are multiple correct answers the winner will be selected at random. If there are no correct answers the person who comes closest may be awarded the prize, so send detailed answer explanations. The solution will be announced in the new year.

PIME in Wonderland is a hand crafted, hand painted puzzle created by Cristian Poliziani from Italy. Cristian is a civil engineer with a love for mathematics and logic games who is completing his PhD in transportation engineering at the University of Bologna.

The story of his PIME series began with a common dilemma for collectors – where to put all the puzzles? Why not hang this one on your wall? With that in mind, Cristian set out to create a MEchanical PIcture worthy of framing, a truly collectible piece of artwork for play and display. The five picture pieces move and interact with each other in an elegant, challenging and logical fashion which includes a few aha moments before the central square piece can be removed, the goal of the puzzle.

Cristian spent a year designing the puzzle and perfecting a technique for the acrylic painting on the surface. He created a limited series of 30 paintings, including the Alice in Wonderland themed piece which has engravings from the original book on the back along with details of this special edition.

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All puzzle photos can be identified from photos within the blog

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Additional clues and solution components can be found in the same blog posts as the corresponding photos

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the sequence is not random, there are clues in the blog posts

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In the story, Alice makes note of both ends and of being put all together

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Each photo corresponds to a specific blog post about that puzzle - in addition to identifying the puzzle, you may notice something odd about these posts at one end … and don’t forget the other end

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Alice seems to have gotten her “booze” out of sequence … perhaps there is some way to understand the sequence from the cocktail section of each blog post …

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sequence is italicized for a reason

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sequences are typically denoted by numbers

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Why is a raven like a writing desk?

First of all, the proper solution to imbibe while solving this puzzle hunt would be one of the many Jabberwock cocktail variations I created to pair with the puzzles in the Lewis Carroll Puzzle Project.

As for the actual solution to the puzzle hunt:

As with most of these types of challenges, the first step was to identify all of the puzzles found in the Alice in Wonderland cocktail party illustration (the original illustration can be found in Through the Cocktail Glass). All of these puzzle photos were taken directly from this blog (this was mentioned in one of the available hints, and also hinted at in the story which mentions that there were only boxes and booze laid out on the table), and searching for them in this way to help identify them would have revealed something interesting about the blog posts where they are found. There is a single letter notable at the end of each post, quite conspicuous. The italicized hints from the Mad Hatter’s Tea Party story that introduces the challenge suggest that both ends be put all together. A single letter at the very end of the post might suggest using the very first letter as well, if one is looking for both ends. The first letter of each post is also the first letter of each included puzzle.

But what about the proper sequence for all the letter pairs? There is a subtle hint in the story about the booze being out of sequence, which is meant to direct one to look at the booze section of each of those blog posts, where careful scrutiny would reveal an italicized word related to a number in some way. This turned out to be the most challenging aspect, perhaps too subtle and hard to deduce without using the provided hints. If the numerical clues are discovered and used properly, one will find the following result:

1. IA Ixia Box

2. MT Magic Hat

3. HE Hales Cabinet Lock 1

4. SU Super-Cubi

5. MO Moulin Rouge

6. FT Flatliner Deluxe

7. HE How? Box

8. SQ Saifu Box

9. UA Ursa Major

10. RE Rocket

11. SO See a star and think

12. FT Flaskolation

13. HE Hemlis Box

14. FI Father William

15. RS Roll Box

16. TS Tinker Box

17. EV EWE EFO

18. EN Euklid for Nick

19. PR Pyramid

20. IM In a Cage

21. ES Eat Me

Putting these letter pairs all together reveals the final riddle:

I am the sum of the squares of the first seven primes

The answer to this mathematical riddle is the number 666, and the box in question is the Stickman No 7, also known as the “Beast” box, which actually happens to be the one Stickman box I am still missing from my collection, the box I am looking for!

Congratulations and mentions are in order for a few people who braved this challenge and wasted a few hours of their time on it. First prize and the special edition Alice in Wonderland themed PIME puzzle go to Nick Baxter, who first solved the puzzle with essentially no hints after a few days. I learned a lot about crafting a picture puzzle hunt of this type and will use Nick’s comments after the solve to improve the challenge next year and make it more accessible and solvable. Second place and high praise also go to William Ja, who also solved the puzzle with no hints (and no complaining about it …) but simply did not have time to sit down with it until more recently. William proved that Nick was right when he said this was a very nice puzzle hunt created for about two people. Lesson learned! Finally third place goes to Amy Johnson, who was able to solve the puzzle with a few nudges but mostly on her own. Bill and Amy will also be receiving a nice prize for their successful efforts. Honorable mention goes to Tanner Reyes, for the most impulsive wrong answers in a row! I want to thank all the participants who gave it a shot this year and sent me comments or questions. I had fun creating the challenge and it was gratifying to see so many people give it a try. Will next year see a much more approachable challenge? One can only wonder. Cheers!