Matt & Emma's

From the title of the puzzle and the first few images, we might deduce that this puzzle spoofs on “Matt & Emma” Teammate Hunt names. The past few hunts, Matt & Emma’s Birthday Bash, Matt & Emma’s Carnival Conundrum, and this hunt, Matt & Emma’s Deep-space Disaster, are all two-word alliterative phrases. We can assume that the remaining images clue future hunts that might be (at least up to “T”).

Each image clues a two word alliterative phrase, where B, C, and D serve as the break in for (past or present) canonical hunt names. Furthermore, each color of wires connects names within a certain category. These categories are:

• Red: A substring of the hunt name matches a word from a book title in A Series of Unfortunate Events.
• Yellow: A substring of the hunt name is a word from the NATO alphabet.
• Green: A substring of the hunt name is a five letter palindrome.
• Blue: A substring of the hunt name is the name of a corporation.

Each of these categories is also clued by one of four fake hunt names that are especially marked with a lightbulb in the puzzle (beginning with the letters H, I, N, and T). The full table with the hunt names and their categories is below:

Image	Hunt Name	Notes
	ALPHABETICAL ACADEMY	ASoUE book: The Austere Academy
	BIRTHDAY BASH
	CARNIVAL CONUNDRUM	ASoUE book: The Carnivorous Carnival
	DEEP-SPACE DISASTER
	ECHOING EGGSHELL
	FRANCISCO FOLKLORE	Image of San Francisco overlaid on the Folklore album cover by Taylor Swift
	GOLFER’S GRIMOIRE	ASoUE book: The Grim Grotto
	HAMAHIGA’S HEAD	Category for the GREEN connections. Hamahiga is an island in Japan. It is the only word we found that begins with H and has a palindrome in it.
	INDUSTRIES INC.	Category for the BLUE connections
	JENGA JAGUARS
	KAYAKING KOALAS
	LAUREATE’S LAUGHTER
	METALLIC MILLIONS	ASoUE book: The Miserable Mill
	NATIONS’ NOTATION	Category for the YELLOW connections
	OUROBOROS OSCAR
	PENULTIMATE PINEAPPLE	ASoUE book: The Penultimate Peril
	QUEBEC QUEST
	ROOMBA’S REIGN	ASoUE book: The Reptile Room
	SIERRA STONEHENGE
	THIRTEEN TITLES	Category for the RED connections

After solving the fake hunt names and determining the categories, we need to figure out the missing A* A* hunt name that fits all the criteria. To start, we know that the phrase must contain both ALPHA (from NATO) and either the substring “AUSTERE” or “ACADEMY” (from ASoUE). We can guess that the corporation is likely ALPHABET. This leaves a 5-letter palindrome. By searching for words with the substring ALPHABET, we can find ALPHABETICAL, which gives us exactly the letters CAL + AC to give us our palindrome.

Thus, in a parallel universe, we might be gifted with Matt & Emma’s ALPHABETICAL ACADEMY.

Authors' Notes

Oddly enough, both authors came up with the idea of spoofing Matt & Emma hunt names independently, which we took as a sign from the universe that this puzzle should exist.

Unfortunately the constraint of needing an actual puzzle mechanic meant that some of the names got weird, so we decided to cut it off at T. Otherwise, in some timeline we might have a hunt with the name Matt & Emma’s Zebra Zarathustra (satisfies Blue and Green categories).

In a perfect world, we would have liked each of the canonical hunt names to contribute to at least one mechanic. This was true in a previous draft of the puzzle, but the mechanics were tweaked to make the puzzle easier. In addition, the name of this hunt was renamed after the puzzle was written, and we were unable to retrofit the mechanics to “Deep-space Disaster”.

Obligatory disclaimer: this puzzle in no way promises hunts with these names in our future. Canonically, they occur in parallel timelines. Maybe we will connect with that timeline, or maybe we won’t.