Lockbox
GitHubI created the Lockbox puzzle for the 2024 Brown Puzzle Hunt. The puzzle was designed for the final round of the hunt, so it is meant to take more than a few minutes to solve (exact solve times will vary depending on the solver’s familiarity with certain puzzles).
As with all puzzles in a puzzle hunt, the “solution” to the puzzle is a word or phrase. In this case, the solution word is simply displayed on the screen when the interactive puzzle is solved.
To play the puzzle, you can click the “Ready to start !” text below and then interact using your keyboard (the puzzle is currently not playable on mobile devices). The puzzle is also available on itch.io and on the Brown Puzzle Hunt website.
The puzzle is written in Python and uses the Pygame library. The code is available on GitHub. Note that viewing the code will quickly reveal much of how the puzzle works.
Hint
Hover over the text below to reveal a hint:
This puzzle is based on a very well-known physical puzzle. In fact, that puzzle is the focus of another project of mine.
Solution
An explanation/solution/spoiler can be found at this page of the Brown Puzzle Hunt website.