Kominers’s Conundrums: A ‘Home Alone’ Caper With 2020 Traps
A holiday classic inspires the most labyrinthine puzzle of the year.
A modern rendition of “Home Alone.”
Photographer: Time Life Pictures/Getty Images
“Home Alone” is a holiday classic, but also a bit dated. Falling irons and icy steps? With the latest technology and all the great ideas on YouTube, today’s kids could find far more clever ways to keep robbers away from their advanced algorithms, educational robots and innovation sessions.
This week’s Conundrum imagines such a modern rendition. Seven fictional thieves have attempted to infiltrate our hero’s house. Inevitably, they got tangled up in a series of traps. Descriptions of the traps, along with a schematic diagram of the rooms are given below. Your first task is to figure out what the traps were, and where each one was located. (The blanks and numbers in parentheses together indicate how many letters each trap has in its name, as well as where that name fits into the clue.)