While I'm a fan of the ICFP, I do feel as if the questions are a bit too full of themselves (for lack of a better term).
While I'm sure they are trying to remove ambiguity, but the way they are couched and their length make them a lot less approachable than they should be. I feel like in about 1/10 the wording and narrative complexity they could create an equally interesting programming challenge.
The whole task was just formulated as "save Endo". A spec of Fuun DNA (a virtual machine), Endo's DNA and a two pictures were provided. That's about all contestants were told. Then, we had to discover Endo's DNA contained loads of fun things inside.
Oh, ICFPC'06 was incredibly cool, too, but I didn't participated at that time and only took the task years after that. Don't want to sound whining but other years are more conventional (a complex, but mostly well-defined task) so less fun in my opinion.
While I'm sure they are trying to remove ambiguity, but the way they are couched and their length make them a lot less approachable than they should be. I feel like in about 1/10 the wording and narrative complexity they could create an equally interesting programming challenge.