How a face-customization puzzle at HackMIT went from clicking sliders by hand to reverse-engineering a hidden formula from 10,000 API calls.

Face Value looked simple at first glance: ten sliders (Face, Skin, Hair, Brows, Eyes, Nose, Mouth, Glasses, Mole, Accessory), each 0-9, controlling a cartoon avatar. A hidden model scored every configuration, and the goal was to find one it would fully accept:

Confidence ≥ 99.9%

Edit distance from the starter config ≤ 5 (only half the sliders could move)

Charm check: pass