The puzzle hunt will consist of some number of puzzles and metapuzzles.
There is no minimum or maximum team size, but for the best experience we recommend a team of 3-5 people.
You may not be part of multiple teams at once, and you cannot create multiple accounts.
When the puzzle hunt starts, the primary way to unlock new puzzles will be by solving puzzles and progressing through the hunt, although puzzles may also be unlocked over time.
Solving
Each answer is a string of letters A-Z. Lowercase letters will be changed into uppercase, and any other characters besides digits 0-9 will be stripped before checking for correctness.
It won't be necessary to look at the HTML source/Javascript/CSS on any webpages for any puzzle, but you're welcome to look anyway.
There is no guess limit to each puzzle. Teams will be limited to at most five guesses per minute across the entire hunt.
Scoring
Teams will be ranked by when they complete the hunt. Teams that do not complete the hunt will be ranked by number of points, with ties broken by time of the last solved puzzle.
For scoring, regular puzzles are worth 1 point, and metapuzzles are worth 3 points.
Hints
Partway through hunt, self-revealable hints will be released for each puzzle.
We plan to release hints on Monday, but reserve the right to change when they release depending on how the hunt goes.
Hints will be released to all teams at the same time, and we'll send an email when they go live.
Each puzzle will have two hints. The first is an early-stage hint that aims to help you get started. The second is a late-stage hint that aims to help you finish the puzzle.
There is no scoring penalty for reading or using hints.
If you've read the provided hints and need more help, you may email us at puzzlesaremagic@gmail.com, but we cannot promise a fast reply. Please include your team name and the puzzle you want hints on in your email.
Other
You may use any source of information, including the Internet and other people not actively participating in the hunt, as long as they aren't helping other teams.
You may not publicly stream a solve of our hunt when the hunt is live.
Please avoid spoiling the hunt online until the hunt has finished.
We reserve the right to disqualify any team for unsportsmanlike conduct.
We reserve the right to change any of these rules. If there's a big change, we'll announce it to all teams.
If you have any questions about these rules, or if you want to contact us for any reason, email
the hunt organizers (puzzlesaremagic@gmail.com) with "Puzzle Hunt" somewhere in the subject line and we'll try to get back to you soon.