FAQs

What is a puzzlehunt? How do I solve these puzzles?

If you’ve never heard of puzzlehunts before, here’s a very brief summary: in a typical puzzle, you receive some information and have to extract an answer out of it, which is always an English word or phrase (capitalization, spaces do not matter). Puzzles can come in many different forms; the only real commonality is that you usually receive no direct instructions, so it’s up to you to figure out how to make sense of the information you’re given.

If you are new to puzzles and are interested in seeing some examples, or if you’re looking for some practice, we recommend looking at puzzles from other online hunts such as Galactic Puzzle Hunt, REDDOThunt, Puzzle Potluck, or the Caltech Puzzle Hunt.

How do I win?

When you begin the hunt, you will only have a few puzzles unlocked. As you solve more, more puzzles will be unlocked, until you unlock the meta puzzle. Solving the meta puzzle means that a team has completed the hunt!

The meta puzzle will use the answers of all of the previous puzzles in its solution, but you are not required to solve all of the previous puzzles to complete the hunt.

Once a team solves the meta puzzle, they will be led on a short treasure hunt on the EMU campus to claim their prize. Regardless of finish time, only the first team to finish the treasure hunt will get the cash prize. However, any team that finishes the hunt will still receive a smaller prize!

Do I have to do this all in one sitting?

Nope! You have 2 weeks to finish, at which point the hunt will end and the answers will be released. We estimate that the first team should finish within 1-2 days, but you can take as long as you like to finish, as long as you are done before the two week end of the hunt.

Do I have to be an EMU student to participate?

Technically, nothing is stopping you from signing up. However we would like every team to have at least 1 current EMU student.

Do I have to be on the EMU campus to compete/win?

No, you don’t! Even if you are not on campus, you can still win by being the first team to complete the final puzzle. However, you must have at least one member on campus to claim the prize.

I think there’s a mistake in this puzzle!

Please describe the error in an email to emupuzzlehunt@gmail.com and we’ll try to correct it.

I’m stuck on a puzzle. What should I do?

Here are some general puzzle tips that might be useful:

• Make a spreadsheet of everything you know and share it with your teammates, so that they can provide their own ideas!
• Thoroughly check the work that you’ve already done. Fixing a small mistake or incorrect assumption can greatly help with getting unstuck.
• Get fresh eyes on the puzzle, or conversely, take a break and look at something else.
• Consider what information you haven’t used yet.
• It can be useful to put everything you have into your favorite search engine.
• Have you tried...

Remember that after hints are released, you can also use them to get a nudge in the right direction.

I have a question that’s not on this list!

Contact us at emupuzzlehunt@gmail.com and we’ll do our best to answer it.