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 almost always an English word or phrase. 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. You can read a longer introduction to puzzlehunts here.

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 or Teammate Hunt.

I think there’s a mistake in this puzzle!

Please report any erratas you spot, even if it is a minor one, or if you have already/still managed to solve the puzzle. You can DM one of us in Discord to check. Or you can describe what you think is the error in an email to puzzlesmiths@sgpuzzlehunt.com.

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

Here are some general puzzle tips that might be useful:

• Talk through the puzzle with other team members who had not worked on it, for additional fresh eyes and perspectives.
• Check together if the info transcribed from the puzzle pdf to your working spreadsheet is complete and accurate. Double check the working to see if there are errors or typos.
• Make sure any given instructions have been followed, and consider what given information you haven't used yet. This could include any images and flavortext (in italics) hints in the puzzle pdf. Meta solutions also use the puzzle answers from its round.
• 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 puzzlesmiths@sgpuzzlehunt.com and we’ll do our best to answer it.