Format

• Huntinality starts on Saturday, May 29, 2021 at 10:00 AM PDT and ends on Sunday, June 06, 2021 at 07:00 PM PDT, at which point puzzle solutions will be available. However, we will leave most of the website (including the answer checker) running so teams can still submit answers and go through the hunt at their own pace.
• Teams have a maximum size of 6. You may not create multiple accounts or be on multiple teams.
• A few puzzles will be available at the start, and more puzzles will be unlocked as you solve them. In total, there are about 20 puzzles in the hunt.
• There will be 2 tracks: Expert and Casual.
• The puzzle content will remain largely the same across the two tracks, but may differ slightly (e.g. certain keywords may be highlighted for the casual track).
• You may switch tracks in either direction before the hunt begins. After the hunt has begun, you may only switch from Expert to Casual (and not the other way).

Ranking

• Besides pride and joy, there are no prizes for finishing first (or second, or last…)
• For both tracks, there will be symbols indicating whether a given team has finished a certain round of the hunt.
• Expert track teams that complete the hunt will be ranked by the time at which they finish the final metapuzzle. Teams that do not complete the hunt will be ranked by number of puzzles solved and tie-broken by earliest last solve time.
• Casual teams will not be ranked - they will be ordered alphanumerically.

Solving

• Each answer is a string of letters A-Z or numbers 0-9. Lowercase letters will be changed into uppercase, and any other non-alphanumeric characters will be stripped before checking for correctness.
• You have a budget of 20 total incorrect guesses for each puzzle before you are locked out of guesses.
• There will be cases where partial answers will yield an automatic response. These do not count against the budget.
• If you run out of guesses, you can email us and request more guesses. However, we reserve the right to deny your request if it looks like your team was making wild guesses unsupported by your actual solve state.

Hints

• Freeform hint responses will be available during the hunt.
• For expert teams, hint credit will accrue over time. The first 2 hint credits will be granted 24 hours after the hunt begins. Teams will then receive an additional 2 hint credits every 12 hours. You may ask for a hint on any puzzle that your team has had unlocked for at least 1 hour.
• Casual teams will have unlimited hint credit, and hints will be available at all times.
• When requesting a hint, teams should provide as much detail as possible about what they have tried. Someone from the organizing team will respond with a hint to nudge you toward the next step(s).
• We aim to respond to hints within 30 minutes until 10 PM PT on Monday, May 31. After that, you can still request hints until the end of the hunt, but our turnaround time will be closer to a few hours due to work / other obligations. Note that most of our hinters are on the west coast (PT), so expect delays overnight.
• After the hunt, you can always feel free to email us at contact@huntinality.com with any questions, and we will respond when we see it.

Other

• You are highly encouraged to use external resources (e.g. web search, books, calculators, your dear Aunt Sally, etc.) during the hunt.
• While the hunt is going on, do not post about the content of the hunt on any public platform (e.g. Facebook, Reddit, Twitter, skywriting, etc); we don’t want you to spoil the experience for other participants. Feel free to post about the hunt in general (e.g. “I love Huntinality. #hype”) or wait until after the hunt is over.
• We reserve the right to disqualify any team for unsportsmanlike conduct. This includes trying to hack the hunt website or cheating in any other way. It is not necessary or recommended to look at website source code or decompile any source code.
• 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 contact@huntinality.com. We will get back to you as soon as we can.

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.

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 DP Puzzle Hunt, Puzzle Potluck, REDDOThunt, UMD Puzzlehunt, Teammate Hunt, or Galactic Puzzle Hunt.

For teams puzzling together virtually, we recommend using tools to communicate and collaborate, such as Discord and Drive.

Who is hosting this hunt?

We are Cardinality, a scrappy band of degenerate puzzlers. Cardinality began as a puzzle hunt team at Stanford circa 2010, mostly competing in smaller hunts. In recent years, our full team (e.g., for MIT Mystery Hunt) has expanded to a large group of friends and friends-of-friends spanning both coasts. While we have been very involved in the solving part of the community, this is our first foray into the writing side of things.

How long / how hard is the hunt?

For those who are familiar with the above list of online puzzle hunts, we expect the difficulty and length of the hunt to be between Puzzle Potluck 3 and UMD Puzzlehunt. We are aiming for top teams to finish within the first day and most experienced teams to finish within the extended Memorial Day weekend.

How accessibility-friendly is this hunt?

There are puzzles that involve colors, images, sounds, and fast page navigation. If any of these cause an issue for your team, please do reach out to us at contact@huntinality.com so we can figure out a workaround and try to make the hunt as enjoyable for you as possible.

Is knowledge of Waluigi and/or video games required for this hunt?

It is not necessary to know anything about video games before starting the hunt. Any video game-specific information you may need during a puzzle will be clued and easily searchable.

Your website looks really [nice / functional / purple]. How did you make it?

Our website is based on GPH-site. We have forked their repository, refactored some stuff, and added our own styling.

This hunt pulls some images and characters from various corners of the internet. We do not claim to have invented them. (Please don't sue us!)

What browsers are supported?

We recommend the latest versions of Chrome and Firefox when using our website.

I think there’s a mistake in this puzzle!

Please describe the error in an email to contact@huntinality.com and we’ll take a look. If there is a mistake, we will post an errata on the Updates page and send an email out to all teams.

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

Here are some general puzzle tips that might be useful:

• 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...

Once hints are available, you can also use them to get a nudge in the right direction.

I have a question/comment that hasn't been addressed!

Contact us at contact@huntinality.com. Please include any relevant info that will help us help you, like your team name.