The puzzlehunt starts on and ends on , at which point puzzle solutions will be available. The site will still be open until Nov. 15, 2024, 8 p.m..
Teams have a maximum size of 6, but due to the hunt’s small size we recommend a team size of 4. If you’d like to include additional inexperienced puzzlers on your team, email us at team@vehemhunt.com and we’ll get back to you!
You may not create multiple accounts or be on multiple teams.
A few puzzles will be available at the start, and new puzzles are unlocked by solving puzzles. There are no timed unlocks.
Teams that complete the hunt will be ranked by the time at which they finish. Teams that do not complete the hunt will be ranked by number of puzzles solved and tie-broken by earliest last solve time.
The answer to no puzzles in the hunt is FAIR PLAY.
Solving
Every answer is a string of letters A-Z. Lowercase letters will be changed to uppercase, and any other characters will be stripped before checking for correctness.
You will have 20 total guesses for most puzzles, though this limit will be higher for some. If you genuinely run out of guesses and need more, email us! However, we won’t grant your request if we see you were, for example, brute forcing 10 letter words or guessing random thematic musical characters.
Some puzzles will have intermediate answer checking, meaning you can enter a subpuzzle answer or cluephrase into the answer checker for confirmation. Not every step will necessarily be checkable. Puzzles with this feature will be noted accordingly. Correct intermediate answer submissions will not be counted towards the guess limit.
Hints (Cue Cards)
Teams will begin the hunt with one Cue Card (hints), and will receive an additional Cue Card every 12 hours.
You can “check your cue cards” (use a hint) to get help on a puzzle. This can be something like a nudge in the right direction (i.e. you give us your progress on the puzzle and we’ll try to get you unstuck) or an answer to a question (e.g. "Which answers to these crossword clues are wrong?").
If the hint you receive isn’t helpful, you are welcome to follow up to ask for additional information or clarification. This doesn't use an extra Cue Card. We will try our best to help you out!
You may only use one Cue Card at a time (the pockets on your costume are very small).
If you’re out of Cue Cards and aren’t having fun, please email us at team@vehemhunt.com! Our biggest priority is creating a fun experience for everyone!
Other
You may use any external sources, including other people so long as they aren’t actively helping other teams or participating in the hunt.
Please avoid spoiling the hunt online until the hunt has finished. This includes streaming the hunt.
You are welcome to look at the source code on the site or the puzzles. It won’t help you, but you can do it anyway if you’d like.
Please do not write code that interacts with the site. It won’t be necessary.
We reserve the right to disqualify teams for unsportsmanlike conduct.
We reserve the right to change any of these rules. If there’s a big change, we’ll announce it to everyone.
If you have questions about any of these rules, or just want to say hi, email us at team@vehemhunt.com. We’ll get back to you as soon as we can!