The hunt starts at Singapore time (GMT +8) on Saturday, 9 July 2022 and ends at on Monday, 11 July 2022.
The hunt is open to teams of any size, located anywhere in the world -- but as it's relatively small and chill, competitive teams will probably find it more enjoyable with 4 or fewer members. Teams may register at any time until the hunt ends.
Puzzles will be released in two main rounds:
Round 1, comprising 8 puzzles and one metapuzzle, will be released at the start of the hunt.
Upon solving the Round 1 metapuzzle, teams will gain access to Round 2, comprising 10 puzzles and one metapuzzle.
Round 2 will also be released to all teams, regardless of progress, 36 hours before the end of the hunt.
Teams can gain access to the final puzzle only by solving the Round 2 metapuzzle.
All timings are GMT +8.
Hunt begins
When does it start for me?
All teams gain access to Round 2
First 2 hints made available
Another 2 hints made available
Hunt ends
Each answer is a string of letters (A-Z). Capitalisation is immaterial and any other characters (e.g. numerals, punctuation) will be stripped from the answer before it is checked.
When logged in to your team account, you will be able to submit guesses for each puzzle on its respective page.
Teams have 20 guesses for each puzzle. If you’ve legitimately used up your 20 guesses for a puzzle, you may contact us. We’ll decide whether to grant more guesses based on your team’s guesslog. Teams which appear to be randomly guessing thematic answers or trying to brute-force the answer will not be granted additional guesses.
In this year’s hunt, custom hints will be provided upon request, tailored to teams’ progress. After the first 24 hours of the hunt, teams will receive 2 hints that can be used on any puzzle. After another 24 hours, they will receive 2 more hints. (See Timeline.)
Teams are ranked in the first instance by the total number of puzzles solved. (Taking a hint does not affect your ranking; nor does completing the runaround.)
Teams that are tied on puzzles solved are then ranked by their last solve time.
Once solved, the final puzzle will direct teams to a physical location in Singapore to complete a runaround. (This does not affect a team's ranking.)
The first team to solve the runaround and submit a selfie at the location (represented by any number of actual team members) will win a smol ~mystery prize~, and will be featured in the epilogue of this puzzle hunt.
This does mean that only teams with at least one representative in Singapore will be able to win the prize. Nonetheless, teams are welcome to participate even if they have no representatives in Singapore.
Teams may use external resources such as the internet or other people, as long as these other people are not also taking part in the hunt.
Teams may not work together, receive help from or give help to other teams.
No person can be part of more than one team.
Obvious stuff: please don’t attempt to hack our website or otherwise cheat. :(
If you spot any errors or have any questions, whether before, during or after the hunt, please contact us at reddothunt.sg@gmail.com