Wrap-Up

And so concludes the 4th (and final) REDDOThunt!

_へ__(‾◡◝ )>

We were glad to have more than 319 teams spending the weekend with us. We hope you had as much fun solving the puzzles as we did watching your progress!

How did you find the hunt? Let us know your thoughts here.

You can also join us on our discord.


Hunt Stats

There were 2906 correct solves (plus another 8 for the runaround):

The full guesslog can be found here.

We answered 403 hints in 36 hours, with Janice single-handedly responding to nearly half of them!


Special Mentions

Congratulations to The C@r@line Syzygy for being the first to solve the Final Puzzle in a blistering 4 hours and 29 minutes! Congrats also to the other 85 teams who solved it 🎉

The ~mystery prize~ is a copy of local escape game kit Quest for the Merlion Eye, by Nomis Piy. It was awarded to ☊ MISCELLANEOUS SYMBOL SINGAPORE CIRCLE LINE for being the first team to complete the Runaround. (They were also the second team to solve the Final Puzzle, just 2 minutes (!!!!!) behind The C@r@line Syzygy.)

(۶•̀◡•́)۶

The 🔴 REDDOThunt Award


The C@r@line Syzygy

for their prodigious performance

(۶•̀◡•́)۶

The 🔴 REDDOTrun Award


☊ MISCELLANEOUS SYMBOL SINGAPORE CIRCLE LINE

for claiming the ~mystery prize~

Another 7 teams similarly braved Singapore’s hot and/or rainy weather to complete the Runaround:

We’d also like to hand out unofficial awards to teams which stood out during the hunt!

👉 The Fastest Fingers First Award 👈

for the first solve of the hunt


why do they call it oven when you of in the cold food of out hot eat the food

for solving To-do List in just 5.5 minutes!

🤯 The Panicking Chiongster Citation 🤯

for the last solve of the hunt


wawa

for solving Skydoku in the final minute of the hunt

🎯 The Sharpshooter Medal 🎯

for accurate answer submission


Internationally Observed Haliaeetus

for solving all 21 puzzles with an astounding 100% accuracy


Special mention:

🐆 Cheatahs 🐆 for solving 19 puzzles with 100% accuracy

🔥The Fresh From The Of In Feature🔥

for being fastest of out the gate


why do they call it oven when you of in the cold food of out hot eat the food

for 10 (!!!!!) first solves -- including Round 1’s Meta, 45 minutes into the hunt (!!!!!) and being first to solve all 21 puzzles
also for making us laugh every time we saw their team name appear

👌 The Okay Can Lah Participation Plaque 👌

for funniest guesses


  • Team Casuals for Capture the Flagration: PULLEYSTOOHARDDONTCARETORESEARCHTHEMTHERESTISFUNTHOUGH
  • Some other things that Paris Hilton might have said: STOPBEINGPOOR, BLESSYOU, FIRECROTCH
  • The many POWDERs for To-Do List ranged from the tasty, such as CHILLIPOWDER, COOKIEPOWDER, and CHEESEPOWDER, to less savoury options of CORPSEPOWDER and ZOMBIEPOWDER
  • Does being mistaken as an Among Us reference (with variations on AMONG US, CREWMATE, and IMPOSTOR) make the final image of Demo Jigsaw the truest sort of impostor? (To leanne best girl, who submitted NOBUTFORREALTHOLIKETHECOLORSMAKEITLOOKLIKEANIMPOSTER - we hear you.)
  • A couple of painfully close guesses for Manga (Big Red Dot and Toffee Meets Hegel): OLDWIVESANSWER
  • Alternative fashion choices for Finding the Demon included the traditional (ITWEARSRED, very popular), the mysterious (Scarlet Stippling Seekers thought perhaps ITWEARSACAPE or ITWEARSAMASK), and the unconventional: 1cool3me suggesting the bold choice that ITWEARSNADA, and ⩎ SUPPLEMENTAL MATHEMATICAL OPERATOR THE TITULAR TRAVELING PANTS offering a whole range, including ITWEARSDRAG, ITWEARSARUG, and ITWEARSAREDDOT.
  • Meanwhile, Travel Sized; Bought In-flight thought that perhaps ITNEEDSAFRIEND 🥺
  • Exotic Cruise of /r/PictureGame’s all-too-realistic explanation for rising temperatures in The Three Disciples: CLIMATECHANGE
  • Alternative fates for the peasants in The Three Disciples, which happened to be near-anagrams of THEYGOTDEMONETISED, including:
    • THEYDIDNTGOTOSEEME
    • THEGODSHIDTHEMONEY
    • NEEDEDTOGETMYSIGHT
    • THEYDIDNTGOTOSIMEI (quite right, they went west instead)
    • THEYRESIGNEDTODOOM
    • THEYGOTDEMONSERVED
    • THEYGOTREPOSSESSED
    • THEYGOTNATIONALISED
    • THEYTESTEDEMOJIGOD
  • ☊ MISCELLANEOUS SYMBOL SINGAPORE CIRCLE LINE’s plaintive cry in the living hell of Haw Par Villa, a few minutes before they solved Nostalgia Trip anyway: HELPUSITISSOHOTANDWEARESTUCK
  • Ex Cursion of /r/PictureGame’s confession of carnal desires: TRIPITAKAWITHTHESPIDERWOMENSTATUEGODIWISHTHATWASME

Hunt Thoughts

With travel tentatively resuming in many countries, a travel-themed Round 1 puzzle seemed apt. As is tradition for the REDDOThunt, solving Round 1 reveals the underlying puzzle theme -- this year, the popular 16th century Chinese novel Journey to the West.

We chose this theme not only because of the overarching travel idea, but also because we wanted to feature a theme from Chinese mythology -- something not common amongst puzzle hunts that originate from the United States or Australia. The novel also offers a cast of well-known characters around which we could base our Final Puzzle.

In constructing this year’s hunt, we took into account feedback from past editions.

Firstly, REDDOThunt has always been positioned as a “chill hunt” -- something of a filler between major hunts, and a gateway for new solvers to gain experience and build confidence for larger hunts. Participants of the 2020 hunt felt that the difficulty level had risen a fair bit; this year, we aimed for more accessible puzzles, while keeping a few challenging ones in the mix.

We also noted feedback that self-service hints (as in 2020) may not always address the needs of teams with varying stages of progress. We thus offered custom hints this year. We tried to stay timely, but we’ve always been a skeleton crew -- apologies if we kept you waiting! We also want to give special thanks to Oxford Karma Splicers and Pet The Catloe for some hint requests that made it all worthwhile (see below).

There was also a suggestion that punny Meta answers would be more satisfying. We thus made an effort to have such answers this year - we hope we amused you as much as we amused ourselves (whoops).

A note on scoring: While it’s now common for teams to be ranked by when they solved the final puzzle, we wanted to maintain our tradition (perhaps influenced by Australian hunts of old) of ranking by total points/puzzles solved. We’re glad that some (though not all, admittedly) survey respondents appreciated this approach.

For one thing, our hunt’s short timespan amplifies timezone differences; for another, we wanted to encourage continued puzzle-solving over a sprint to the finish (while still recognising the first finishers via the The 🔴 REDDOThunt Award and The 🔴 REDDOTrun Award).

This year’s hunt was made possible by our collaborators from Synod, who contributed two puzzles and provided invaluable test-solving support.


Runaround

With the Runaround in REDDOThunt 2020 unfortunately being canned due to the pandemic, we were excited to be able to reintroduce this element in 2022.

Given this year’s Journey to the West theme, we simply had to select the iconic Haw Par Villa as the location for the Runaround, as it is a theme park filled with statues and dioramas depicting Chinese mythology, including a section dedicated to Journey to the West. We’re glad that 9 teams headed down to try it (with a shout-out to Ex Cursion of /r/PictureGame) despite the scorching weather in Singapore this past weekend - that certainly gave the teams an immersive experience of being in hell!


Future of the Hunt

REDDOThunt began in 2017 as an entry-level hunt, aiming to be relatively approachable for teams -- particularly Singapore-based teams -- just starting on their puzzle hunt journey. Though it’s become less entry-level since, we’ve tried to stay accessible to new teams while still being interesting for experienced ones. Along the way, we’ve also aimed to include Asian themes that are less common in other hunts.

After four editions, REDDOThunt has come to an end, as the team is increasingly busy with real life commitments. In a way, our story concludes just like that of the protagonist in the Epilogue: at the close of this chapter, we thank you all for being part of this amazing journey, and for your support over the past 6 years.

We’re grateful for your participation, which has made the REDDOThunt a truly international one; and we hope the Singapore puzzle community continues to participate in local and overseas hunts, keeping the puzzle hunt spirit alive!


Lastly, stories from our solvers…

(from ​​Big Whoop)
A: do you think there's significance behind the left/right speaker thing in the recording?
B: i didn't hear it, wasn't using earphones
B: sounds possible
B: oh and the puzzle is called earphones!
B: 🤦‍♂️

(from 3muddycats)
“This kinda looks like the 5 stages of grief. WAIT, this IS the 5 stages of grief.” <proceeds to label it “knockoff 5 stages of grief>

Though Nutrimatic has become a crutch lifeline invaluable aid for many of us, we're glad that Substitute managed to introduce it to even more solvers -- such as PsychOut from Vehemence, who said: "I've got that Nutrimatic site bookmarked now!"

A member of Vehemence experiences what the setter of Gossipers also felt:
"I need to scrub my search history when this is all over." - LM (in reference to Gossipers)

(from BigRedDots)
During Fortune Cookie, before realizing what's going on:
- godzilla is scissors?
- if godzilla is scissors then so is t-rex...
- they all have hinges and sharp parts
- a chameleon's head is like a rock 🤔

V-sa Holders sums up the Final Puzzle:

...and from us

This most bardlike Earphones hint request from Oxford Karma Splicers made our day:

To shift, or how to shift, that is the question:
Whether 'tis nobler in this play of Shakespeare
To sling the letters of courageous Caesar,
By scene or act, in text transcribed from puzzles,
And by indexing mend them. To solve—to sleep,
No more; and hear a bleep, So may it end
The sound breaks and a thousand textual blocks
I thrash and stare through: Tis a termination
I found that we required. To sigh, to seek;
To seek! perchance to glean--ay, there's a code:
So shift by scene or act what sounds may come,
When we have shuffled past this verbal toil,
And give us laws—there's the request:
What makes normality of so long lines?
For who would dare to shift by scene or act,
The process's wrong, ...
The undiscovered answer from clues formed
this inquiry concerns, puzzles us still,
Ay, makes us gather here what skill we lack,
To supply to authors words we know not of.

As did this last-minute Fortune Cookies request from Pet The Catloe:

There once was a demon with cookies
Who lost to some REDDOT hunt rookies
We solved some of the clues
Couldn't put them to use
"Won't solve this in time" said the bookies

Credits
The Travel Agents
Adib Surani
Eunice Wong
Janice Heng
Sim Hong Jhun
Tan Chor Kiang
Zhao Yan
with
Diane Heaton
Michael Sylvia
Sara Goodchild

Additional Test-solving
Corey Plover

Website
Adib Surani
Aylwin Low
Zeyu Zhang