Spirit of the hunt#
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Do not interact with the website in ways that are clearly unintended. For example, there will be no need to look at the source code, or to try to find the answers to the puzzles without solving the puzzles themselves.
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You may not ask a large language model (LLM) or other generative artificial intelligence (GenAI) to solve a puzzle or a significant part of one. Treat this like our previous rule about not looking at source code — it bypasses our intended solving experience and goes against the spirit of the hunt. More limited uses, such as doing research into a topic you’re unfamiliar with, or interpreting an individual crossword clue you’re stuck on, are left to your discretion. We urge you to treat LLMs as tools and to use them only to the extent that they make the hunt more enjoyable for you. If you’re truly stuck, consider our hint system where you can get help from the human authors of the puzzles.
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Other than that, teams may use any references or resources at their disposal, including their smartphones, the internet, and any oracles they may know.
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Each team must work independently of other teams.
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The Key Clues Enigmatologists reserve the right to disqualify teams who are in violation of any rule, or those that abuse the competition in any way.
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If you’re ever unsure if something is within the spirit of the hunt, or otherwise have questions or comments, please reach out to us at keyclueschallenge@uwaterloo.ca.
Dates#
| When | What |
|---|---|
| Kickoff party (time and location TBA) | |
| First batch of puzzles released | |
| Second batch of puzzles released | |
| Third batch of puzzles released | |
| Fourth batch of puzzles released | |
| Fifth batch of puzzles, and the meta, released. | |
| Hunt ends | |
| Wrap-up party (time and location TBA) |
Registration#
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Registration is open to teams of 3 to 6 people.
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At least half of each team must consist of members of the University of Waterloo or Perimeter Institute communities. This includes students, staff, faculty, postdocs, and alumni. Please register with your “@uwaterloo.ca” or “@pitp.ca” e-mail address.
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Teams may register at any time until the competition closes on .
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Participants may be a member of no more than one team.
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In order to win the grand prize, at least one member of your team will need to be on the University of Waterloo campus.
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Participants must join a team to view or access puzzles.
Puzzles and hints#
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The hunt will consist of 20 puzzles and a meta puzzle. Puzzles will be released in batches of 4, with the meta puzzle releasing at the same time as Friday’s batch.
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Answers will be words or short phrases, consisting only of alphanumerical characters.
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Answers should be submitted in the appropriate puzzle’s answer checker page.
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Teams have 20 guesses available for each puzzle. If you run out of guesses for a puzzle and you feel you have a legitimate reason, you can contact us. We will consider your case, and if we agree with you, more guesses may be provided.
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Hints for a puzzle become available 24 hours after its release. You will have three hint tokens available for each puzzle. When using a hint token, please be as specific as possible with what progress you have made in the puzzle so far, and where you are stuck.
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We will respond to your hint requests within 4 hours during the day, and within 12 hours if the request comes at night.
Scoring#
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For each successful puzzle solved, teams will receive points. Once a correct answer has been submitted, teams cannot receive any more points for that puzzle.
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Each puzzle is worth 1 point, regardless of the number of hints used to solve it.
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Teams are ranked on the leaderboard by their cumulative point score. The leaderboard can then be ranked by either average solve time, time of most recent solve, or number of hints used.
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If a puzzle requires an in-person presence to solve, and it is released on a snow day, it gains the heightened status of a “snow day puzzle.” For the purposes of calculating your team’s average solve time, snow day puzzles will be disregarded.
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The grand-prize-winning team will be the first team to enter the correct answer into the meta puzzle answer checker. This answer will be found in an object somewhere on campus, the location of which will be revealed by solving the meta puzzle.
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The grand-prize-winning team will also have their names engraved on the Enigma Cup.
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Finishing on top of the leaderboard does not mean a team has won the grand prize, but it does mean that team can feel smug and superior.