Rules

• Teams may use any references or resources at their disposal, including their smartphones, the internet, and any oracles they may know.
• Each team must work independently of other teams.
• The Key Clues team reserves the right to disqualify teams who are in violation of any rule, or those that abuse the competition in any way.

Dates

All dates are in the year 2025.

• 20/01 - kickoff event at the DC Fishbowl; there will be a sneak peek at two of the puzzles!
• 27/01 11:30 - Batch 1 of puzzles released.
• 28/01 11:30 - Batch 2 of puzzles released.
• 29/01 11:30 - Batch 3 of puzzles released.
• 30/01 11:30 - Batch 4 of puzzles released.
• 31/01 11:30 - Batch 5 of puzzles, and the meta puzzle, released.
• 03/02 23:59 - Competition closes, registration closes, solutions released.
• 04/02 - Catch up on lost sleep.
• 05/02 - wrap-up event at the DC Fishbowl. The winning team will be announced!

Registration

• Registration is open to teams of 3 to 6 people.
• All participants must be part of the University of Waterloo community. This includes students, staff, faculty, postdocs and alumni. Participants must register with their "@uwaterloo.ca" e-mail address.
• Teams may register at any time until the competition closes at 23:59 on February 3.
• Participants may be a member of no more than one team.
• In order to win the grand prize, you will need to have at least one member of your team be able to come to the University of Waterloo campus.
• You may register as an individual, in which case you will be placed in a team closer to the beginning of the hunt.

Puzzles and Hints

• The hunt will consist of 15 puzzles, plus a meta puzzle. They will be released in batches of three.
• Answers will be words or short phrases, consisting only of alphanumerical characters.
• Answers should be submitted in the appropriate puzzle's "answer checker" page.
• You will 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.
• Hints for each puzzle will become available 24 hours after the 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.
• We will respond to your hint requests within 4 hours during the day, and within 12 hours if the request comes at night.

Scoring

• For each successful puzzle solve, teams will receive points. Once a correct answer has been submitted, teams cannot recieve any more points for that puzzle.
• The puzzles, not including the meta puzzle, are worth points as follows: 4 points for a solve with at most 1 hint token used, 3 points for a solve with 2 hints, and 2 points for a solve with 3 hints.
• Teams are ranked on the leaderboard by their cumulative point score. Teams with the same points will be separated by their average solve time.
• 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 inside a box hidden somewhere on the University of Waterloo campus. The location of the box will be revealed by solving the meta puzzle.
• The grand-prize-winning team will have their names engraved on the Enigma cup.
• 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. There may also be a separate prize for the team that finishes on top of the leaderboard.