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.
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.
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.
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.
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
19 January 2026 17:30 – Kickoff party at the DC Fishbowl
26 January 2026 11:30 – Batch 1 puzzles released
27 January 2026 11:30 – Batch 2 puzzles released
28 January 2026 11:30 – Batch 3 puzzles released
29 January 2026 11:30 – Batch 4 puzzles released
30 January 2026 11:30 – Batch 5 puzzles released
30 January 2026 17:30 – Meta puzzle released
3 February 2026 17:30 – Hunt ends
5 February 2026 17:30 – Wrapup party at the DC Fishbowl
Registration
Registration is open to teams of 3 to 6 people.
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.
Teams may register at any time until the competition closes on .
Participants may be a member of no more than one team.
In order to win the grand prize, at least one member of your team will need to be on 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 20 puzzles, plus a meta puzzle. They will be released in batches of 4.
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 receive any more points for that puzzle.
The puzzles, not including the meta puzzle, are worth points as follows: 5 points for a solve with at most 1 hint token used, 4 points for a solve with 2 hints, and 3 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 also 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.