Puzzlehunt

Promotional poster for the annual Manbites Dog puzzle hunt

A puzzlehunt is a puzzle game where teams compete to solve a series of puzzles at a particular site, in multiple sites and/or via the internet. Groups of puzzles in a puzzle hunt are often connected by a metapuzzle, leading to answers which combine into a final set of solutions. Some famous annual puzzlehunts are:

• the MIT Mystery Hunt (Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA),
• the Melbourne University Mathematics & Statistics Society (MUMS) puzzlehunt (Melbourne, Australia),
• the Sydney University Maths Society (SUMS) puzzlehunt (Sydney, Australia),
• the TMOU (Brno, Czech Republic),
• the Microsoft Puzzle Hunt (Redmond, Washington, USA),
• the Miami Herald's Tropic Hunt (Miami, Florida, USA),
• the Maze of Games (Indianapolis, Indiana and Columbus, Ohio, USA).

College puzzlehunts include the aforementioned MIT Mystery Hunt as well as:

• PuzzleCrack (University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, USA)
• College Puzzle Challenge (Multiple Locations, North America), hosted by Microsoft as a recruiting event on college campuses.

Sometimes, the prize for winning a puzzlehunt is to create the next one.

Related puzzle events

• The Game (a puzzlehunt combined with a road rally)
• Microsoft Puzzle Safari (Redmond, Washington)
• Race In The City (an Amazing Race-style event in Toronto)

See also

• Letterboxing
• Geocaching
• Alternate reality game
• Treasure hunt (game)
• Geohashing
• Encounter (game)
• La chouette d'or