Solving Tips and Rules of Play

Solving the Hunt

The hunt consists of a series of puzzles, each of which has a word or short phrase as an answer. When you've solved enough of the puzzles in a round, you can combine their answers, possibly using additional information provided as part of the round, to solve that round's metapuzzle.

The hunt will consist of 5 metapuzzles. One set of puzzles will be released a day, starting on Monday (March 24) until Friday (March 28). The difficulty of each release will vary as the week progresses.

On each round, you are able to check the answers you have. Simply click on the puzzle you want to check, type in your answer, and your team name, and then you will be able to check. Your answers should NOT have spaces or punctuation. Answers will only have letters and numbers.

Events

There are events scheduled throughout the week. For most of these events, teams who attend will be awarded the answer for that puzzle. Therefore, attendance is necessary, because events cannot be made up. List of Events

Free Answers

There are three ways to get free answers.

1. All teams get one free answer per day. You can use that free answer on that day’s puzzles, or you could choose to pick another day’s puzzle. To redeem, email us saying you want to redeem that free answer, and give us the name of the puzzle you want the answer for.
2. Events: We will have several events throughout the week. Top placers of these events will earn free answers.

Rules of Play

• During the Hunt, you are allowed and encouraged to use all resources, including the Internet, the library, faculty, friends, and family, but especially the Internet.
• However, the Hunt is also for fun, and we rely on you to help make it fun and to abide by standards of fair play.
• DO NOT do anything that would interfere with another team's enjoyment of the hunt, and do not give information to or obtain information from another team.
• Some of the puzzles of this Hunt may require to go inside of a university building. For your safety and security, do NOT break into any building. If the building is locked, please wait until the building reopens.
• If you feel anything during this hunt will be illegal, immoral, or unsafe, or see any other teams partaking in such activites, please tell us via our Contact Page.

How to Win

• Besides solving the puzzles, you must solve the metapuzzles as found on each round. These answers will come together in some fashion for you to determine.
• Value your team members. Everyone can contribute. There are a lot of puzzles, and that means splitting up work is essential.
• Don't be frustrated with puzzles. Yes, some are hard. But that's OK.

Borrowed from the ACME team from the MIT Mystery Hunt, here is a list of "Have You Tried...", which is a possibility of solving each puzzle. (Note: Replace MIT with USC in the PDF file.)

Some of your best sources will be:

• Google
• Google Images
• Youtube
• Wikipedia, and the entire Wikimedia Foundation, along with various specialized wikis on the Internet
• Wolfram Alpha
• The Library
• A map of the University (the shuttle map is always good)
• Websites about the university, including news sites and sports sites