Hunt Information

What is Brown Puzzlehunt?

Brown Puzzlehunt 2026 is the fourth annual puzzlehunt run by current Brown and RISD students.

In a puzzlehunt, participants compete in teams to solve puzzles. Puzzles can come in many different forms; the only commonality is that there are usually no direct instructions, so it is up to you to extract an English word or phrase from the information given. You can read a longer introduction to puzzlehunts here.

This hunt is designed to be a relatively easy introduction to puzzlehunting for beginner teams. We expect this year's Brown Puzzlehunt to be roughly the same length and difficulty as last year's hunt. If you are looking for some practice, we recommend looking at puzzles from other online hunts such as Galactic Puzzle Hunt, Teammate Hunt, or Puzzle Potluck.

When and where is this happening?

This year, Brown Puzzlehunt is offering two different ways to participate across two weekends. You can hunt in-person or fully remotely.

In-Person Event

If you come to campus, you'll get to do events, physical puzzles, interactions, and the in-person runaround! The In-Person Event will run from Saturday, April 11, 2026 at 4:00 PM UTC to Sunday, April 12, 2026 at 11:00 PM UTC, at Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island.

All in-person participants need to print and fill out this waiver ahead of time in order to come to campus. We will collect these at kickoff.

You don't need every person on your team to come to campus to be an In-Person team. One is fine (although they might have their hands full going to every event and doing every physical puzzle!) If you are part of an In-Person team but aren't on-campus, you'll still be able to access the non-physical puzzles through the website.

Remote Event

If you can't come to Brown's campus, you can do our online-only event. This runs from Saturday, April 18, 2026 at 4:00 PM UTC to Friday, April 24, 2026 at 4:30 PM UTC. (This is a different weekend than the In-Person Event!)

Remote

If you don't come in-person, we will provide fully remote-accessible versions of all physical puzzles. You will be able to solve every puzzle in the hunt even if you are fully remote.

Which experience should I sign up for?

If you can make it to the In-Person Event, we highly recommend you do so. You'll get to do all of the physical puzzles, in-person interactions, events, and the in-person runaround.

If you participate as a fully remote team, you'll still be able to solve every puzzle in the hunt. This experience will be similar to other online-only hunts that don't expect any in-person involvement.

Who can participate in the hunt?

Brown Puzzlehunt is open to anyone, anywhere in the world. We've taken steps to ensure that every puzzle is accessible to remote solvers, except for the final runaround. Teams familiar with Brown/RISD culture may have some advantage in solving puzzles.

We recommend teams to be around 6 to 8 people. The maximum team size is 10 people, but there is no minimum team size - you can still have fun with a team of 2! Students and those new to hunting are encouraged to build teams on the larger side.

Additionally, for your team to win the In-Person Event, you must have at least one current Brown/RISD student on-campus. If you do not have a current Brown/RISD student on your team, you will be able to do the final runaround, but you will not be able to win.

Any team can win the Remote Event, regardless of team composition.

I'm coming to campus. What do I need to know?

Security

The Brown community is still healing from the tragic events of last December. This impacts the ability of non-Brown guests to access campus. We will still be welcoming guests to campus, but policies will look slightly different than in past years as we navigate new security restrictions.

It is more important this year than ever to accurately register every member of your team. When you check-in with BPH staff members at kickoff, only those who have registered on our site will be allowed to participate. This means that we need accurate first names, last names, and emails for every team member, regardless of Brown affiliation. You will be required to check in with a BPH staff member by presenting an ID that matches the registered name.

Once you've been checked off our roster, you will be given a wristband. This wristband will identify you as a participant throughout the weekend, so it is important that you do not remove it before the event has concluded.

When you need to move between buildings, you will need to show your wristband to a BPH staff member to gain access to card-restricted buildings. BPH members will be on call all weekend (sans quiet hours) to facilitate this; if you are locked out, please call us at (513) 667-0838.

We acknowledge that many community members may be uncomfortable with the idea of ID checks. Brown University is requiring us to match registered participants with legal identification, which is out of our control. The first and last name you use for registration will only be visible to BPH staff and your own team. Please do not use pseudonyms or online usernames in registration, as we need something to compare to an ID. The preferred name you include at registration will be cross-referenced with your ID upon check-in by BPH staff. If you are uncomfortable with the rest of your teammates having access to your first and last names, please record whatever name you'd prefer upon registration and email brownpuzzleHQ [at] gmail [dot] com so we can record your name on our internal records only.

Waivers

All in-person participants need to print and fill out this waiver ahead of time in order to come to campus. We will collect these at kickoff.

Being Respectful

Brown University is not a playground for puzzlers; it is also a live university, with classes, students, faculty, research, and other events happening all the time. If you're going to be on-site, please be respectful of both the community and the campus.

Brown Puzzlehunt will not require you to do anything illegal, immoral, or untoward, including accessing unauthorized spaces. If you think that a puzzle is asking you to do something dangerous, against the law, or disrespectful, stop and think. If you're really not sure, please contact us and check.

This year, if a puzzle requires you to visit a card-access-restricted space, the puzzle page will explicitly tell you so. All scavenger-hunt components will be accessible from outdoors unless otherwise stated.

Solving Spaces

If you are going to be on-campus, we will need you to let us know where your HQ is. This is the location where you will be spending most of your time solving puzzles while you're on-campus. If you are a student team or have student members, this might be a dorm common area or an apartment near campus, or a noise-tolerant space like the Student Center or some floors of the Sciences Library.

If you need a place for your team to work during the hunt, let us know during the registration process and we will try to accommodate you. We have limited classroom space, so our ability to allocate classrooms like this will be limited. We will prioritize teams which do not have other spaces available and who register in advance.

Minors

Unfortunately, we are not in a position to accommodate minors on-campus (participants who are not Brown or RISD students and who are under the age of 18). Sorry! However, minors are welcome to participate remotely, and teams with minors can still send other participants who are over the age of 18 to campus to participate.

How do puzzles work?

All puzzles will be visible on the website. This is where you will submit your answers and receive new puzzles. Some puzzles will be available at the start of the hunt; solving puzzles will unlock more puzzles.

Each answer is an English word or phrase. Answers are not case- or space-sensitive.

You have 20 total guesses for each puzzle. If you run out of guesses, contact us, and we would be happy to grant more. Random guessing and brute-forcing are discouraged.

If something on-campus is part of a puzzle, the website will direct you towards it first.

How do hints work?

You can use hint requests to ask for help on any puzzle. This can be something like a nudge in the right direction (i.e. you give us your progress on the puzzle and we will try to get you unstuck) or an answer to a question (e.g. "Which answers to these crossword clues are wrong?"). You can only have one open hint request at a time. Teams will gain one hint request every 3 hours in the in-person event and one hint request every 6 hours in the remote event.

If you are a beginner student team or a team with a strong on-site presence that is not in the running to win, we will also visit you frequently to check on your progress and help you along. If you are struggling, even if you have no hints available, do not hesitate to reach out — the event is meant to be fun, and we want to ensure no hunter is left behind! If you want someone on HQ to come and visit you, you can email us at any time.

What can I use to solve the hunt?

This hunt was made by humans, for humans. We strongly discourage the use of LLMs or other AI models to solve puzzles. We've spent the last few months writing these puzzles for you to enjoy; we firmly believe that the best way for you to enjoy them is to solve them yourself.

Other than LLMs, you may use any external sources for help, including other people (as long as they are not helping other teams and are not actively participating in the hunt).

Use of Google search is not only permitted, but essential. You may also benefit from other online tools, such as:

• Online wordplay solvers like nutrimatic, qat, or OneLook
• Logic puzzle solvers like noq
• Reverse image searching tools like Google Lens or Tineye

What else?

You may not publicly stream a solve of our hunt when the hunt is live. We reserve the right to disqualify any team for unsportsmanlike conduct. We also reserve the right to change any of these rules. If there is a big change, we will announce it to all teams.

If you have any questions about these rules, or if you want to contact us for any reason, feel free to email us at brownpuzzleHQ [at] gmail [dot] com.

Who's making this hunt?

Officers

Club President: Megan Carlson ('26)
Club President: Erin Finn ('27)
Editor-in-Chief: Thomas Gordon ('26)
Editor-in-Chief: Arnav Singhal ('26)
Technical Director: Alex Wang ('27)
Technical Director: Chloe Qiao ('27)
Art Director: Bailey Merlino ('26)
Art Director: Jaclyn Cohen ('26)
Art Shadow: Chloe Johnson ('28)
Events Director: Aren Guralp ('27)
Story Director: Kevin Jaeger ('28)
Story Director: Isaac McGreevy ('28)
Factchecking Director: Eno Thomson-Tribe ('29)
Solutions Director: Thea Miller-Priddy ('29)

Editors

Thomas Gordon ('26)*
Arnav Singhal ('26)*
Nate Chinman ('28)
Nicholas Cressman ('28)
Jack de Haan ('28)
Kevin Jaeger ('28)
Gabriel Nelkin ('28)
Thea Miller-Priddy ('29)

Puzzle Writers

Megan Carlson ('26)
Julia Ceccarelli ('26)
Malcolm Certain ('26)
Kaylee Gallagher ('26)
Thomas Gordon ('26)*
Veronika Grytsai ('26)
Chai Harsha ('26)
Bailey Merlino ('26)
Arnav Singhal ('26)*
AJ Wu ('26)
Phil Avilov (RISD '27)
Audrey Feigin ('27)
Erin Finn ('27)
Aren Guralp ('27)
Chloe Qiao ('27)
Alex Wang ('27)
Nate Chinman ('28)
Nicholas Cressman ('28)
Jack de Haan ('28)
Noah Elbaum ('28)
Kevin Jaeger ('28)
Chloe Johnson ('28)
Isaac McGreevy ('28)
Gabriel Nelkin ('28)
Philip Yao ('28)
Amara Fuchs ('29)
Dylan Hunter ('29)
Madisyn Koza ('29)
Kenzi Mhamdi ('29)
Thea Miller-Priddy ('29)
Dylan Schenker ('29)
Eno Thomson-Tribe ('29)

Art Team

Jaclyn Cohen* ('26)
Bailey Merlino* ('26)
Eliot Geer ('27)
Phil Avilov (RISD '27)
Chloe Johnson ('28)
Amara Fuchs ('29)
Thea Miller-Priddy ('29)

Technical Team

Thomas Gordon ('26)
Veronika Grytsai ('26)
Arnav Singhal ('26)
Alex Wang* ('27)
Chloe Qiao* ('27)
Jack de Haan ('28)