Puzzle Hunts

Eloise L
Dec 12, 2020
5 min read

Updated: May 10, 2021

From the QI Elves Advent Calendar in 2014, in which I had to scour the Internet every day to find the location of random photos taken across the world, the GCHQ puzzle book I got for Christmas once, or the many escape rooms I've done with my cousin, I've always loved a good puzzle hunt.

Tuesday Cluesday

In early 2017, I was watching John Green's video on the Vlogbrothers YouTube channel. The top comment was hinting at some sort of clue in the video. This had actually started in the previous week's video but I had missed it. So I went back and followed the clues, and with help with some hints in the comments, I managed to solve the puzzles and find the secret forum https://itsatuatara.freeforums.net/.

Then John started putting a clue in every Tuesday video. This would lead to a password to get access to the discussion board for that week.

But these Internet scavenger hunts were really hard, and collaboration was needed. So some people in the community of clue solvers soon set up a Discord server for clue solving collaboration purposes. I very rarely said anything there, but without it I would never have been able to solve all the puzzles. As the weeks went on this community called "Tuataria" grew to possibly around 1000 people.

I really enjoyed my Tuesday evenings, with John posting the video around 6pm UK time, and scouring the Internet for little clues and hints, leading to a password in the end. Sometimes he would post the video late, or the clues would be so hard that even a team of a few hundred people couldn't solve it for half a day. In which case I would wake up the next and read through the Discord to help me find the answers to the clues.

The solutions to the mini scavenger hunts, the passwords to the discussion boards, would give you access to these mysterious forum posts. We were all speculating what the bigger puzzle was here, and what these mysterious forum posts were leading to.

Then, after 20 weeks of puzzle hunts, the final hunt lead to a special website to input an email. This final hunt was especially hard, so was solved while I was asleep. However, I managed to be quick enough, and I was fortunately one of the first few hundred to find this website and put my email in. This website was announcing the release of John's new book "Turtles All the Way Down", and was promising all the final hunt solvers that we would be sent a free copy of the book!!

Being so involved in the process of the book announcement this was probably the most excited I have been for book release ever. John also revealed that the hunts had also shaped the final book. The forum posts had many ties to the book and there were several Easter eggs in the book relating to the hunts.

I wanted to read the book as soon as it came out, so I ordered my own UK copy, since John's free copy would only arrive several weeks later. I really enjoyed reading "Turtles All the Way Down", especially after being so involved in the lead up to its announcement.

A week or two before the book came out I got an exciting email from Rosianna, John's assistant, to get my address so they could send a copy. And sure enough, later in October I received a special parcel from Indianapolis in the post containing a special US version of the book with a J-squiggle signature (in green!) and a spiral stamp!

That was the end of the hunts for a while, but he still posts a Tuesday Cluesday video now and again, and lately they've been leading to little secret livestreams. Even if the hunts died down, the community of Tuataria continued to thrive. I lost interest after a while and didn't have enough time to keep up with it any more but I loved the sense of being part of a little online community for a while.

If you want to try it for yourself, this was the first Cluesday video.

My own creations

Taking inspiration from some of the John Green clue hunts, and other puzzles I have completed over the years, I have enjoyed creating some of my own puzzles more recently. They're a little bit more manageable than John's, but some parts are still pretty fiendish and might require some hints if you try them yourself...

Christmas 2017

Totally unrelated to John's hunts, my friend at school told me he was making me a puzzle for Christmas. I'm pretty sure he didn't know about the ones I'd been doing earlier that year but he knew my love for maths and puzzles. I loved this idea and so decided to create my own for him too. This is that puzzle.

Some help might be required for part C as it's related to the short story we'd been studying in English. Here's my very heavily annotated version or you might be able to find a plain copy online somewhere. It's called "Flowers" by Robin Jenkins.

Once you've got a final answer, put it into: bit.ly/{final answer}{bonus question}

Christmas 2019

This one drew a lot of inspiration from the style of the of one of the tuataria hunts, but all the components are original.

I got the whole family involved in this one, and they were able to win a new buff (neck scarf) as their Christmas present if they completed the puzzle.

April Birthday Puzzle

Since my friend Rebecca enjoyed my Christmas 2019 puzzle so much (and spent much of Christmas day completing it, and without my help, which I was very impressed by), I decided to make her her own puzzle. The first clue was written in the card. The final destination website has expired, but hopefully you'll know if you've completed it!

One of the clues might require the help of the Year 3 Complex Variables notes. Oh, you don't have them handy? Here they are:

Ignore the stats computing coursework in the background

June Birthday Puzzle

My brother also really enjoyed my Christmas 2019 puzzle, and completed it rather quickly. With it being his birthday and us both being stuck at home in lockdown, I thought I'd take the opportunity to do a real life scavenger hunt in and around our house! Unfortunately you won't be able to try it yourself unless you visit, but here's a little slideshow of that day. Enjoy the appearance his lovely kimono throughout.

Pierre then made me my own real life puzzle hunt around the house for my birthday, which I really appreciated <3.