YukiHunt is not a traditional puzzle hunt. It is an ongoing series of puzzles designed to introduce complete newcomers to puzzle hunts.

In a typical puzzle, you are given some information but not really told what to do, and the goal is to extract an answer (almost always a word or short phrase) through inductive logical reasoning, lots of Googling, and the Power of Friendship™.

Puzzles may take the shape of familiar things, such as crosswords or word searches, but it is rarely ever that straightforward. A crossword puzzle may only give you the clues and require you to create the grid yourself. A word search puzzle may tell you what words to find… and leave you wondering what to do next, now that you’ve circled all the words. Puzzle writers love finding new and creative ways to twist, destroy, and rebuild the rules. Good puzzles thrive off of strong yet complex logical connections that give you a shot of dopamine when you get that “a-ha!” moment — and that’s why we’re all addicted to puzzles.

A puzzle hunt is an event — either online, in-person, or both — where teams race against each other to finish a series of puzzles. In most hunts, there are one or more “rounds” of puzzles that culminate in a "meta puzzle" — a puzzle that requires you to utilize the answers from previous puzzles in order to solve them. For larger hunts, there can even be "metametas" (a.k.a. "supermetas") that use the answers from multiple meta puzzles.

There is currently 1 round of 9 puzzles available, with over 30 more to come. Please note that YukiHunt is meant for individuals that are completely new to puzzle hunts; it may take a seasoned solver less than 15 minutes to finish round 1.

YukiHunt will be available indefinitely. There is no competitive component to it, so take as much time as you want.

Refer to the Toolbox for helpful tips and tricks. If that doesn't help, all puzzles come with a batch of pre-written hints that can be viewed at any time. If none of the hints get you un-stuck, there is also a chat box below the hints where you can ask for a more specific nudge.

Aside from these tools, here are some general puzzling tips that might be useful:

Please describe the error in an email to yuki.puzzle.hunt@gmail.com and we’ll try to correct it.

Yes! 100%! However, if you'd like to support us, we accept donations here.

A good resource for finding puzzle events is the Puzzle Hunt Calendar. However, if you're just starting out, not every hunt listed there would be the best starting point. Here are a few of the many high-quality online hunts from the past:

Nope.

This Hunt is run by a group of friends from team Yuki. You can read more on our About page.

No, but good on you for asking!