The Inexact Puzzlehunt is a puzzlehunt that will start on Saturday, 1/30/2021 at 1pm US/Eastern and run until a week later on 2/6/2021 at 1pm US/Eastern. It will consist of one round of puzzles with a metapuzzle. I am aiming for slightly harder than a P&A Magazine in terms of difficulty and length, so I expect some teams will be able to finish within the day. The puzzles will remain online indefinitely but I will release solutions, stop updating the leaderboard, and be probably a bit less active in replying to Hints after the hunt officially ends.
At the start time, the hunt will be linked to on this page. It will be on a static website with no log-in required. There will be a static answer-checker for all feeder puzzles but when you have solved the meta, you should email me your solution at zobs@inexactpuzzles.com and sign it with (your name) or (team name) or (team name + member names) or however you want to be put on the leaderboard. The leaderboard will just rank finish times.
All answers will be English words or phrases. The answer-checker will strip all non-letters, and ignore spaces and capitalization. There is no team size limit, although I suspect it will be best to experience with a few solvers, or even solo. Please do not try to mess with my website. All you will find in the source code is badly-written HTML. You could also find the hashes of the answers but doing a dictionary attack is probably against the spirit of the hunt, nor a good use of your time.
I will officially start answering hints on Monday, February 1st at 1pm Eastern; if this ends up being moved earlier, it will be clearly announced on the main page of the hunt. Hint requests can be emailed to zobs@inexactpuzzles.com with "[HINT]" in the subject line. They can be as freeform as you'd like, and you can request a hint that's more subtle, or more direct. There is no limit on hints (up to my own ability to reply) and no penalty. If you are feeling stuck I highly recommend asking for a hint! Even if you just want the gentlest of nudges. If you don't care about the leaderboard and would really like a hint earlier, please do reach out too. I am also happy continue to answer hints after the hunt officially ends if you so please.
My name is Zach and I've been solving puzzles for a while now under many different team names, but in the last year they have been or have had the acronym "NES".
Here are a few sample, standalone puzzles that I've selected, but there are some more on my website if you're interested here. All have solutions and spoiler-free answer checkers available.
I'd like to extend a huge thank you to all my friends who testsolved the puzzles, and for helping me out with the website and art. I'd also like to thank anyone who's written any of the many, many puzzles I've done for being an inspiration.
If you have any other questions or comments or you just want to say hi, feel free to reach out at zobs@inexactpuzzles.com.