Partial Madness

You just fell for our trap. Don’t worry, we’re not going to be hacking your computer or transmitting a virus. It’s much worse than that. This is the Partial Madness Puzzle Hunt, designed by a group named Y3AH, made to waste your time. This hunt has been set up to make you feel pain, confusion, excitement, and exhaustion, all at once. 

First, let us explain: A puzzle hunt is a chain of puzzles (*gasp*) that you solve in order to reach a prize. In this case, the prize happens to be a bunch of candy, but in the end, the real prize is the friends you make along the way. (insert eyeroll here) This puzzle hunt is made up of 20 puzzles and a final puzzle at the end called a “metapuzzle” to make sure that you have solved all of the puzzles before it. The first individual or team of students at Lakeside School to finish the metapuzzle will win the prize. When reading a question, you may see some text that gives you some clues as to how to solve the problem. This text will always be italicized to clarify that these are instructions and not the puzzle itself.  With that said, let’s lay out some ground rules.

1. No using AI for any purpose. The only exception to this is the Google Search Overview AI that shows up whenever you search on Google.

2. No abusing unfair advantages. This includes automated guessing bots and other tools that would give you an unfair advantage over others.

3. Listen to the instructions: You must listen to every instruction given. Each puzzle may disallow a specific tool or allow you to use a certain tool. 

4. Feel free to use Google! Although we specified above that absolutely no AI is allowed, Google search tools and/or websites you find through Google (that are not AI, of course) are allowed. Feel free to use these tools, because without them, you might be screwed. Please don’t try any loopholes; we will disqualify any team that tries to bend these rules. We have a list of recommended tools here.

Okay, third-to-last thing before we start (we promise). To register your team (or just yourself), go to tinyurl.com/PartialMadnessRegistration and fill out the form. THIS IS SUPER IMPORTANT. If you don’t do it, you won’t be able to win any prizes. Also, the leaderboard for Partial Madness will always be available at tinyurl.com/Partial-Madness-Leaderboard.

To submit an answer, please go to tinyurl.com/####[ANSWERHERE] where #### is a random four-digit number that is unique to each problem and where [ANSWERHERE] is the answer that you got for that problem. For example, the four-digit code for the following problem is 3773 (how random!), so if somehow you got the answer “math,” you would go to tinyurl.com/3773math. (Math is not the answer.) If you are correct, the site will lead you to a Google doc with the next puzzle. The answer is always an English word or phrase. When typing your answers, make all letters lowercase and remove all spaces and punctuation. Pro tip: Remember the answers to each question, because you will need them for the metapuzzle! 

Finally, after you solve a question, please go to tinyurl.com/PartialMadnessCheckIn and submit the question you are currently on, along with your team name. For example, after you solve the puzzle on this page, you would submit that you are now on question 1 (not puzzle 2, because the puzzle indexing starts at 0). (You don’t have to submit the form if you are just doing this for fun.)

TEAMS MUST CHECK IN AFTER EVERY QUESTION, AND FAILURE TO DO SO WILL RESULT IN A FORFEIT OF THE CANDY PRIZE. HENCE, WE RECOMMEND THAT YOU BOOKMARK THE CHECK-IN FORM. PLEASE ONLY SUBMIT THE CHECK-IN ONCE YOUR TEAM IS CONFIDENT THEY HAVE THE SOLUTION TO THE PREVIOUS PROBLEM. Hints for questions will be released if a team has reached a question and has not been able to solve it for 3+ days. Hints will also be released if the majority of teams have already solved that question. 

To see a hint for a puzzle, go to that puzzle’s Google doc. Then, in the top-left dropdown, select “Hints,” which leads to that puzzle’s hint doc. This doc will show all hints that have been released thus far. To quickly check for hints, go to tinyurl.com/Partial-Madness-Hints, which tells you whether a hint has been revealed.

Just to remind you one more time, check in after every puzzle!

Whew! That was a lot to get through. Now let’s get started!

Puzzle 0: English is Math

By Yiheng Y.

Very often in puzzles, a puzzle writer will make you change letters into numbers or numbers into letters. In this case, you have to change a string of numbers into an English word, which will be the solution. Just a tip: Don’t overthink it.

19 21 16 16 12 5 13 5 14 20 1 18 25

To submit, go to tinyurl.com/3773, with the blanks replaced with your answer. Make sure your answer is all lowercase! If you need a hint, go HERE and open the hints tab. (The hints will be released according to the rules.) Make sure to check in at https://tinyurl.com/PartialMadnessCheckIn once you finish.

Happy Solving!

-Y3AH