I’m organizing a Hunticle, a small, and totally unofficial, offshoot of Miller’s excellent Grunt Hunt. For those who aren’t familiar with the Grunt Hunt. You are presented with a mystery, and a series of puzzles, whose answers form meta puzzles, and the process of solving them reveals a story. Each puzzle brings you closer to finding out what has really happened.

Normally this is an all day event, but the one I’m putting together will have the puzzles delivered by snail mail (yeah, that box the bills come in) at the rate of roughly one puzzle per week. There is no time limit, and you can work alone, or with others. The puzzles, however, will vary from relatively easy to, “this is going to take all week”, but in the process of solving them you will decipher an “ancient” language, and reveal a sinister plot. All for zero dollars and zero cents, although you will need to send me an address where you’ll get snail mail regularly. I don’t care if it’s work or home, or a friend’s or whatever.

I’ll send you puzzles in the mail and you can interact with the characters via e-mail. Doing so may influence how the game plays out.

I currently have no plans that involve you needing to send any snail mail.

Why am I doing this? Because I’ve gotten a lot of joy out of the original Grunt Hunt and have ideas bubbling around in my head that others may enjoy. I’m doing it for free because I can afford the stamps, paper, and assorted other supplies. If it starts costing any notable amount of money, and people are enjoying it, I may ask for some donations to cover costs. But I don’t expect to have to.