Rules

Format

The puzzlehunt starts on Saturday, August 21st at 9am PDT.
There is no minimum or maximum team size. For the best experience we recommend a team of 3–6 people. Puzzle Potluck 4 in particular will be best experienced with multiple team members, although solo-solving is still possible.
There is a casual track and an expert track. See Ranking and Hints for more information about the differences between the two tracks.

Each answer is a string of letters A–Z. Lowercase letters will be changed into uppercase, and any other characters will be stripped before checking for correctness.
There is no guess limit to each puzzle. Each team will be limited to at most one guess per second.
It won’t be necessary to look at the HTML source/Javascript/CSS on any webpages for any puzzle, but you’re welcome to look anyway.

Teams on the expert track will be ranked by hunt completion time, then by number of points, then by their last solved puzzle time. Normal puzzles are worth 1 point and metapuzzles are worth more.
Teams on the casual track will not be ranked.

Teams with access to hints will be able to see a set of self-revealable hints on each puzzle, and can ask for help on any puzzle. We recommend looking at the revealable hints first to try to get unstuck before asking for help, though this is entirely up to you.
Teams on the expert track will have access to hints starting Sunday, August 22nd at 3pm PDT.
Teams on the casual track will have access to hints from the start of the hunt.
To ask for help on any puzzle, e-mail puzzlepotluck [at] gmail.com. This can be something like describing where you're stuck (and we’ll try to get you unstuck) or asking a freeform question (e.g. “Which answers to these crossword clues are wrong?”). You should include your team name and the puzzle you would like help on in your email.

Teams may use any source of information, such as the internet and other people not actively participating in the hunt.
We reserve the right to disqualify any team for unsportsmanlike conduct.
We reserve the right to change any of these rules. If there’s a big change, we’ll announce it to all teams.
If you have any questions about these rules, or if you want to contact us for any reason, e-mail puzzlepotluck [at] gmail.com. We will get back to you as soon as we can.