Wishlist

[dlareau]

I'm starting so that people can post any ideas no matter how wild and not feel like their opening an issue over something they only mildly want or aren't sure if it will work.

Comment with literally anything you're thinking of. If it is feasible, it can get turned into a real issue.

[dlareau]

I personally would still like to consider a better unlocking system, but have never found a better specification language than the current one. Very open to suggestions.

[samuel-yeom]

As for the unlocks, we are considering moving to a time-based unlock system. For example, a puzzle will unlock 100 minutes after the start of the hunt, but solving each of the previous puzzles can count as, say, 60 minutes of credit so that no team is left waiting for a puzzle.

[dlareau]

Ooh, that could work, I'll think about ways to implement it a bit more (to figure out what limitations might be in place) and then I'll open a separate issue to discuss exact features.

[samuel-yeom]

We would like the website to make it easier to keep track of the hints that we give to teams for the puzzles. In particular, the following would be useful:

1. Establishing a system of "hint credits", which teams can spend to ask a question about any puzzle that they are stuck on.
2. Automatically giving "hint credits" to all teams at a pre-specified time.
3. Automatically giving "hint credits" to a team once the team has solved a certain number of puzzles.
4. Enforcing the rule that a team can request a hint for a puzzle only if that the puzzle was available to the team (unlocked) for a certain amount of time.
5. Creating a page where the staff can keep track of all hint requests and answer them.

[dlareau]

So between this and the other request, pushing the hunt style much closer to galactic puzzle hunt mechanics? I'll add this to the big block of changes I'm hoping to get to over the holidays.

[puzzledgil]

How about the idea of an API, which would support third party software and bots, which currently require screen scraping and/or manual entry? Even an API to just return a current list of open and solved puzzles for a team would be very helpful. Thanks for considering it!

[dlareau]

@puzzledgil That is a good thought, I'll definitely consider it when doing the next round of updates.