A рuzzlehunt is a puzzle game where teams compete to solve a series of puzzles at a particular site, in multiple sites or via the internet. Groups of puzzles in a puzzle hunt are often connected by a metapuzzle, leading to answers which combine into a final set of solutions.
Some famous annual puzzlehunts are:
the MIT Mystery Hunt (Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA),
the Melbourne University Mathematics & Statistics Society (MUMS) puzzlehunt (Melbourne, Australia),
the Sydney University Maths Society (SUMS) puzzlehunt (Sydney, Australia),
the TMOU (Brno, Czech Republic)
the Microsoft Puzzle Hunt (Redmond, Washington, United States),
the Miami Herald's Tropic Hunt (Miami, Florida, USA),
the Washington Post's Post Hunt (Washington, DC, USA),
the Maze of Games (Indianapolis, Indiana and Columbus, Ohio, USA),
Mezzacotta (formerly the Canon Information Systems Research Australia Puzzle Competition) (here).
The Phish.net Quest puzzle sequence (summary here).
The Great Puzzle Hunt in Bellingham, WA every April (next event: April 1, 2017)
College puzzlehunts include the aforementioned MIT Mystery Hunt as well as:
PuzzleCrack (University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, USA)
College Puzzle Challenge (Multiple Locations, North America), hosted by Microsoft as a recruiting event on college campuses.
Palantir's Puzzle Challenge, a recruiting event on multiple campuses hosted by Palantir Technologies
Google Games, a multi-part competition that usually includes logic puzzles, coding, trivia, and building challenges that utilize materials like LEGO bricks
Puzzle Hunt, put on every semester by a student organization called PuzzleHuntCMU at Carnegie Mellon University's Pittsburgh, PA campus
Nova Quest, a campus-wide puzzlehunt organized by the Nova Quest student organization, taking place each spring at Villanova University
Puzzle Hunt, open to all students and organized by the Rice University IEEE student chapter
Sometimes, the prize for winning a puzzlehunt is to create the next one.
