Purplehunt Games
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Status of Previous Current Contests |
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Status of Previous Contest Series (June 1999 Series) |
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Status of March 2000 Series |
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Status of Current Contest Series (2001 Series) |
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New Series! As
of February 28, 2000, all seven contests in the 1999 Series were
solved. The last one to be solved was Contest #6, the "HTML
Contest." In March of 2000, we rolled out the March 2000
series of contests. We again had seven contests
in this series. As of 8-27-2001, only puzzles 2, 3, and 5 remain
unsolved. The 2001 Series has begun. As on 8-27-01, none
of the puzzles in the 2001 have been solved.
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All
Current Clues
for These Contests are
Located on The Following Sites
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"Vintage" clues (older than two months) for these contests
can be viewed by clicking here.
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Those who play our games can win big prizes. For
instance, the "Treasure Hunt" has a prize of $1000.00.
Another one of our contests had a prize of a new
computer; others have cash prizes ranging upwards from $50. Others have prizes
of mugs, caps and tee shirts. Best of all, perhaps, all our
winners for this series of contests, will have their names (real or pseudonym),
and a picture if you wish, published in our Hall
of Fame (for millions to see, if you're not too shy).
To Get Started:
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Decide which game(s) you wish
to play. You can check out each game (seven running right
now) by clicking it on the masthead drop-down menu above (right),
or on the Contest Status Table above.
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Once you have selected
"your" game(s), print a copy of the specifics for those
respective games for easy reference.
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Then check at least weekly on
the subscribers' web sites for new clues. New clues will be
added at least once a week, at least one new clue for each
contests, always on weekends.
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Come back to this page
periodically. At the top of this page I will indicate the
status of each game in this series. Because this is a
relatively new series, none of the contests have yet been
solved. When a contests has been solved, I will so indicate
with balloons. When someone wins the local treasure hunt,
balloons will fly over Eagle Security. When a contest
is solved, a new one will take its place.
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Only Contest Number 1 requires
finding a physical object. All other contests can be won
sitting at your computer anywhere in the world.
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Read below how to be sure you
have accessed all extant clues.
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At the conclusion of each
contest, I will provide a full explanation of each clue.
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Now, engage your brain, and
beat me up! ...If, you've got what it takes!
You can check us out at our home
page to find out all about Purplehunt games and prizes. (I apologize that this page may
take some browsers (and some connections) a couple minutes to
load. Remember, however, once viewed, any web page is remembered by your
browser's cache and should not take as long to load the next time.)
In summary, this is what it is
really all you need to know to play and win:
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There is no cost to you, ever!
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Some of our contests are very
difficult, some are quite easy. I realize that not everyone
has the time to solve my most intricate of puzzles. That is
why I also have a series of less-involved contests. You will
have to check them out to determine which is which.
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There are a number of separate contests. As of
June 1, 1999, there are seven (7).
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You can get details on these
contests by clicking the drop-down menu above ("Contests for
Prizes").
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There will always be a winner
for every contest. progressive clues simply make the
solution more and more obvious.
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Clues are obtained on the web
pages of our subscribers, a list of which can
be found by clicking here.
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To find all the
clues, you must visit the pages of all the subscribers.
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How will you know when you find a clue? There
are two ways:
1) 
If you see this image (on a
subscriber web page), you can click on it and get a
clue. (Go ahead, click on the above icon and see a sample clue.)
(Important: You can access different clues by clicking on the same icon
multiple times. Each clue icon (link) will access up to ten (10)
different clues. All will access a minimum of six (6).
In order to access all the clues within a given link, you must momentarily go to a different page on
the subscriber's site, and then come back and click the
clue icon a second, third, fourth, etc., time. My robot randomly searches a field in a data
base to provide the clue. It is possible, on some subscriber
pages, to click 20 times and get 3 different clues, or 10 different
clues. No link can access more than 10 clues.)
2) In some cases, you will find a clue hidden in
a hyperlink. For instance, you might find a clue in a word such
as "is." Normally you would not expect this little
verb to be used as a link. So, if you see such an instance on one of
our subscribers' pages, click on it and check it out. It might
not be an out-of-place link -- it might be a clue link! (You may
click on the above textual link as well to see another series of
sample clues.)
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Some
of our clues have multiple parts. You will recognize them as
they are prefaced with a number and a letter (such as 7a, or 4c).
To make these types of clues work for you, you must find all the other parts of that clue.
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Each randomly-selected clue
provides four bits of info: 1--the date that the clue was
published, 2--the clue message itself, 3--the puzzle number to
which the clue relates (1-7), and, 4--it provides on the bottom a
link to this page.
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Note that even though many
different clues are accessible from a particular
subscribers' pages, many other clues will not be. To find all the
clues, you must visit the pages of all the subscribers.
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Most often, you can find out
how many clues are extant on any given major contest by visiting
the appropriate page on purplehunt.com.
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You
must visit all [participating sites to get all the clues, as the clues
are divided up into the different fields of the data base.
(Remember, you must leave the
page on which you have found the clue icon, between activations of
that clue icon. That allows my Random Robot to do his job.)
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Some
of our clues have multiple parts. You will recognize them as
they are prefaced with a number and a letter (such as 7a, or 4c).
To make such clues effective, you must find the other parts of that
clue, and then decipher it.
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Details of the individual
contests are available from a drop-down menu above.
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There are no clues on
Purplehunt.com. The only way you find clues is by visiting
our subscribers.
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New clues will be available on all contests at
least weekly.
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How to submit solutions:
For contests two through seven, you may now submit solutions
through email (The email address to use for the current series is
stated on the Update Page.
For example, to submit solutions for the March 2000 series, the
email address to use is puzzle03@purplehunt.com).
As for the Treasure Hunt (Contest One), solutions must be
submitted according to current instructions
listed for that contest. Email solutions for the
Treasure Hunt will not be regarded.
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There are currently (and should
always be) at least 7 (7)
contests running concurrently. These are contests which are rewarded with material prizes.
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If you have a "G"
rated web site, and are interested in
becoming a subscriber (having clue links located on your site),
have your webmaster get hold of us. While we will provide this
service to a limited number of clients (for the next and future series of
games), we do, however, contract only through web
developers. So, if you would like a lot of additional
hits on your site (every week) for a very nominal
price, have your
webmaster contact us.
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Honesty and integrity.
Obviously, anyone can tell you that they are honest, and that
their games and other endeavors are legitimate. Well,
why should I be different. My games are straight, and my
prizes real. For one thing, I have done this for a long time
(since 1992). I have a track record. You can visit our
Hall of Fame, or read the
attached letter from a
local newspaper to check us out. Personally, I am (and have
been for twenty years) licensed by the Michigan State Police
(#BA1098) as a certified security agent. To maintain my
license, I must submit to background checks on a regular basis by the law enforcement
agencies of my city and state. Secondly, I have set up a
simple mechanism that will block even the best hacker from getting
to the solution of my contests. I simply do not put the
solutions on a networked computer. I have a notepad that I
use exclusively for that purpose -- it never goes on line.
At worst, a cyberthug could mess with our minds, but he could not
get to the solutions. Besides, I think that the real
challenge is to beat me by solving my puzzles, not by cheating.
On another front -- I am the only human being who knows the
solutions to the contests. They are not put together by
committee. The solutions are recorded and are accessible,
should anything happen to me. ...But, no other human being
can access the solutions as long as I breath. You can rest assured
that about the only thing that could thwart my contests would be
of a nuclear variety. At that point, I am sure my
contests will be at the bottom of your list of concerns.
Well, that is just about all you
need to know to get started. Remember, my puzzles and contests
are difficult, but they always provide rewards for the diligent.
Every one of my contests will eventually be solved.
Do not hesitate to visit our home
page to find out all about Purplehunt games and prizes.
...Remembering always, of course, the only way to get
clues is to visit our subscribers.
Below is the content of our
"Update" for 9-19-99. I have moved it over here to
conserve space on the "Update" page:
As you have probably already found out, you
now have two new choices on this site: From the front page you can now
take a short cut to the most popular pages. You can choose "Purplehunt
Full-bodied," or "Purplehunt Lite."
Some of my players have requested a
chat room to discuss clues and puzzles. I thought I would give it a
shot. Click here to give our "Purplehunt
Chat Room" a try.
Recently brought to my attention was a
question of a suspected spelling error in a clue. This is a reasonable
question. I would only say that there are two such "spelling
errors" in clues, both of which are quite obvious, and both of which are
used to form a separate layer to the clue in which they are used (i.e., imbedded
in each error is a clue). Both of these clues are for Puzzle 1, and
both are now published in the "Used
Clues" section of this site.
Check
out the new "old" clues included in the 9-19 clue update! Remember,
all the clues eventually get moved to the "Used
Clues" section of this site. Any clue older than two months will
be found there!
New Contest! (As of 8-30) Located on one of
the Subscribers' sites is a link that, when clicked, leads to a special page
with a special id number and email address. Once found, and submitted, the
first winner will receive a special numbered limited edition Purplehunt
Mug. There will be no additional clues for this contest.
Remember, for current clues
(two-months old or less), you still must visit our subscribers:
Remember: Most clues stand
alone. Unless prefaced with "A," "B" or "C,"
a clue stands alone and does not require a previous clue for
interpretation. Any single stand-alone clue can be all you need to
solve any given puzzle, or find a treasure.
Good hunting!
--- Mountain Mike
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