Congratulations to the finalists of the Third Annual Bravo Awards! The winners of each category are presented in bold. Where applicable, the runners-up are italicised.
Additionally, if you’d like to view every puzzle and hunt which was nominated at least once (but may not have necessarily been selected as a finalist), you can view the full list of 200+ puzzles and 20+ hunts here.
Hunts
| A | Small Hunt of the Year | Authors |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | CMU Spring Hunt 23 - Prehistory | Puzzle Hunt CMU |
| 2 | Edric 23 - The 2023 DUAL Puzzle Hunt | Edric Haleen, Deusovi, Stratton Vakirtzis, Anthony Hoover |
| 3 | First Day on the Job | Jen McTeague |
| 4 | Grand Hunt Digital 23 | /r/ConstructedAdventures |
| 5 | P.I. Hunt 9 - R.T.3 SEARCH | Jack Lance |
| 6 | Puzzled Pint Sept 23 - Quantum Physics | Bill Gardner |
| B | Large Hunt of the Year | Authors |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | BAPHL 22 - Boston Area Puzzle Hunt League 22 - Bogus Academic Professors Having Lunch | - |
| 2 | BPH23 - Brown Puzzlehunt 23 - Blueno Resurrection Society | Brown Puzzle Club |
| 3 | GPH23 - Galactic Puzzle Hunt 23 - GalactiCardCaptors | ✈✈✈ Galactic Trendsetters ✈✈✈ |
| 4 | Halpin 23 - Mark Halpin’s Labor Day Extravaganza 23 - Two on the Isle | Mark Halpin |
| 5 | Huntinality 3 - Hunts Upon a Time | Cardinality |
| 6 | Shardhunt - The Library of Babel | 17th Shard |
| C | Extremely Large Hunt of the Year | Authors |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | ABCDEFG - Admiral Boötes’ Cosmic Discovery Expedition: Further Galaxies | teammate |
| 2 | CCBC13 - Cipher & Code Breaking Competition 13 | simplicissimus |
| 3 | MITMH23 - MIT Mystery Hunt 23 - Puzzle Factory | teammate |
| 4 | MSPH23 - Microsoft Puzzle Hunt 23 - Puzzle University | - |
| 5 | P&KU2 - Puzzle and Key Universe 2 | 北京大学推理协 |
| D | Best Direction | Authors |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | GPH23 - Galactic Puzzle Hunt 23 - GalactiCardCaptors | ✈✈✈ Galactic Trendsetters ✈✈✈ |
| 2 | Huntinality 3 - Hunts Upon a Time | Cardinality |
| 3 | MITMH23 - MIT Mystery Hunt 23 - Puzzle Factory | teammate |
| 4 | P.I. Hunt 9 - R.T.3 SEARCH | Jack Lance |
| 5 | Shardhunt - The Library of Babel | 17th Shard |
| E | Best Visual Design | Authors |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | BPH23 - Brown Puzzlehunt 23 - Blueno Resurrection Society | Brown Puzzle Club |
| 2 | GPH23 - Galactic Puzzle Hunt 23 - GalactiCardCaptors | ✈✈✈ Galactic Trendsetters ✈✈✈ |
| 3 | Huntinality 3 - Hunts Upon a Time | Cardinality |
| 4 | MITMH23 - MIT Mystery Hunt 23 - Puzzle Factory | teammate |
| 5 | MSPH23 - Microsoft Puzzle Hunt 23 - Puzzle University | Matt Du, Dana Young |
| F | Best Narrative | Authors |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | CMU Spring Hunt 23 - Prehistory | Puzzle Hunt CMU |
| 2 | GPH23 - Galactic Puzzle Hunt 23 - GalactiCardCaptors | ✈✈✈ Galactic Trendsetters ✈✈✈ |
| 3 | Huntinality 3 - Hunts Upon a Time | Cardinality |
| 4 | MITMH23 - MIT Mystery Hunt 23 - Puzzle Factory | teammate |
| 5 | P.I. Hunt 9 - R.T.3 SEARCH | Jack Lance |
| 6 | P&KU2 - Puzzle and Key Universe 2 | 北京大学推理协 |
| 7 | Shardhunt - The Library of Babel | 17th Shard |
| G | Most Innovative Structure | Authors |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | CCBC13 - Cipher & Code Breaking Competition 13 | simplicissimus |
| 2 | Edric 23 - The 2023 DUAL Puzzle Hunt | Edric Haleen, Deusovi, Stratton Vakirtzis, Anthony Hoover |
| 3 | GPH23 - Galactic Puzzle Hunt 23 - GalactiCardCaptors | ✈✈✈ Galactic Trendsetters ✈✈✈ |
| 4 | MITMH23 - MIT Mystery Hunt 23 - Puzzle Factory | teammate |
| 5 | P.I. Hunt 9 - R.T.3 SEARCH | Jack Lance |
| 6 | Shardhunt - The Library of Babel | 17th Shard |
Puzzles
| H | Best Meta Puzzle | Authors |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Admiral Bootes : Metameta (ABCDEFG) | Alex Pei, Bryan Lee, Harrison Ho, Herman Chau, and Ivan Wang, with art by Ariel Uy, Catherine Wu, Herman Chau |
| 2 | Before & After : Hard Half Meta (Edric 23 DUAL) | Deusovi, Edric Haleen |
| 3 | Hall of Innovation : Innovation Meta / The Blueprint : Factory Floor Meta (MITMH23) | Catherine Wu, Ivan Wang, Jacqui Fashimpaur, and Vinjai Vale, with art by Olga Vinogradova |
| 4 | Kero : Final Boss Battle (GPH23) | Colin Lu |
| 5 | Mathematics Meta (MSPH23) | Jonah Ostroff |
| 6 | Period of Wyrm : The Wyrmhole Metameta (MITMH23) | Alex Irpan, Brian Shimanuki, Jacqui Fashimpaur, and Olga Vinogradova |
| 7 | The Death of the Library / (redacted name) : Floor 3 Metas (Shardhunt) | Adeline Wong, Thomas Gordon, and Ella Sheffield |
| 8 | Transmutation Station : The Witch’s Hut Meta (Huntinality 3) | Bryce Cai |
| I | Best Word Puzzle | Authors |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Deconstructed Crossword (ABCDEFG) | Harrison Ho, Herman Chau, and Ivan Wang |
| 2 | Haloanaka (Halpin 23) | Mark Halpin |
| 3 | Inscription (MITMH23) | Asher Walkover |
| 4 | Long Cube (Huntinality 3) | Bryce Cai |
| 5 | Spelling Bee (GPH23) | Josh Alman, Jenna Himawan, and Nathan Pinsker |
| 6 | This Puzzle is Just Another Regular Cryptic (MITMH23) | Ivan Wang |
| 7 | Two for the Price of One by Will Nediger | Will Nediger |
| J | Best Logic Puzzle | Authors |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | ⚫ (Huntinality 3) | Max Chang |
| 2 | Dahan Conundrum (ABCDEFG) | Lumia Neyo and Patrick Xia |
| 3 | Identification (Shardhunt) | Yanaphat Hemrattaphan |
| 4 | Miss Yu (GPH23) | Amon Ge |
| 5 | Moonick (GPH23) | Yannick Yao |
| 6 | Tinder (CMUS23 Prehistory) | Kevin Zhou (Kaz), Farid Khuri-Makdisi, Summit Wei |
| 7 | World’s Smallest Logic Puzzles (MITMH23) | Alex Gotsis, Alex Pei, and Ivan Wang |
| K | Best Twist on a Classic Style | Authors |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | 🔲 (Huntinality 3) | Ryan Liu, Dan Simon |
| 2 | Bird Conundrum (Huntinality 3) | Dan Simon |
| 3 | Financial Crimes (BPH23) | Alex DeFranco, Thomas Mowen |
| 4 | Hall of Archaeology (MITMH23) | Asher Walkover and Nicholai Dimov |
| 5 | How the Other Half Lives (MSPH23) | Justin Melvin, Jonah Ostroff |
| 6 | MATH 7 Practical Applications of Green’s Theorem (MSPH23) | Mike Sylvia |
| 7 | World’s Largest Logic Puzzle (MITMH23) | Alex Pei |
| L | Best Physical Puzzle | Authors |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Exhibit of Colors (MITMH23) | Mona Wang, Tracey Lin |
| 2 | Find Oren (BPH23) | Ian Rider, Oren Kohavi |
| 3 | Flexibility (Shardhunt) | Thomas Gordon |
| 4 | QR Code Sequence (Pi Hunt 9 / RT3) (see note to view) | Jack Lance |
| 5 | Subterranean Secrets (MITMH23) | Catherine Wu, Katie Dunn |
| 6 | Weaver (MITMH23) | Alex Irpan, Brian Shimanuki, Tracey Lin |
| 7 | Word Wide Web (BAPHL22) | Jen McTeague |
| M | Best Interactive Puzzle | Authors |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | beeBay Fulfillment Center (GPH23) | Violet Xiao and Anderson Wang |
| 2 | Collage (MITMH23) | Alex Irpan, Brian Shimanuki, and Jacqui Fashimpaur |
| 3 | Final Keypad Puzzle (Pi Hunt 9 / RT3) (see note to view) | Jack Lance |
| 4 | Keep Out (Huntinality 3) | Darren Lee |
| 5 | Pushing the Rules (Shardhunt) | Thomas Gordon |
| 6 | Quandle (MITMH23) | Alex Irpan |
| 7 | The Lernaean Hydra (MSPH23) | Justin Melvin |
| N | Best Puzzle in a Non-English Language | Authors |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Book of Fixed Stars (MITMH23) | Justin Yokota, Lumia Neyo, Mona Wang |
| 2 | 万古大魔法书 (P&KU2) | Winfrid, 榆木华 |
| 3 | 提词卡 (CCBC13) | Leaving Leaves |
| 4 | 无字天书 (CCBC13) | Yao Yu |
| 5 | 爱慕猫体邻国斯必克二 (P&KU2) | River |
| 6 | 神奇宝贝在哪里 (CCBC13) | Yao Yu |
| O | Best Puzzle Which Doesn’t Fit Another Category On This List | Authors |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | 5D Barred Diagramless with Multiverse Time Travel (MITMH23) | Alex Irpan, with help from Holly Sipek |
| 2 | City and Forest (ABCDEFG) | Brian Shimanuki |
| 3 | Flight of the Babelbees (Shardhunt) | Yanaphat Hemrattaphan |
| 4 | Learning from Our Old Mistakes (MSPH23) | Jonah Ostroff, Justin Melvin |
| 5 | Pyramid Schemes (MSPH23) | Jonah Ostroff |
| 6 | Ted Tales (ABCDEFG) | Catherine Wu and Katie Dunn |
| 7 | The Launch of This Puzzle Has Been Delayed (Shardhunt) | Ella Sheffield, Mitchell Rosenberg, Yanaphat Hemrattaphan, and Julie Sheffield |
| 8 | X-Talk (ABCDEFG) | Brian Shimanuki |
Puzzle Aspects
| P | Best Introductory Round or Hunt | Authors |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Asteroid Database Round - Cipher & Code Breaking Competition 13 (CCBC13) | simplicissimus |
| 2 | CMU Orientation Hunt 2023 | Puzzle Hunt CMU |
| 3 | Easy Half - The 2023 DUAL Puzzle Hunt (Edric 23 DUAL) | Edric Haleen, Deusovi |
| 4 | Placement Test Round - Microsoft Puzzle Hunt 23 (MSPH23) | Dana Young, Derek Young |
| 5 | Round 1 - CMU Fall Hunt 23 (CMUF23 - Magic) | Puzzle Hunt CMU |
| 6 | Round 1 - Grand Hunt Digital 23 | /r/ConstructedAdventures |
| Q | Best Introductory Puzzle | Authors |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Fruit Math (Huntinality 3) | Bryce Cai, Dan Simon |
| 2 | Now I Know (GPH23) | Ben Yang |
| 3 | Spinosaurus (CMUS23 Prehistory) | Kevin Zhou (Kaz) |
| 4 | The Bakery (Huntinality 3) | Pichusuperlover |
| 5 | You’re Telling Me (MITMH23) | Liam Thomas |
| R | Funniest Puzzle | Authors |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Backbeat (Shardhunt) | Thomas Gordon |
| 2 | Infinitely Many Hogs (and Logs) (GPH23) | Violet Xiao |
| 3 | Interpretive Art (MITMH23) | Alex Irpan, Ivan Wang |
| 4 | One of the Puzzles of All Time (MITMH23) | Austin Lei, Cameron Montag |
| 5 | Ozymandias (MSPH23) | Jonah Ostroff, Mike Sylvia |
| 6 | Sociology of Education (MSPH23) | Jonah Ostroff, Mike Sylvia |
| 7 | The Lernaean Hydra (MSPH23) | Justin Melvin |
| S | Best Solution | Authors |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | 5D Barred Diagramless with Multiverse Time Travel (MITMH23) | Alex Irpan, with help from Holly Sipek |
| 2 | ARECIBOAR (GPH23) | Amon Ge |
| 3 | Dahan Conundrum (ABCDEFG) | Lumia Neyo and Patrick Xia |
| 4 | Gessner Mom (GPH23) | Kevin Matthew Li |
| 5 | KarAO3ke (Shardhunt) | Adeline Wong |
| 6 | Kero (GPH23) | Colin Lu |
| 7 | Long Cube (Huntinality) | Bryce Cai |
| T | Nuovo Award for Puzzling Innovation | Authors |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Puzzle - Learning from Our Old Mistakes (MSPH23) | Jonah Ostroff, Justin Melvin |
| 2 | Puzzle - The Lernaean Hydra (MSPH23) | Justin Melvin |
| 3 | Round - Conjuri’s Quest (MITMH23) | Dominick Joo, Nathan Pinsker, Patrick Xia, with art by Jun Huo |
| 4 | Round - CS (MSPH23) | Amos Eshel |
| 5 | Round - Hall of Innovation (MITMH23) | Catherine Wu, Ivan Wang, Jacqui Fashimpaur, Vinjai Vale |
| 6 | Round - Sociology (MSPH23) | Jonah Ostroff |
| 7 | Round - Trial of Silence (Huntinality 3) | Dan Simon, Bryce Cai, Pichusuperlover |
People
| U | Best Non-Puzzle Contribution to the Hunt Community | Authors |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Bot Be Named - A discord to GSheets automation bot. | Soni (TalesFromTim) and Kevin Esslinger |
| 2 | Bravo Awards - An award series to recognise awesome things in puzzlehunts. | Various |
| 3 | Google Sheets Puzzle Tricks - A repo of many useful Named Functions. | Jonah Ostroff (SoftFro) |
| 4 | List of Puzzlehunts - A nearly exhaustive list of puzzlehunts (with links). | Brian Chen (betaveros) |
| 5 | Puzzle Wiki - A wiki with round the year updates about everything related to puzzlehunts. | Various |
| 6 | Puzzle.js - A tool to make and embed simple interactive puzzles in HTML pages. | Kenny Young (tabascq) |
| 7 | TPH-Site, Spoilr and Puzzup - Infrastructure for hosting puzzlehunt websites, handling hunt management and editing/testing puzzles. Based on earlier infrastructure by ✈✈✈ Galactic Trendsetters ✈✈✈ and Palindrome. | teammate |
| 8 | What’s That Flat? - An NPL Flats guide. Based on earlier work by Hudu, Brillig, Treesong, and Sibyl. | David Millar |
| V | Best Puzzle-Based Media | Authors |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | “A looksy backsy on Huntinality 3” (Blog) | Pichusuperlover |
| 2 | “Accessibility, Americanisms, and the location-attendance question” (Blog) | Thomas Gordon (MetaTerminal) |
| 3 | “Cute Mage’s Tower” (Website/Blogs) | Jen McTeague (Cute Mage) |
| 4 | “mystery hunt write-up” (Blog) | Lumia Neyo |
| 5 | “Puzzlvaria” (Website/Blogs) | Dan Katz |
| 6 | “Two hundred puzzles, fifty years later” (Blog) | CJ Quines |
| 7 | “Writing MIT Mystery Hunt 2023” (Blog) | Alex Irpan (Titandrake) |
| 8 | “RockmanEX3” (Youtube) | |
| 9 | “Christopher Night” (Youtube) | |
| 10 | “Cypher House” (Youtube) | |
| 11 | “pzl_slvr” (Youtube) | |
| 12 | “QuizzyDan” (Twitch) |
| W | Other Significant Community Contributions | |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | David Altizio (djmathman) | For puzzle streams and contributions to the logic puzzle community. |
| 2 | David Millar and Jamie Hargrove | For organising Puzzler Pride 2023, a showcase of logic puzzles from LGBTQ+ authors from the community. |
| 3 | LeavingLeaves | For creating puzz.link assistance user script for logic puzzle solving |
| 4 | Lennard Sprong (X_Sheep) | For maintaining puzz.link website and ongoing technical contributions to the logic puzzle community. |
| 5 | Pedro | For maintaining Pedro’s Works, a website with support for solving many logic puzzle genres. |
| 6 | Swaroop Guggilam and Deb Mohanty | For reinventing Penpa+, and creating LMI and LMI Expo, websites for curating, publishing and solving logic puzzles. |
| 7 | Thomas Snyder | For creating Grandmaster Puzzles, a community with thousands of logic puzzles over the years. |
| 8 | Will Shortz | For curating New York Times crosswords for decades. |
Special Acknowledgements
| X | Special Acknowledgement | |
|---|---|---|
| teammate | For significantly revising MITMH23 after the event had started for the good of the hunt, including cutting an entire round. |
| Y | Special Acknowledgement | |
|---|---|---|
| Dan Egnor; Brent Holman, Jeff Wallace, and Curtis Chen | For maintaining the Puzzlehunt Calendar and the Puzzlehunt Planning team, respectively. |
| Z | Lifetime Achievement Award | |
|---|---|---|
| Jack Lance | For a lifetime of exceptional virtuosity, insight, and kindness; and a vastly creative body of work that shall stand forever as a testament to his existence. You can view his work here and here. JoeltheFox has linked some additional resources for viewing Jack’s work here. |
(To access the QR Code Sequence, click the link, press L, then type in 11111111111111111111111011111111111
111111111111111111111111111111111101111101011101010111111111111111111111111111110111111111111111011. The QR Code Sequence is the set of 6 dots arranged vertically in the bottom left.)
(To access the Final Keypad, click the link, press L, then type in 11111111111111111111111011111111111
111111111111111111111111111111111101111101011101010111111111111111111111111111110111111111111111011. The QR Code Sequence is the rightmost puzzle node.)