Dear solvers,
We are so grateful to the more than 530 of you who have solved at least one puzzle during Advent Hunt 2025 so far. We've been tracking your progress and enjoying the activity on Discord, and we're especially happy to see participation already eclipse last year's final numbers, despite what has been a ramp-up in difficulty.
As we enter the final week of daily puzzles, we've decided to come out and announce something that we've kept quiet about thus far: this year's hunt has more to it than meets the eye. While we don't want to spoil any surprises too much, we'd like to state explicitly that the hunt contains quite a bit of optional bonus content to be found, which culminates in a special hidden resolution to the story. In fact, the ⭐ leaderboard achievement which was previously labeled as "???" is for "Found the secret ending!"
This bonus content is entirely optional and is not necessary to reach a satisfying conclusion to the hunt. But if some of the puzzles you solved felt a little bit... off.... well, just know that there could be a good reason for that.
It is possible for any participant to make progress on the secret content right now, even without solving any metapuzzles. For those who decide to take up this extra challenge, we ask that you keep chatter about it to a minimum. We have been and will continue to be stricter in moderating the Discord for spoilers related to the secret content (and some of you now might better understand why we deleted some of your messages). That said, we certainly encourage you to team up with other solvers to tackle it!
As a reminder, the hunt will remain open until January 5, at which point the leaderboards will be frozen and solutions posted.
Happy holidays and happy hunting!
Peppermint Herrings 🎏