For two decades, Lone Shark Games has been the go-to company for puzzlehunts across the country. We've run a couple hundred convention events, game launches, community events, escape rooms, and ARGs, all packed with the finest puzzles by the finest puzzle creators. But there's been one consistent issue: When a hunt is over, its puzzles disappear. Our customer service shark, Sharky McSharkerson, has fielded untold requests to release a hunt after it ends. Sharky doesn't do that. He's kept them locked in Sharky's Puzzle Vault. Until today.
To celebrate our 20th anniversary year, we're putting hundreds of puzzles, many in full hunt form, into a full-color, 296-page hardcover coffee table book. There are at least 300 puzzles in The Hunting of the Shark: Twenty Years of Lone Shark Puzzlehunts, some of types you've never seen. This collector's edition is one of the largest puzzle troves ever released, and we're excited to share it with you.
But that's not all. We've got a lot of puzzles that Just. Won't. Fit! So, we're creating a subscription site called Chums, where we'll publish 10 or more puzzles every month, some in hunt form. Every pledge for the book comes with a year's subscription to the Chums site. Plus there's a giant Puzzlevania Poster Map and a new variety crossword book called Mindspaces. We've got a few levels called Sharknado, Card Shark, and The Meg, where you can get all our puzzle books and games for quite a deal.
The Hunting of the Shark is only available for our 20th anniversary. After our pledge manager closes, we'll print this once. That's it. We'll keep copies for our web store and cons, but it won't be sent to distribution. If you want 300 of our coolest puzzles in a fancy book, pick it up here. There's a lot more to say about it, so let's take a bite.
These are not just random puzzles. A puzzlehunt is a collection of puzzles unified by a theme and connected to one or more metapuzzles that collect the inputs from the answers and do something bizarre with them. Sometimes there are instructions in the puzzles, sometimes there are instructions hidden in the puzzles and answers, and sometimes you just have to figure out what the shark's going on.
The title refers to a work by our patron saint, Lewis Carroll. His classic The Hunting of the Snarkis one of the most enigmatic tales ever written. Carroll was a puzzlemaster as well as an epic storyteller. Like Carroll's puzzles, ours have deeply woven stories and a wild sense of humor.
Herein you'll find puzzlehunts such as our long-running Gen Con Puzzle Hunt, the escape room-style cases from Planet Word's Lexicon Lane, the JoCo Cruise's weeklong "escape boat," alternate reality games like Citizens of Virtue, Cards Against Humanity's island giveaway, our live manhunts like Vanish, community and charity events such as the Duck Hunt and The Hunt for Odin's Horse, and our videogame launch events. We thrust you into these environments, giving you an immersive taste of what it was like to be there.
You can get all this in digital form, made of the finest pixels on Earth, at the One Shark level, or in physical form, as a full-color hardback book printed on woodfree paper, at the Two Shark level. As with every other book in this campaign, if you get the physical book, you'll also get it in PDF form. If you'd like a preview, download The Sampling of the Shark here.
Did we mention it's big? Because it's big. And speaking of big...
While The Hunting of the Shark is big, some puzzles are TOO big to fit inside it. We've turned the 2009 Gen Con Puzzle Hunt into the Puzzlevania Map, a 20"x30" poster of puzzlement. it's a mammoth optimization puzzle, similar to The Maze of Games's Maze Map. We brought back the same design team as the Maze Map, spearheaded by puzzle designer Eric Harshbarger and graphic designer Corey Macourek, to make you another giant poster map. This time, you'll try to find the crown jewels in the town of Qwerty, capital of the quizzical nation of Puzzlevania. Here's Corey's teaser image that show you both how puzzling and how ADORABLE this map will be.
Because we've hit some stretch goals, the map will be double-sided and will contain a cut-out crown so that you can become the monarch of Puzzlevania! You can get the Puzzlevania Map as an add-on or at the Red Shark level and higher.
Chums is a new puzzle site developed just for our fans. It's where we'll put a monthly series of puzzles — some minihunts, others just random weirdness to puzzle through.
We've planned for a download site and an answer checker. We'll add features as we think of them. You'll get puzzles from our Gen Con Puzzle Hunts and many other hunts. Each month after launch, we'll add a minimum of ten puzzles to the site. Our plan is to charge a $5/month for access, but everyone who backs the treasury at any One-Shark-or-higher pledge level will get the first 12 months included with their pledge. Thank you to all our chums!
Over the last 20 years, we've made a lot of puzzlehunts — but not just puzzlehunts! There are lots more puzzles and games of all kinds in this campaign!
When we send The Hunting of the Shark to print, we'll also send Mindspaces, which contains 111 of a style of variety crossword called Marching Bands. The book includes essays on how to be creative even when your mind is telling you that you can’t. You can get it at the Blue Shark level along with your Hunting book and map, or as an add-on for $30.
The Maze of Games is our interactive puzzle novel, a thrilling Victorian tale where the pages are in the wrong order and you have to solve the puzzles to put the book back together. The Maze of Games also comes with the bonus chapbook The Theseus Guide to the Final Maze, the aforementioned 20"x30" Maze Map, and the hand-annotated answer book The Keymaster's Tome. There's also two audiobooks narrated by Wil Wheaton and a soundtrack by Austin Wintory and friends. Everything Maze is available as a digital or physical bundle add-on or in our Sharknado level.
You can also get Puzzlecraft: How to Make Every Kind of Puzzle. Puzzlecraft is the indispensable 250-page guide to puzzlemaking in all its forms. In 100 sections, you solve a puzzle then learn how it was created, with step-by-step instructions for making your own. It is available as a digital or softcover add-on or in our Sharknado level.
You can also get our crossword graphic novel, Letters to Margaret. The 128-page softcover comic book is totally solvable, with New York Times-style crosswords preceding every chapter. There's also You Can't Make Up This Stuf, an 8-page minicomic bonus chapter of the book. You can get all the crossword comic fun in a digital or physical bundle or in our Sharknado level.
We also feature all the PDFs in our Puzzle Vault: nine awesome Puzzlepacks in one bundle, and the wordgame book Wordwerx, the cryptic crossword book Killer Cryptics, and both volumes of Crosswords of Wisdom in a second bundle. All in all, that Sharknado level contains something north of 800 puzzles, we guess? We've never counted. It's a ton. You can get it all for pennies a puzzle now.
For those who like boardgames too, you can also add on our games the Apocrypha Adventure Card Game (which is also loaded with hidden puzzles), The Ninth World, Thornwatch, Paul & Storm's Sausage Party, and our PDFs in our Game Vault. Fun for the whole family! We've put all those games into a level called Card Shark, or you can get all the game AND all the books in one massive level called The Meg.
These are the fun levels we have for you. Values are shown on this update.
We've funded! Now we're fishing for our stretch goals. Our released goals are:
Thanks for funding our stretch goals!
The Hunting of the Shark has more than 100 creators. Many are designed by the Lone Shark Games puzzle designers over the past 20 years. We've also got the finest art by the best puzzle artists on the planet. Our puzzle event managers shaped these amazing creations. It's a project whose teamwork is noted in credits on every page.
The book is dedicated to our late creative director, Teeuwynn Woodruff. Tey passed away last year, a real blow to the Lone Shark family. We wanted to show off just how clever and bizarre her puzzle creations were. You'll see her finest work for us here. We hope you'll take a look.
Surprise! There are lots of puzzles embedded in this campaign. Most are part of Sharky's Puzzlehunt, a special puzzlehunt that'll roll out every day of the campaign.
In Sharky's Puzzlehunt, our customer service shark Sharky McSharkerson has foolishly agreed to a deal with marketing consultant Butcher T. Billiard-Marker. Butch has concocted a whole bunch of terrible ideas he wants Sharky to include in the campaign. Each day, you'll get treated to one of Apex Marketing's incredibly marketable ideas. You can help Sharky get out of his deal by solving the puzzles in every update.
For example, the Day 1 puzzle is included in our first update. It involves finding six hidden puzzles on this campaign page, each of which leads to a shark-friendly word or phrase that is five to ten letters. One, for example, can be found by fgnegvat ng Arcghar'f jrncba naq ernqvat yrsg gb evtug. Find and solve all six hidden puzzles on this page and you can solve the Day 1 puzzle. If you want some help, check out our puzzle help page or join our Lone Shark Discord.
Enter your answers on the Sharky's Puzzlehunt site. For each puzzle you solve, you'll get a badge. That's a digital puzzle trophy that you can use as your social media avatar on Facebook, Twitter, or Kickstarter, or just hoard them in your computer somewhere. Enjoy puzzling with us, and help Sharky get free from Butch's marketing clutches!
This shark swims alone. You get The Hunting of the Shark in PDF form, plus a subscription to our Chums puzzle site. WA residents sales tax included.
Physical and digital swimming in harmony. You get the full-color hardback of The Hunting of the Shark, plus a PDF of the book and a subscription to our Chums puzzle site. WA residents sales tax included. WA residents sales tax included.
The Red Shark comes with a whole town! You get the full-color hardback book of all of our favorite puzzlehunt puzzles, plus our 20"x30" Puzzlevania city poster map. Plus a PDF of the book and map and a subscription to our Chums puzzle site. WA residents sales tax included.
Not only the rewards above, but another new, more meditative puzzle book. The full-color hardback book of all of our favorite puzzlehunt puzzles, plus our 20"x30" puzzle-poster map and a softcover edition of our marching bands book Mindspaces. Plus PDFs of all of those and a subscription to our Chums puzzle site. WA residents sales tax included.
A veritable cyclone of shark puzzles! You get every puzzle book we make in digital form — The Hunting of the Shark, the Puzzlevania Map, Mindspaces, The Maze of Games bundle, Puzzlecraft, the Letters to Margaret bundle, and a boatload of puzzle PDFs and audiofiles from our vault, and a subscription to our Chums puzzle site. WA residents sales tax included.
It's the sequel! A new low-price offering of every puzzle book we make in physical form — The Hunting of the Shark, the Puzzlevania Map, Mindspaces, The Maze of Games bundle, Puzzlecraft, and the Letters to Margaret bundle. Plus PDFs of all of those and a boatload of more puzzle PDFs, audiobooks, and soundtracks, and a subscription to our Chums puzzle site. WA residents sales tax included.
This Card Shark level contains all the stuff we've featured at Gen Cons over the years. It contains physical and PDF copies of The Hunting of the Shark (which has many Gen Con Puzzle Hunts in it) and the Puzzlevania Map poster (a.k.a., the 2009 Gen Con Puzzle Hunt), plus all this campaign's card and board games: the Apocrypha Bundle, The Ninth World, Paul & Storm's Sausage Party, the Thornwatch Bundle, and the six PDF print-and-play games in the Game Vault Bundle. WA residents sales tax included.
A totally bonkers collection of everything in this campaign: every puzzle book, digital product, and game we've made available. You'll get The Hunting of the Shark, Mindspaces, The Maze of Games, Puzzlecraft, Letters to Margaret, all our digital puzzle rewards, and a subscription to Chums, plus the bundles and games for Apocrypha, The Ninth World, Paul & Storm's Sausage Party, Thornwatch, and our six print-and-play Game Vault puzzle games. It's a lot! WA residents sales tax included.
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