In Groundhog Day Town, citizens and visitors play games during the festival leading up to Punxsutawney Phil’s big announcement.

Please send two team members willing to learn from experience. Please send two team members willing to learn from experience.


Teams were invited to participate in the festival at Groundhog Day Town. Upon arriving, the Mayor of Groundhog Day Town informed them that the Groundhog had gone missing and needed to be found in order for the festival to end. Six mini-puzzles were then revealed:

  • Exquisite Fruit: An animation with slowly revealed words cluing a famous person or character with a fruity name (e.g., Liz Lemon, Darryl Strawberry)
  • I Spy: A chart describing an object hidden in the room
  • Maze: A chart with a hidden numeric message in a twisty pathway
  • Enhance: An animation showing a series of images with progressively greater detail, depicting a cartoon character
  • Wheel of Fortune: An animation revealing letters in a phrase
  • Word Ladder: An animation showing an initial word and a series of definitions cluing a word chain (i.e., where words in successive steps differ by one letter)

Teams were tasked to solve each of the mini-puzzles and submit their answers to Game Control. Correct answers were rewarded with a piece of transparency which somehow would help solvers find Phil the Groundhog.

After some time, however, the puzzles disappeared, “I Got You Babe” played, and the Mayor made the introductory announcement again! The “day” had restarted and all of puzzles now had new content and new solutions!

Therefore, teams had to not only solve a mini-puzzle within the time limit, but also confirm the answer with Game Control before the reset occurred and the answer for that puzzle changed. Teams used their previous knowledge of the puzzles to aid in their subsequent attempts.

Once teams solved all six mini-puzzles and obtained all of the transparencies from Game Control, they used them to access the event’s endgame. As teams left with the answer, they received a physical object to take back to their HQ. Teams were also awarded 40 drops of solvent for completing the event.