Blinking Birch Puzzle Hunt 2025 puts your TTRPG knowledge to the test

As the game designer and purveyor of deeply personal TTRPGs like The World We Left Behind, Death of the Author, and the ENNIE-nominated RPG Anamnesis, it’s no surprise that Samantha Leigh of Blinking Birch Games has a nearly encyclopedic knowledge of RPGs — one they’ve decided to put to good use., Leight recently crafted a series of puzzles based on truly esoteric RPG knowledge, peppered with cryptograms, substitution ciphers, and even references to an actual play podcast. The result was the Blinking Birch Puzzle Hunt 2025.

The puzzle hunt comprised of eight puzzles, laid out on a PDF document hosted on itch.io, with the answer to each puzzle serving as the password to the next. Leigh wrote on the page that the hunt was meant as a collaborative effort, which is why they had put together a Discord server for interested players to discuss the puzzles. It eventually took the server’s community 11 hours and 32 minutes — and two hints — to complete the hunt. If you’re bummed about missing the event, you can still give the puzzle hunt a shot; Leigh also uploaded several hint documents for solo sleuths. Rascal reached out to them to learn more how they conceptualized the event and where their interest in puzzles stemmed from.

This interview has been edited slightly for clarity.

Khee Hoon Chan: Why did you decide to come up with this series of puzzles? What inspired you?

Samantha Leigh: I've been interested in this sort of thing ever since I was a kid. When my brother and I were in elementary school, we would leave clues for each other around the house that led to a tiny prize, like one of our Hot Wheels. I used to play escape room flash games all the time, and was so excited when I first heard of "real life" escape rooms popping up in Japan. Once they became more common in the US, my family played them together. My high school friends and I joined a cybersecurity puzzle hunt, and we would meet up after school to try to solve the puzzles. I was also a big Gravity Falls fan when the show was coming out, and I followed the Cipher Hunt ARG when the show ended.

In general, I've always been drawn towards this sort of thing, and I'd dreamed of making my own puzzle hunt for many years — I just wasn't sure how to start, or who to make it for. Once I realized I could make it about TTRPGs and share it with the indie RPG scene, I got started immediately.

Chan: Why did you design this hunt to be a collaborative one?

Leigh: Personally, I find collaborative puzzle-solving a lot more fun than solo solving. There's an amount of excitement and engagement that comes from theorizing with others, and everyone celebrates victories together. It also allowed me to make the hunt more difficult, since everyone brings their own strengths to the table. Some players were puzzle hunt veterans, but didn't have a wide knowledge of indie RPGs, while other players immediately recognized which RPGs certain references came from. Everyone was contributing to finding the solutions.

"I've always been drawn towards this sort of thing, and I'd dreamed of making my own puzzle hunt for many years — I just wasn't sure how to start, or who to make it for. "

Chan: What’s the process of designing this puzzle hunt? I saw on Discord that you mentioned it took between 25 to 30 hours.

Leigh: Solving each puzzle results in a question or phrase, mostly trivia-like questions about different games. The answer then ends up being the password for the next puzzle. This meant, for each puzzle, I had to find a way for it to end in a question. Typically, I would have a loose idea for a puzzle, such as using a specific type of cipher, and then I'd ask, "How do we get to the final question?"

Many times, I worked backwards. In one puzzle, for example, the letters of different game publishers spell out the final phrase. So I first had to decide on the phrase, then make a list of publishers that have a letter from that phrase in their name.

Chan: What are some of the most fascinating experiences people had from this hunt?

Leigh: There was a fun surprise near the end when everyone realized that someone participating in the puzzle hunt was a big piece of the final puzzle. There was also a great moment when one player managed to figure out a phrase, but didn't realize it was the name of an RPG until a different player told them. Plus, even after figuring out a puzzle's solution, players would go back and solve any remaining unanswered pieces, just out of pure fun and curiosity.

Chan: What do you hope people will take away from this experience?

Leigh: There's a lot of fun to be had in online community events in this space. I was particularly inspired by Alfred Valley's VALLEY 100 earlier this year, which was a 100-player funnel run entirely over Bluesky — it was just the sort of thing that I'd wanted to see more of, and possibly make myself someday. 

I also hope people can look at the puzzle hunt and realize there's a low barrier to entry for making these types of events. I hosted everything on itch.io and Discord, and all of the puzzles were extremely simple PDFs that could have been put together in Google Docs. I leaned towards making puzzles that weren't overly complicated so I could focus on completing the hunt rather than making it perfect. Despite the simplistic style and a final prize that only took an hour to write, the players seemed to have a wonderful time.

A lot of players also discovered new games and podcasts as a result of the hunt! Which, to me, is also an excellent takeaway.

"There's an amount of excitement and engagement that comes from theorizing with others, and everyone celebrates victories together."

Chan: Are there similar puzzle hunts like the one you’ve created? Do you know of any TTRPG specific ones like yours that others can participate in?

Leigh: Exeunt Press ran a MÖRK BORG puzzle hunt called DOOM QUEST in October 2024, during which they released five puzzles over the course of a month. I only heard about it after the fact, but the entire hunt is now available online and in print.

I don't know of any other TTRPG-themed hunts, but if they exist I'd love to hear about them! And if life allows, the Blinking Birch Puzzle Hunt will be back in 2026.

Chan: Is there anything else you wish to share?

Leigh: I'm really grateful for everyone who gave the puzzle hunt a try! It was so much fun to make, and I had no idea how the reception would be, or how many people would actually participate. I had an amazing time watching everyone figure it out together, and it has given me an even better picture of how to run it next year.