Anyone walking the Downtown Mall on March 16 might scratch their heads and wonder what’s going on when they see more than 350 teams scouring the area, decoding clues, cross-referencing coordinates, and vying for a chance at small-town glory: victory in the annual Cville Puzzle Hunt.
Part scavenger hunt, walking tour, and decryption exercise, the hunt is the third citywide event organized by Emily Patterson and Greg Ochsenschlager. Participants, armed with a map, puzzle decoders, water bottles, and walking shoes, will be on the lookout for clues hidden outside downtown businesses and landmarks (and maybe in a local publication or two). Unlike previous iterations, this year’s puzzle hunt has a theme: pirates.
“We wanted to give it a different look this year because the last few times it’s just been a general theme,” Patterson says. “So we were thinking, ‘What theme has a map?’ And we came up with the pirate map.”
It was a bit of reverse-engineering.
“This is pretty loose because we came up with the theme after we had designed a lot of the puzzle,” Ochsenschlager says.
During the event, downtown Charlottesville will be transformed into a pirate island. Teams will get their own map of the new landscape, designed by artist Emily Reifenstein, to solve clues.
The puzzle hunt is modeled after similar events like The Washington Post-sponsored Post Hunt, and Tropic Hunt in Miami, Florida. Charlottesville is a “perfect” city for a Post-like hunt, according to Patterson.
“It’s such a brainy and creative place. There’s bar trivia basically every night of the week here,” she says. “Also, it has a walkable downtown and a lot of opportunities to partner with local businesses, artists, and musicians.”
Patterson and Ochsenschlager, who participated in the Post Hunt before the event concluded in 2017, tested their idea at a holiday party in 2021. The game-themed gathering was akin to the U.K.-based game show “Taskmaster,” and served not only to showcase their puzzle aspirations, but also introduce them to WTJU General Manager Nathan Moore.
“I was super impressed, and not just because my team won,” Moore says. “So when Greg told me his dream was to do a citywide puzzle hunt, I told him that I know a guy.”
That guy was Moore himself.
“The puzzle hunt takes us out of our usual experience of downtown. And our usual experience of not really talking to strangers,” says Moore, whose radio station sponsors the hunt. “Because when you’re all trying to figure out puzzle answers, there’s a real and engaged sense of camaraderie.”
The first two puzzle hunts were held in the summer, and incorporated businesses like Chaps, Sidetracks Music, and Violet Crown. Patterson and Ochsenschlager enlisted help from their friends, including local singer-songwriter Devon Sproule, who wrote a song that required puzzle hunters to listen closely for clues in the lyrics. Another event staple is Patterson and Ochsenschlager’s 4-year-old wheaten terrier, Maisie.
In past years, puzzle hunters have deciphered a variety of clues, such as a spoof movie poster encased alongside legitimate cinema advertisements outside Violet Crown. In another search, participants had to flip through Best of C-VILLE magazine to spot a fake ghost-hunting advertisement and phone number.
This year’s puzzle hunt also incorporates the larger city puzzle community. One clue was designed by Bill Gardner, who runs Charlottesville’s Puzzled Pint, a global monthly social puzzle-solving event that’s held at breweries.
For their part, Patterson and Ochsenschlager hope to keep making puzzle hunts for the community. The husband-and-wife team recently created a band-themed puzzle pub crawl for Preston Avenue breweries, including Rockfish Brewing Co., Superfly Brewing Co.., Random Row Brewing Co., and Starr Hill Downtown.
The pair hopes the 2024 hunt will improve on its predecessors. After the first hunt ended in an all-out sprint to the finish, the duo made their final puzzle in the second hunt more difficult, to avoid a race.
“I think we went overboard,” admits Ochsenschlager. The puzzle was so hard, he and Patterson had to give additional hints after teams failed to solve it.
This year, the couple is “focusing more on cool aha moments than actually making it more difficult,” Ochsenschlager says.
“We’re trying to make it so that out of the five additional puzzles, everybody should be able to solve at least two of them,” adds Patterson. “But the end game should be harder.”