Edric's Puzzle Hunt 2020

Edric's 2021 Puzzle Hunt (the first non-treasure hunt in the series) went live at 12:00 noon EDT on Sunday, July 12, 2020. The hunt was structured in the style of an Australian hunt, with six rounds of puzzles released over the course of a week, and then a final metapuzzle at the end.

The only deviation from this structure occurred at the beginning of Day Four. Instead of seeing four new puzzles (as they had been led to expect), solvers saw a single "metapuzzle." But this puzzle was not an actual metapuzzle, as it didn't require any of the previous feeder solutions to solve. Instead, solving the puzzle served to unlock the true Day Four puzzles. (Solvers who did not solve this "gatekeeper" puzzle on Day Four were able to see all the puzzles from Days Four and Five at the beginning of Day Five.)

This momentary departure from the format caused (as was intended) some initial surprise and confusion for solvers. One such solver happened to be recording himself for his YouTube channel as he navigated this particular portion of the hunt. You can watch Anthony from Cypher House at https://youtu.be/DCeDZNc0N3Q (spoilers in video) to see his reactions.

"Sidecar" Hunt
A parallel, "sidecar" hunt ran at the same time at Edric's 2020 Puzzle Hunt, and the puzzles were posted (one per day) on the same main page. Branded "The HappyJon Special" (named in honor of a member of the Underscore team), this hunt was wholly separate from the "main" hunt. The seventh puzzle was a metapuzzle which drew upon the previous six solutions; solving it brought solvers to one final, multi-part puzzle to solve before reaching the conclusion of the hunt.