Welcome!
Just before Christmas every year, a small box is buried somewhere in England.
Elaborate and often cryptic puzzles and clues that reveal the hiding place are then posted on this website. Who will be first to find the treasure? Assemble your team and get hunting!
First time hunter? Read all about it.
Just before Christmas every year, a small box is buried somewhere in England.
Elaborate and often cryptic puzzles and clues that reveal the hiding place are then posted on this website. Who will be first to find the treasure? Assemble your team and get hunting!
First time hunter? Read all about it.
Latest News
Updates for this year's hunt will be posted here regularly.
23 February 2023
The solution and marking sheet for the adventure game CATastrophe! have
now been released. We're sorry that this took longer than expected; it
turns out that our interns are moonlighting for other companies! Don't
worry, they will be disciplined via squirrels.
If you want to keep playing the game without seeing the full solution, we have also released a "partial solution" which allows you to reveal hints for the game one at a time. If you want to do this, don't click on the solution or marking sheet below!
The
game marking spreadsheet
also contains space for suggestions for five bonus points for your team.
These bonuses cover the main hunt and the adventure game. As
before, copy and paste all of the cells into your favourite spreadsheet
app, tick the items you got right and
send us the result before 23
March. If any teams have close scores, we will double check marking.
The Setters' Notes are nearly complete and will be released soon.
If you want to keep playing the game without seeing the full solution, we have also released a "partial solution" which allows you to reveal hints for the game one at a time. If you want to do this, don't click on the solution or marking sheet below!
The Setters' Notes are nearly complete and will be released soon.
9 February 2023
We are currently busy working on the CATastrophe game solution, marking
sheet and Setters' Notes. As requested by several ATHers, we will be
allowing five suggestions for bonus points for each team (for the game
and the main hunt), for things you think we missed, or interesting or
amusing links or facts.
In the meantime, we hope you enjoy this short film of the setters hiding the treasure!
In the meantime, we hope you enjoy this short film of the setters hiding the treasure!
2 February 2023
Amir, our Multiverse Intern, accidentally released the solution (and
marking sheet) for "Universe a923c1223" yesterday. We're sure that if he were able,
he'd send his apologies.
Accordingly, we've removed the "extra" crossword answers from this Universe's solution document, and indicated them in strikethrough in the marking sheet.
We've also been asked how to indicate if you got a question right or wrong - if you're using Google Sheets, a tick suffices; but we can also accept TRUE/FALSE or 0/1 in that column (n.b. we will be applying weights to the scores before working out the winners!)
Accordingly, we've removed the "extra" crossword answers from this Universe's solution document, and indicated them in strikethrough in the marking sheet.
We've also been asked how to indicate if you got a question right or wrong - if you're using Google Sheets, a tick suffices; but we can also accept TRUE/FALSE or 0/1 in that column (n.b. we will be applying weights to the scores before working out the winners!)
1 February 2023
The solution for the main hunt has been released!
This contains the full solution to the Computering Magazine PDF.
We have also released a
"partial solution", if you would like to continue trying to solve the main hunt (it
allows you to reveal individual puzzle solutions one at a time). If you
wish to do this, don't open the full solution or marking spreadsheet
yet!
The solution for the adventure game CATastrophe! will be released soon, along with our Setters' Notes.
This year's hunt is self-marked. We have made a
marking spreadsheet
available which we hope will make this straightforward. Simply copy and
paste all of the cells into your favourite spreadsheet app, tick the
items you got right and
send us the result before 19
February. If any teams have close scores, we will double check marking.
The solution for the adventure game CATastrophe! will be released soon, along with our Setters' Notes.
15 January 2023
The 2022 Pablo's Armchair Treasure Hunt is now over.
The team at DaphneHQ would like to say a massive "thank you!" to
everyone who has taken part and engaged with our absurdity. We are
starting to work our way through your wonderful solution documents for
scoring, and will shortly be sharing solution documents for both the
game and the main hunt. It came at the cost of 47 Interns who
variously died, vanished, or in one case apparently turned out never
to have existed at all [1], during its duration.
"They shall not grow old, as we who are left grow old" [2].
In other news, it appears that a website that DaphneHQ hosts as part of its wildly generous social responsibility programme [3] has been hacked! Clement, our Sys Admin Intern, ran out of the server room shouting something about "a ghost in the machine". Very strange. Anyway, a quantity of new text has appeared on The Godstow Witch website. It looks like a load of stuff and nonsense to us!
Several players of our award-winning [4] game CATastrophe! have been struggling variously with herbs and woods. Hopefully the images below will help you a little.
"They shall not grow old, as we who are left grow old" [2].
In other news, it appears that a website that DaphneHQ hosts as part of its wildly generous social responsibility programme [3] has been hacked! Clement, our Sys Admin Intern, ran out of the server room shouting something about "a ghost in the machine". Very strange. Anyway, a quantity of new text has appeared on The Godstow Witch website. It looks like a load of stuff and nonsense to us!
Several players of our award-winning [4] game CATastrophe! have been struggling variously with herbs and woods. Hopefully the images below will help you a little.
[1] It is very odd. We can all remember Intern Katherine, but there
is no trace of her whatsoever on our systems. We have spoken to her
parents who insist they never had a daughter. And yet there is still
that absurd coffee mug in the kitchen, the one with all of the cats
on, that she brought into the office on her first day at work...
[2] Rigorous data analysis suggests that actually only Senior Executives at DaphneHQ survive long enough to "grow old".
[3] Our lawyers have instructed us to note that technically this programme is a community pay-back scheme that was part of the settlement in a class-action lawsuit relating to the wrongful deaths of a number, okay, lots, of interns.
[4] Best Game by DaphneHQ (not involving squirrels) 1987!
[2] Rigorous data analysis suggests that actually only Senior Executives at DaphneHQ survive long enough to "grow old".
[3] Our lawyers have instructed us to note that technically this programme is a community pay-back scheme that was part of the settlement in a class-action lawsuit relating to the wrongful deaths of a number, okay, lots, of interns.
[4] Best Game by DaphneHQ (not involving squirrels) 1987!
4 January 2023
The closing date for the hunt is 15th January 2023 at 12:00 PM
(GMT).
Please email your solution document for the hunt and the adventure
game to
[email protected] before
then. The full solution and results will be published when we are
able to find out which pub the Solution Interns are hiding in.
Please note we are also accepting "virtual finds" this year due to strikes/weather etc. As per ATH rules, these are subject to a 24 hour time penalty, and must include very specific directions to the treasure. Also, a team can only make 3 attempts, and each must be at least 24 hours apart.
Please note we are also accepting "virtual finds" this year due to strikes/weather etc. As per ATH rules, these are subject to a 24 hour time penalty, and must include very specific directions to the treasure. Also, a team can only make 3 attempts, and each must be at least 24 hours apart.
2 January 2023
After our intern Franklin's recent hospital stay, new recruits Antoni and Betty will be helping out with game reviews in the new year.
ERRATUM: We would also like to apologise for the various stray lower case letters, typos and white text on white background in the PDF. Almost all of these are totally accidental. Henry, our Typesetting Intern, has since been fired. In a kiln.
26 December 2022
25 December 2022
Happy Christmas!
Sorry if the postal strikes mean this has arrived late.
22 December 2022
SQUIRREL WARNING!!
One of our interns, Scott, out on a routine patrol yesterday spotted
a squirrel somewhere vaguely in the vicinity of the treasure
location. They were able to take this picture, which our crack IT
team were able to recover from the Polaroid camera found next to
poor Scott's body. We would like to ensure that all treasure-hunters
are aware of this threat, and for your safety have published below
the full content of the SERE (Survival, Evasion, Resistance and
Escape) manual (Squirrel Edition) that is issued to every new
DaphneHQ intern:
RUN!!
We hope that this helps. Remember, you don't have to run faster than the squirrel (that would clearly be impossible) you simply have to run faster than the slowest member of your party. Or slowest two members of your party if there are two squirrels. Or slowest...oh, you'll figure it out. At DaphneHQ your safety is our priority. As one of our many mottos states "A dead customer is a lost revenue opportunity!"
RUN!!
We hope that this helps. Remember, you don't have to run faster than the squirrel (that would clearly be impossible) you simply have to run faster than the slowest member of your party. Or slowest two members of your party if there are two squirrels. Or slowest...oh, you'll figure it out. At DaphneHQ your safety is our priority. As one of our many mottos states "A dead customer is a lost revenue opportunity!"
20 December 2022
ERRATA: Rosa's Tech Solutions have telexed us to
let us know the correct price for a BBC Model B is
£18.69. We don't know how this happened, because
the intern responsible, Mo, disappeared before we could conduct our
customary root cause analysis. Our lawyers have instructed us to
refund Rosa's the full 27p difference for the BBC Micro they sold
since the magazine came out (always read the small print!)
Additionally, our two history interns, Alex and Hannah, had a massive argument about which battle had the highest single-day loss of life - they were totally livid! We asked out in-house AI to help out (the Squirreltron 2001) and it suggested asking them which was the bloodiest battle before the year 0. They could both agree on that, and peace was restored! We have sent them out into the squirrel park to test their survival, evasion, resistance and escape skills which should give them the opportunity to bond even more. Albeit possibly not for very long…
Additionally, our two history interns, Alex and Hannah, had a massive argument about which battle had the highest single-day loss of life - they were totally livid! We asked out in-house AI to help out (the Squirreltron 2001) and it suggested asking them which was the bloodiest battle before the year 0. They could both agree on that, and peace was restored! We have sent them out into the squirrel park to test their survival, evasion, resistance and escape skills which should give them the opportunity to bond even more. Albeit possibly not for very long…
17 December 2022
DaphneHQ just wanted to send you a quick reminder to try and
complete the final levels of
the adventure game CATastrophe!
- and for those who didn’t complete the demo there may be a few
hints in the most recent issue of Computering Magazine to help you.
Remember - it has its own real Game Prize to be found! The team here
are off sledding (they can get up to some record-breaking speeds!)
before the storms forecast for the weekend wash away all of the
snow.
ERRATUM: We have discovered a small error in some
of the data in the most recent issue of Computering Magazine. The
magazine PDF
has been updated and you can find the correct version here. The
intern responsible, Carol, has been re-assigned to the squirrel
trapping team and has already been sent to the wilds of the Isle of
Wight. Her mission is partly to capture more squirrels, but is
mostly to find out what happened to the previous trapping
expedition. The last pager message we received from them simply read
“The horror! The horror!“. Very strange - the Isle of Wight isn’t
that bad…
Before we go we would like to share with you a poem from our poetry intern, Adrian. I am sure you will all agree it is a lovely piece, it’s called “The Sourpuss and the Raconteur”. We hope you like it.
Before we go we would like to share with you a poem from our poetry intern, Adrian. I am sure you will all agree it is a lovely piece, it’s called “The Sourpuss and the Raconteur”. We hope you like it.
15 December 2022
ERRATA: DaphneHQ has been informed by Computering
Magazine that the crossword puzzle we provided them with for this
month’s issue has a number of errors in it (regular readers will
know that we have been the world’s leading manufacturer of
crosswords since 1862). Our Crossword Intern, Jeremy, has been put
on squirrel cleaning duties in an attempt to focus his mind upon
being more accurate in his future work. His first task will be to
clean up the remains of the previous intern given such a duty. The
corrections are:
- Which king danced in front of a bonfire of cats? (5,3)
- Which parasite do you probably share with cats? (10,6)
- Where did a Russian Queen source her cats from? (5)
15 December 2022 - 5pm GMT
Pablo's Armchair Treasure Hunt 2022 has now been
released.
Read all about it in
this month's issue of Computering Magazine! Also be sure to play the latest game from DaphneHQ,
CATastrophe!
(full version now available!)
15 December 2022
We are very excited to announce that our CATastrophe game has been
given a 5 STAR REVIEW in the latest issue of Computering Magazine,
which will be hitting the news stands at 5pm (GMT) this evening.
To coincide with this, at the same time we will be releasing the full version of the game! Just refresh your browser to get the update (you can tell you are on the full version because it will mention the magazine being "out now").
To coincide with this, at the same time we will be releasing the full version of the game! Just refresh your browser to get the update (you can tell you are on the full version because it will mention the magazine being "out now").
6 December 2022
It appears that our game has been hacked and some bugs introduced
into it. We suspect, but cannot prove (our lawyers are at pains to
point out) that it was a deliberate attack by our arch-rivals, Velma
Inc. Our highly caffeinated engineers have worked around the clock
to fix the bugs and beef up our security. If you started a game
before 3pm today, please restart it (refresh browser) to get the
update.
- A certain command, if repeated, was causing the game to lock up and not respond on some browsers.
- You needed to restart the whole game in order to retry a certain puzzle. This is now fixed so you do not need to restart the game. Just restart the puzzle from where you would expect.
- A few minor issues and typos have been corrected.
4 December 2022
We have fixed a few issues in the game that have been reported. If
you see any error messages in the game (text beginning "Error...")
please email us with a screenshot. Many thanks.
3 December 2022
We hope you are enjoying the game so far! If you manage to complete
the game, please make sure you email
[email protected] to
register your position. Also please let us know if you spot any
errors. Thanks.
3 December 2022
The promotional poster for this year's treasure hunt "CATastrophe!"
has now been released! It can be downloaded as a
high-quality PDF (7.5MB)
or a
smaller JPEG (1.3MB).
This year's hunt consists of two parts - an adventure game and a more traditional puzzle.
You don't have to solve (or even play) the game to solve the main hunt - however doing so will reveal hints, and earn you points based upon how well you do and the thematic links you identify. There is also a separate prize for the team that is first to complete the game! Newcomers to Pablo's ATH may want to start with the game, as it is more user-friendly than the main puzzle.
We recommend playing the game on a desktop/laptop, although it will also work on mobile devices.
We do ask that the more technically minded hunters DO NOT attempt to brute force or reverse engineer the game, as this may overload our server or break the game for everyone else. Thank you for understanding. Enjoy!
27 November 2022
DaphneHQ is proud to announce that it has been featured on the No. 1
digital platform in the world - Teletext. Check out our page below.
The official poster for this year's treasure hunt will be released
next week!
26 November 2022
The website design has been updated for this year's hunt. It should
also work a bit better on mobile telephones. Please send us an
electronic mail if you spot any problems ([email protected]). We will print it out and share with the team.
8 October 2022
ATH 2022 will be set by
DaphneHQ.
Skeletal pages for the hunt are
now in place, expect further information towards the end of the
year.
8 October 2022
Future ATH setters are confirmed as
Beet (2023) and Steve Hames (2024). The ballot for 2025 is due in March,
volunteers are invited to apply
here.
