Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)

1. Why are the puzzles so hard?

The Bayer Puzzlehunt is designed to be a true test of your puzzle solving mettle, inspired by its more difficult forebears, such as the MIT Mystery Hunt. After all, what fun would *easy* puzzles be? Beyond that, the difficulty is designed to inspire you to think outside the box, work with friends/colleagues, and hopefully entertain you over the course of a long weekend.

2. Why do I have to log in? What are you going to do with my data?

We only capture data for the purpose of ensuring a fair puzzlehunt experience and to contact the grand prize winners. Once the puzzlehunt is over, we delete everything.

3. No really, why is Bayer doing this? Surely you must have some nefarious plot in mind?

Well you caught us, we actually have this plan for world domination that starts with writing vexing puzzles and giving away Lego sets... no, seriously, we are just doing this for fun. We happen to like writing puzzles and giving away prizes.

4. Why the big deal about cheating?

It makes the puzzlehunt less fun for everyone, stresses us out, and besides have you *seen* Masha when she is angry? Please, just don't cheat.

5. How did the puzzlehunt get started?

I'm so glad you asked. The puzzlehunt was sparked in the dark days of the COVID lockdown. We planned to exhibit at PAG post-lockdown in 2022, which for anyone who hasn't blocked it out, was still pretty bad COVID-wise. As a Life Sciences company with pharmaceutical and consumer health branches as well as crop science, we didn't think it was socially responsible to host a big networking event, but we still wanted to encourage conference attendees to come talk to us in a more dispersed and socially isolated way, hence we came up with the concept of a puzzlehunt where attendees had to first "find Bayer employees and ask them for a code to unlock a puzzle", thus encouraging asynchronous networking. Then the Delta pandemic hit us, PAG 2022 was cancelled, and it all became moot, but since we'd already written all the puzzles and bought the prizes, we decided to have the puzzlehunt anyway in 2023. Then, when the 2023 puzzlehunt was a success, we decided to do it again in 2024... and thus a tradition was born.