Evergreen-ish list of puzzles you can show to people on your phone or something when they ask you what puzzlehunt puzzles are. (Unfortunately rules out a bunch of crazy puzzles that are harder to show, e.g. the 10,000 Noun Puzzles that are .zip files. Also various dead puzzles; I have a note to myself that I thought Isotopic 128 from MUMS 2014 might be good to show off but I can't find it any more.)
Immediate gratification, with some luck
- Weird-Looking Creatures (PDF) (Jack Lance, P.I.HUNT 1, 2015): For young audiences or when you really want people to solve the thing just by looking at it
- Rectangles (Kris Ehinger, MIT Mystery Hunt 2015): abstract identification 1/n
- Ox (PDF) (or puzzle page) (Todd Etter, MIT Mystery Hunt 2020): abstract identification 2/n
- Double Act (PDF, my archived version) (Sean Gardiner, ΣUMS PUZZLE HUNT 2012): I haven't actually tried this yet but wonder if it'll work well for some English enthusiasts
- Get home! (Amon Ge, Galactic Puzzle Hunt 2024) ?
- You're Telling Me (Liam Thomas, MIT Mystery Hunt 2023) ?
- Bugcat (Eli Chang (Ellibereth) with Jamie Lai, 2022 Huntinality) ?
"Wow" factor
- Replication (2MB .png) (or puzzle page) (Derek Kisman, MIT Mystery Hunt 2016)
- World's Longest Diagramless
- World's Largest Crossword Puzzle (David Greenspan, MIT Mystery Hunt 2025)
???
- 🔲 (Ryan Liu and Dan Simon, Huntinality 3)
- Peaches (DD Liu and Nathan Pinsker, Galactic Puzzle Hunt 2019)
- This Puzzle Intentionally Left Blank (Alex Pei, Galactic Puzzle Hunt 2020)
- Only Geniuses Can Solve This Puzzle!! (mstang, Silph Puzzle Hunt, 2021)
- Space Monkey Mafia (puzzle page) (Robyn Speer, MIT Mystery Hunt 2013)
- horse_ebooks (Alan Huang, Galactic Puzzle Hunt 2021)
Story-telling
- So You Think You Can Count
- Maybe the entireties of GPH 2019, 2023, and 2024, tbh