Hints

Hints are clues to the answer given by the puzzle makers. There are two types of hints.

Time-based hints
Time-based hints are hints that are given to a team after they have spent a certain amount of time trying to solve the puzzle. Hints are given most often at intervals of 10 minutes, but some puzzles have hints at intervals of 5 minutes.

Time-based hints are most often scheduled to be given by the puzzle makers as they make the puzzles, but time-based hints can also be entered during the event.

Answer-based hints
Answer-based hints are hints that are given to a team that has attempted to answer a specific word. For example, teams who answered "car jack" on the puzzle Wallpaper (when the actual answer was "carjack" without a space) would be given the hint Try without a space ;) indicating that answering "carjack" without a space would be beneficial to a team.

Answer-based hints are most commonly created in order to send a message to a specific team.