Tech considerations

Although BAPHL's tech needs are quite low compared to, say, the MIT Mystery Hunt, that doesn't mean that you shouldn't keep your tech needs in mind when designing your next BAPHL.

Smartphone policies

For the first few BAPHLs, teams were instructed to avoid using the internet for any purposes during the event. Since then, recent BAPHLs have allowed teams to use their phones to look up trivia and other relevant information. Part of the reason for the change is the increasing ubiquity of smartphones, but keep in mind that even in 2015, not every individual has a smartphone. Although it may be a good idea to allow teams to look up information to keep them from getting stuck, requiring teams to use the internet is a bad idea. This can make it difficult to write puzzles incorporating trivia or crossword-style clues, but that doesn't mean every puzzle has to be a logic puzzle. Use common sense when designing your puzzles, and back it up with thorough test-solving.

Answer verification, hints, etc.

Throughout the course of a BAPHL, solving teams will need to verify answers, ask for hints, or otherwise exchange information with the running team. Typically, the running team handles these interactions in person, but this might difficult for a small running team to handle. For BAPHL 10, For Immoral Use Only used ClueKeeper to handle some of these interactions. ClueKeeper has its pros and cons, but it is worth considering. For one thing, ClueKeeper will allow community-run hunts like BAPHL to use its platform free of charge. They are committed to serving the puzzle hunt community, and receptive to feedback from its users. Automated hint distribution is always a tricky thing to balance -- teams want to hear things they don't already know, but not so much that they are spoiled for the whole puzzle. And, again, requiring teams to have a smartphone on hand so they can use ClueKeeper can be tricky.