Penguin Hide and Seek


 * Looking for this week's penguins? See Distractions and Diversions Locations/Penguin Hide and Seek for their locations.



Penguin Hide and Seek, also known as Penguin Hunting (not to be confused with the Penguin Hunting Area found east of the Iceberg, and also referenced by Larry as Operation Ice Spy, in Issue 35 of the Postbag from the Hedge), is one of the broadest extensions of Distractions and Diversions and can be used to earn money or experience in any skill. Penguin Hide and Seek was released with the original three Distractions and Diversions on 2 September 2008. The main objective of this D&D is to hunt down undercover penguin spies.

Getting started
Our paranoid friend Larry is positioned near the south west side of the Ardougne Zoo, at a comfortably close proximity to the Penguin Exhibit. While the rest of RuneScape thinks he is insane, he alone realises the true threat the penguins pose and stands in faithful guardianship at the side of the Penguin enclosure.
 * After Hunt for Red Raktuber, you have to use the polar bear Chuck, instead of Larry. Chuck is located in the Polar Bear pen, east of where Larry was.

Simply ask him about penguin hunting and he decides he is able to trust the adventurer with the information required to get out and do the dirty work for him.

He gives you a Spy notebook that keeps track of how many penguins you have found that week and how many Penguin points you have that are ready to be spent. Please note that the book is completely optional, but handy nonetheless. If you happen to lose your spy book, talk to Larry and he gives you another after a slight scolding.

There are ten disguised penguins which players can spy each week. There is also a polar bear and an invisible penguin that can be unlocked after completing certain quests (more details below). Penguins reset Wednesday (between 00:00 and 01:00 UTC), so you can hunt them down again.

Chuck or Larry offers hints to help players locate penguins. Some of the hints are general areas, while other are more specific. If you receive more than ten location hints, it may be because a penguin has recently run over into another hint's area. Chuck or Larry give hints for all penguins — whether you have already spied on them or not! Hints are NOT given relating to the 11th invisible penguin or the polar bear.

Players can use Quick Chat (efdp2) to check how many penguins they have spied. (I have found ... penguins this week.) Quick chat includes the invisible penguin in the count, but does not include the polar bear. The quick chat count resets only if the player logs in after penguins reset (resets to zero) or if the player spies a new penguin (resets to one). A reliable way to determine whether penguins have reset is to see if the circus has moved, because penguins and the circus reset together.

Requirements
There are no skill or combat levels required, but if you are low-level, you may want to bring food if going to a dangerous place such as the Wilderness.

Optional quest requirements
There are four quests rewarding extra features for Penguin Hunting:

Other quests are required to access locations where the penguins roam, however, not all of them need to be completed. Simply beginning some quests are all that is required. Note: Some quests have prerequisites.

Completed quests: These quests must be completed to be able to reach the new places.


 * Cabin Fever - To get to Mos Le'Harmless
 * Death to the Dorgeshuun - To get to Dorgesh-Kaan
 * Lost City - To get to Zanaris
 * Ghosts Ahoy - Free entrance to Port Phasmatys (Not required to enter Port Phasmatys)

Started quests: You only need to reach a certain point in these quests to reach the new places.


 * The Fremennik Isles - To get to Neitiznot and Jatizso
 * The Fremennik Trials - To get to Miscellania and Etceteria
 * The Giant Dwarf - To take the Mine cart to Keldagrim (Entering Keldagrim from the caves automatically starts the quest.)
 * Icthlarin's Little Helper - To get inside Sophanem (You may also use a charged Pharaoh's sceptre to teleport to the pyramid.)
 * Lunar Diplomacy - To get to Lunar Isle
 * Monkey Madness - To get to Ape Atoll
 * Regicide - To get to the Elven lands
 * Mourning's Ends Part I or The Prisoner of Glouphrie - To get to Lletya

Disguises
Penguins can come in a variety of disguises that help them blend into their surroundings and go around unnoticed. The KGP went to great lengths to make sure the disguises are perfect, and indeed, they are near perfect! The only flaw is when the feathery spies are moving or looking around. The Feathery Bolshevik Investigations (FBI for short) had the sense to make their disguises common knowledge so that there would be little confusion on what is or is not a penguin spy.


 * {| style="text-align:center" class="wikitable"

! colspan="5" |Penguins in disguises ! rowspan="6" | !Other !Barrel !Bush !Cactus !Crate ! !Polar bear !Rock !Toadstool !Invisible !Snowman !Pumpkin !
 * Penguin in barrel.png
 * Penguin in bush.png
 * Penguin in cactus.png
 * Penguin crate.png
 * Polar bear.png
 * Polar bear.png
 * Polar bear.png
 * colspan="5" | ||
 * Penguin in rock.png
 * Penguin in toadstool.png
 * Penguin (invisible).png
 * X-mas Peng.png
 * Pumpkin penguin.png
 * X-mas Peng.png
 * Pumpkin penguin.png
 * }

The invisible ("ghost") penguin can be seen using a ring of visibility, which is obtained during the Shadow Dungeon part of the Desert Treasure quest. It teleports every few minutes to any one of 34 1-point penguin spawn locations around RuneScape. It is worth three points when spying after completing Some Like It Cold; before completion of this quest it can be seen and spied upon, but it gives no reward. Players that have spoken to Sliske in the Empyrean Citadel after completing The General's Shadow and Fate of the Gods no longer need the ring to spy on the ghost penguin.

The Pumpkin Penguins or pumpguins were first released during the 2008 Hallowe'en event and have been used around Hallowe'en since then. This disguise is only seen during October.

The Snowman Penguins or snowguins were first released during the 2009 Christmas Event and have been used around Christmas since then. This disguise is only seen during December.

Helpful hints

 * For a list of confirmed locations for current week, see Distractions and Diversions Locations/Penguin Hide and Seek.

Suggested items

 * Weight-reducing items such as Boots of Lightness, Spotted/Spottier Cape, Penance Gloves, Agile legs, Agile Top and Wicked robes.
 * A Bull Ant or Spirit Terrorbird Summoning Familiar to restore Run energy.
 * Super energy potions or an Explorer's Ring to restore Run energy.
 * Teleportation items such as Amulet of Glory, Games Necklace, Ring of Duelling, Explorer's ring 3, Desert amulet 2 (or better), and at least an Ardougne cloak 1 to be able to teleport to the Kandarin monastery an unlimited times per day. The monastery is right below Ardougne Zoo, making it a free and easy teleportation to Larry or Chuck to spend your penguin points.
 * Quest-related teleports such as Camulet, Enchanted Lyre, crystal teleport seed, Ectophial
 * Dramen Staff or Lunar Staff for Fairy Ring usage. (After starting A Fairy Tale Part II, not needed after A Fairy Tale Part III.)
 * Money for boat trips and/or carpet rides in the desert. (An activated Ring of Charos helps with this by allowing you to select a significant discount in the costs.)
 * Ecto-tokens to get inside Port Phasmatys.
 * A ring of duelling to get to Castle Wars or close to Yanille.
 * A Wicked hood, allowing a player to teleport to runecrafting altars to reach locations easier.
 * An Enchanted water tiara (Dealing with Scabaras) is good for desert penguins as it replaces the need for waterskins.
 * A Broomstick when enchanted by the Apprentice in Al Kharid gives you unlimited teleports to the Sorceress's Garden. This is allows quick access to the Shantay Pass and bank chest nearby.
 * A Ring of visiblity for spying the penguin unlocked by Some Like It Cold.
 * Penguin clans can be found in the Distraction and Diversion section of the RuneScape Forums.
 * There are many choices when it comes to finding the Penguins, the most popular are:
 * 1) Clan Chat hunting and spying. The best world for this is World 60.
 * 2) Forum Thread based hunting and spying. The best world(s) for this is World 71 and/or World 99

Spellbook teleports
The general Magic teleportation spells are very useful for getting around to find the penguins quickly. Common locations include:
 * Varrock
 * East Ardougne
 * Falador
 * Camelot
 * Ape Atoll

Several players like to use the Lunar Magic Spell book, as they can teleport to some uncommon but useful places while still being able to get clues from Larry or Chuck anywhere with the NPC Contactspell. Some Lunar teleportation locations include:
 * Port Khazard
 * Lunar Isle
 * Catherby

Not many use the Ancient Magicks spellbook for this purpose, as the Ancient teleport spells are generally less convenient in getting around. But it is still an option. Some Ancients teleportation locations include:
 * Digsite
 * Edgeville
 * Canifis

The Lunar spellbook has a significant advantage for those with 96 magic as they can cast Spellbook Swap and make use of all teleport spells.

Note: If you are on Lunar or Ancients, or just have a low magic level, House Portals or Teleportation Tablets are other time-saving options!

Trapping penguins
It is possible to trap a penguin in one spot so that it can not move around by positioning players and the scenery around the penguin and boxing it in. When players are standing still, the penguin can't pass through them thus allowing the penguin to be trapped. The trap is broken when another player moves through that square, allowing the penguin to escape from the trap. It is therefore very important not to step on or run through trappers when spying a trapped penguin.

If a trapper is stepped on, they should wait until the other player moves off them and then move off the square and then back to their original spot quickly.

Tips on trapping
 * 1) If penguins are unable to move from the square they are standing on for approximately 7 minutes, then they "re-spawn" or teleport to their primary spawn point. Each penguin has one re-spawn point. So unless you’d like to go hunting all over again for that penguin, give it at least two squares to move around!
 * 2) If you want to help herd penguins, follow it until it is near a suitable location, then open doors in front of the penguin and close them behind it. This works better with 2 or more people.
 * 3) Try not to stand on people who are trapping a penguin; standing on and then stepping off a person allows the penguin to pass through them. Players should take the following precautions:
 * 4) Turn off run when approaching the penguin.
 * 5) Move to a square with a line of sight to the penguin before spying.
 * 6) Click away after spying. (Otherwise players may automatically walk towards the penguin).
 * 7) In the case of a door, walk up to the door before opening, open it, take a single step inside and close it behind you.
 * 8) If you can, spy over water, lava, fences, through windows, low walls, etc.
 * 9) There are a few pets such as a platypus or tooth creature which can help you trap penguins as they block them the same way players do.

Clans and clan chats
There are a number of clans and clan chats which help players find their weekly penguins. Some of these clans have threads in Minigames and D&Ds in the RuneScape official forums. Posted on the threads are general locations of each of the 11 penguins and the polar bear well for each weekly update. Updates with more recent locations can be found in friends chat or on forums depending on the clan.

Other hints and tips

 * Wilderness penguins can trap themselves just south of the South Western building in the ruins west of the bandit camp around level 20.
 * Since penguins do not appear as dots on the mini-map, turn music off and volume up. Penguins are noisy spies and can be generally heard if they are visible on your screen. It is sort of a mechanical chugging sound, interspersed with the penguin's pops and whistles.


 * Look for the polar bear. They can't move, are always in wells, and give one extra penguin point. Players must have completed Hunt for Red Raktuber quest to be able to spot them.
 * Don't be afraid to ask other players if they have recently seen a penguin.
 * If players are in a penguin friends chat, it would be wisest to first find the penguins that are harder to trap, e.g., the desert penguins. If these penguins escape, it could take a very long time to find them.

Spawn locations and roaming areas

 * There are 67 penguin spawn locations and 6 polar bear locations. See Penguin Hide and Seek/Spawn Locations.
 * For the Ghost/Invisible penguin see Penguin Hide and Seek/1-point penguin spawn locations
 * For current spawns, see Distractions and Diversions Locations/Penguin Hide and Seek.
 * For previous spawns, see Penguin Hide and Seek/Previous Locations.

Rewards
Players may earn a maximum of 10 points per week if no penguin quests have been completed, 15 points per week if the Cold War quest is completed, 16 points per week if the Hunt for Red Raktuber quest is completed, and 19 points per week if the Some Like It Cold quest is completed.

Note: Penguins worth two points only provide their bonus point after Cold War is complete. Spying a "two-point" penguin without finishing Cold War only earns one point. The PBJ agent from the Hunt for Red Raktuber quest cannot be spied until that quest is complete.
 * The penguins in the easier locations are always worth one point each.
 * The penguins in more difficult locations (such as areas that require a quest) are worth one point. A bonus point is awarded for these penguins after the completion of the Cold War quest, for a total of two.
 * If the quest Hunt for Red Raktuber has been completed, players may also spy on a Polar Bear once a week for an additional penguin point.
 * If the quest Some Like It Cold has been completed, players may also spy an invisible penguin once a week for an additional 3 points. Spying the invisible penguin also requires the Ring of visibility from Desert Treasure.

Penguin points can be redeemed by talking with Chuck or Larry. Players may choose either a coin reward or an experience reward. The player is rewarded for as many points as they have at the time of speaking and is not asked how many points to redeem. Keep this in mind if you wish to use penguin points for multiple skills.
 * If coins are chosen, the player receives 6,500 coins per point.
 * If experience is chosen, the amount of experience gained is dependent on the player's current level in the chosen skill. The formula for determining the amount of experience gained is:
 * Level of skill choice x 25 = amount of experience per point. There is no bonus for spending more points at a time. For instance, spending 1 point a week returns the same experience as spending 10 all at once (also see levelling note below).
 * i.e. if your Summoning is level 16 and you trade in 11 points, you receive 4400 experience in total. 25x16x11 = 4400

Even if the skill level increases in the process of spending points, the "Skill level" in the above formula does not change. For example, if a player needs 1000 experience to get to level 41, spending 2 points would only earn 2000 experience. Because of this, its recommended to spend points one at a time so that additional points spent maximise any levelling up from gained experience. This means that, assuming a skill is only trained using 16 Penguin Hide and Seek reward points per week, a level-up is guaranteed up until level 60.

Note: Chuck or Larry only keep track of up to 50 points per player. You will need to spend them before you can spy on any more penguins.

Treasure Hunter
A different distraction and diversion is chosen each week to give the player a Key token for simply participating. Once every 4 weeks, the player may gain a key token for claiming a reward with their penguin points. Key tokens can only be received when the Penguin Hide and Seek D&D is the designated D&D of the week.

Double points day
On Thursday, 27 October 2011, in celebration of bot nuke day, double points were awarded for spying penguins.
 * At 00:00 UTC players' spying status reset, although penguins stayed where they were. Players who had spied penguins on Wednesday for normal points could spy them again, potentially for triple points that week.
 * By 00:03 UTC the queue for World 60 was over 1500.
 * By 00:28 UTC the queue for World 60 was full. Afterwards, players got a message saying that the world was full, indicating that both the world and its queue were full at 2000 players each.
 * At 24:00 UTC, penguins returned to awarding normal points for spying.

Wild Weekend
From Saturday, 26 May to Monday, 28 May 2012 (the final Wild Weekend in 2012), players could hunt for ten monkeys in Chase the Monkey. The monkey disguises were patterned after the penguin disguises, but larger. Instead of earning experience or money, players could obtain a Monkey cape if they found all ten monkeys.

Trivia

 * Players used to be able to spot all the penguins twice in a week. If a player spotted all penguins within the first few hours of the penguins resetting, later that week they could be spotted again. Jagex has fixed this bug.
 * On 28 January 2009, there was a glitch where players were able to spy on the same penguin over and over again. This led to masses of players abusing the glitch, allowing them to gain points quickly and receiving massive amounts of experience or coins in a short time. On 3 February, Paul Gower posted a thread in the Recent Updates forum, saying that 159 players have been permanently banned and a number of players involved were given temporary bans for breaking the Rule 4.
 * After Hunt for Red Raktuber, players could continue to contact Larry through the NPC Contact spell in the Lunar spellbook and receive hints, even though Larry had been taken to the Motherland. This is now fixed, so you can only contact Chuck.
 * When exchanging points for money, the text says "Show me the money", a catchphrase from the movie,.
 * Penguins do not show up as a yellow dot on your minimap like other NPC's. You can only notice/acknowledge them by seeing them on your screen, or hearing them walk by.
 * On 10 February 2012, the mindspike staff glitch allowed players to kill any NPC, resulting in missing penguins and duplicate penguins in Al Kharid.
 * The invisible penguin's examine text ("Licensed to Chill.") is a reference to 00 agents in the James Bond stories, since they are "licensed to kill." "" was also later a title of a film in the Bond franchise.
 * The invisible penguin was introduced 8 August 2012. However if a player spied any 10 penguins (including the invisible penguin or not), the message "You've spotted all the penguin spies this week!" appeared. Players could still spy the eleventh penguin and get points for it. Jagex fixed this bug in the subsequent week's regular update.
 * On 2 April 2012 the Squeal of Fortune gained an update allowing players to obtain spin tickets. These tickets could only be received when the Penguin Hide and Seek D&D was the designated D&D of the week.
 * The Squeal of Fortune has since been discontinued and replaced with Treasure Hunter.