Penguin Hide and Seek

"Phas" redirects here. For the town, see Port Phasmatys. For the ore, see phasmatite.

"Penguin hunter" redirects here. For the Hunter location, see Penguin Hunting Area.

Looking for this week's penguins? See this article for their types and locations.

This activity may have associated player-run services, such as Friends Chat channels. Visit the official PVP, Minigames and D&Ds forum for more information.

The official worlds for Penguin Hide and Seek are worlds 60, 71 (P2P).

Penguin Hide and Seek
Release date	2 September 2008 (Update)
Area	Gielinor & Zanaris
Members	Yes
Frequency	Weekly
Reset	Wednesday 00:00 UTC
Skills	Any
Currency	Penguin Points
Infobox • Talk page

A player spotting a penguin.

You spot a penguin!

The jingle when finding a penguin.

Penguin Hide and Seek, also known as Penguin Hunting, 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 the D&D is to hunt down undercover penguin spies and report back to the Ardougne Zoo.

There are no skill or combat level requirements for participating in Penguin Hide and Seek.

Getting started

A penguin in a cactus disguise

Each week, ten disguised penguins can be found roaming around RuneScape, resetting every Wednesday at 00:00 UTC. Spying on a disguised penguin awards players various amounts of Penguin Points, redeemable for experience rewards in any skill of choice or tradeable for coins. To get started, speak with Larry, who can be found in the south-western portion of the Ardougne Zoo, near the penguin exhibit.

Larry gives the player a spy notebook which keeps track of how many penguins the player has spied that week and displays how many Penguin Points the player has. Keeping the book is optional. It can be reclaimed if destroyed.

After Hunt for Red Raktuber, the polar bear Chuck assists players instead of Larry. Chuck is located in the Polar Bear pen, east of where Larry was.

Spying

An exhaustive map displaying the hint given if a penguin can be found within; click to expand.

Penguins do not appear as dots on the mini-map, but make large amounts of noise alerting nearby players to their existence. Their volume can be controlled via the ambient sounds Sound effects slider.

Chuck and Larry offer hints to help locate penguins if requested by a player. Some of the hints are general areas, while other are more specific. If players receive more than ten location hints, it may be because a penguin has recently crossed over into another hint's boundary. Hints may be given for the Shadow Realm penguin's location. In fact, if the player receives a hint for a penguin that is NOT one of the eleven visible penguins, this hint must be for the Shadow Realm penguin. This can be a neat way of spotting the Shadow Realm penguin. Chuck and Larry offer hints for all disguised penguins whether players have already spied on them or not that week. Hints are not given related to the polar bear agent or the sixth 2-point penguin.

Quick Chat

The PBJ polar bear agent

Players can use the Quick Chat code e→f→d→p→2 to check how many penguins they have spied, returning: I have found [AMOUNT] penguins this week.

• The Quick Chat command includes the Shadow Realm penguin in its count, but does not include the polar bear.
• The Quick Chat count resets each week after the player logs into the game after the weekly reset occurs (every Wednesday at 00:00 UTC), or after spying a new penguin.

Players can use the Quick Chat code e→f→4 to check how many Penguin Points they have, returning: I have [AMOUNT] Penguin Points.

Optional quest unlocks

The following quests unlock additional rewards within the Penguin Hide and Seek D&D, but are not requirements for participation:

Quest	Reward
Cold War	5 of the 10 penguins begin rewarding 2 Penguin Points upon completion of the quest, increasing the maximum points awarded to 15 every week.
Hunt for Red Raktuber	A Polar bear worth 1 Penguin Point may be found inside a well each week upon completion of the quest, increasing the maximum points awarded to 16.
Some Like It Cold and Desert Treasure	An additional penguin may be spied once each week, rewarding 3 Penguin Points, increasing the maximum points awarded to 19. The Shadow Realm penguin teleports around the game periodically to a selection of penguin spawn points. To see the Shadow Realm penguin, players must be wearing a ring of visibility, or have spoken to Sliske in the Empyrean Citadel after completing The General's Shadow, Ritual of the Mahjarrat, and Fate of the Gods.
Back to the Freezer	Penguin Points trade in for additional experience, increasing the value of each point from 25 × Skill level to 40 × Skill level. An additional penguin worth 2 Penguin Points may be spied each week, increasing the maximum points awarded to 21.

Completion of some quests grant access the locations penguins roam:

Requires completion

Quest	Reward
Cabin Fever	Access to Mos Le'Harmless
Death to the Dorgeshuun	Access to Dorgesh-Kaan
Lost City	Access to Zanaris
Ghosts Ahoy	Free admittance to Port Phasmatys

Requires partial completion

Quest	Reward
The Fremennik Isles	Access to Neitiznot and Jatizso
The Fremennik Trials	Access to Miscellania and Etceteria
The Giant Dwarf	Access to the Mine cart to Keldagrim
Icthlarin's Little Helper	Access to Sophanem
Lunar Diplomacy	Access to Lunar Isle
Monkey Madness	Access to Ape Atoll
Regicide	Access to the Elven lands
Mourning's End Part I or The Prisoner of Glouphrie	Access to Lletya

Disguises

The penguin spies hide in a variety of disguises that help to blend into the surroundings:

Penguin disguises Barrel Bush Cactus Crate Rock Toadstool Pumpkin Snowman

Other Polar bear Shadow Realm

Notes

Suggested items

• Teleportation items such as an amulet of glory, games Necklace, ring of duelling, explorer's ring 3, desert amulet 2, and Ardougne cloak 1 can greatly reduce a players travel time, but are not required.
  • The Lodestone Network is highly suggested in lieu of other conventional means of teleportation and travel.
• A dramen staff or lunar staff, allowing for usage of fairy rings. After completion of A Fairy Tale III - Battle at Ork's Rift a staff is no longer required to travel via fairy ring.
• An enchanted water tiara, tome of frost, or waterskins for managing the desert heat within the Kharidian Desert. Immunity to desert heat is obtained after completion of Crocodile Tears.

Trapping penguins

5 penguins trapped in the Yanille wall.

It is possible for penguins to become trapped in locations, preventing their escape. Penguins cannot pass through stationary players or objects, such as doors. Traps can however become broken if a player moves through a game square another player is occupying to create a trap, allowing a penguin to pass freely. If moved over by another player, stepping off that game square, then back resets the player's occupation state on the game square.

Tips on trapping penguins

• If a penguin is unable to move from a game square for approximately 7 minutes, they teleport back to their initial spawn point for that week.
• Players are generally able to spy over water, lava, fences, low walls, and through some windows, allowing for penguins to be trapped in locations difficult for escape, but easily accessible to spy.
• The platypus and tooth creature pets can help trap penguins, blocking game squares the same way players do.

Spawn locations

A map of penguin spawn locations (click to expand)

For this week's spawn locations, see Distractions and Diversions/Locations/Penguin Hide and Seek.

For a list of all possible spawn locations, see Penguin Hide and Seek/Spawn locations.

For a list of spawn locations the Shadow Realm penguin visits, see Penguin Hide and Seek/1-point penguin spawn locations.

Rewards

Main article: Penguin points

Penguin points can be redeemed by talking with Chuck or Larry at the Ardougne Zoo. 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 they would like to redeem. Keep this in mind if you wish to use Penguin points for multiple skills.

Chuck and Larry only allow players to keep track of up to 50 Penguin points total; any points earned beyond 50 are lost. For example, if a player had 49 points and spies a 2-point penguin, one point is lost. Players with 50 points stored cannot continue spying until they have redeemed a reward from either Chuck or Larry.

• 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, determined by the following formula where $L$ is the level of the skill on which you use the reward, and $P$ is the amount of points redeemed: $25\times L\times P$
  • This is increased to $40\times L\times P$ after the completion of Back to the Freezer.
  • If Invention is chosen as the skill to receive experience in, only half of the experience is awarded due to it being an elite skill.

Achievements

• Ultimate Birdwatcher ( 40) – Cash in 50 Penguin Points in one go.
• I C U K G P ( 40) – Find 12 penguin spies and the polar bear in a single week and report your findings.

D&D of the week

Featured D&D

Shooting Star For the week of 17 July–24 July.

If this information seems incorrect, click here to force an update.

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.

Special events

Holiday disguises

• For the month of October, penguins which have been reset don a pumpkin costume in place of their original disguise. This was first introduced during the 2008 Hallowe'en event and has continued each year since.
• For the month of December, penguins which have been reset don a snowman costume in place of their original disguise. This was first introduced during the 2009 Christmas event and has continued each year since.

Double points day

On Thursday, 27 October 2011, to celebrate 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 attempting to join the queue for World 60 were notified the world was full, indicating that both the world and its queue were full, containing 2,000 players each.
• At 24:00 UTC, penguins returned to awarding normal points for spying.

Wild Weekend

Starting Saturday, 26 May 2012, until 28 May 2012, players could hunt a total of ten monkeys in Chase the Monkey. The monkey disguises were patterned after the penguin disguises. Instead of earning experience or money, players could obtain a monkey cape if all ten monkeys were spied.

Update history

The update history project is a work-in-progress – not all updates to this topic may be covered below. See here for how to help out!

• patch 16 April 2018 (Update):
  • A message showing your total penguin points has been added to the chatbox output when spying a polar bear agent, to keep you updated on your penguin points total.

• patch 1 April 2009 (Update):
  • Updated some of the code to give you hints about where the penguin spies are located. Occasionally even we lose those sneaky penguins!

• patch 17 March 2009 (Update):
  • The hints to penguin locations have been adjusted slightly, to help you catch the penguins in more cases.

• patch 20 January 2009 (Update):
  • Penguins no longer have slightly squished heads during their hiding animations for the Hide and Seek distraction and diversion.
  • Certain penguins from the Hide and Seek distraction and diversion were wandering a bit further than we thought – those sneaky penguins!

Trivia

• When exchanging Penguin Points for coins, players must select the dialogue option "Show me the money!", potentially a reference to the movie Jerry Maguire.
• The Shadow Realm penguin's examine text, "Licensed to Chill", is a reference to 00 Agents in Ian Fleming's James Bond novels; each agent having a Licence to kill. Licence to Kill is also the sixteenth film in the James Bond film series.
• Shortly after the release of Penguin Hide and Seek, players were once able to spy each penguin twice within a week. If a player spied a penguin within the first few hours after a weekly reset, that penguin could be spied on again for Penguin Points later that same week. This bug has since been fixed.
• On 28 January 2009, a Penguin Hide and Seek glitch allowed players to spy on the same penguin repeatedly, obtaining Penguin Points each time. Players abusing the glitch were able to amass Penguin Points quickly, potentially exchanging the points for experience or coins. On 3 February 2009 Paul Gower posted a thread in the Recent Updates section of the RuneScape Forums stating 159 players had been permanently banned for abusing the glitch, and a number of players involved were given temporary bans for breaking Rule 4 of the Rules of RuneScape.
• After the release of the Hunt for Red Raktuber quest, players who had completed it were able continue to contact Larry via the NPC Contact spell. This has since been corrected.
• On 10 February 2012, a glitch involving the mindspike allowed players to attack and kill any non-player character of their choosing. Hide and Seek penguins which were killed respawned in Al Kharid.
• On 30 March 2015 Penguin Hide and Seek, along with other weekly resetting Distractions and Diversions, were updated to reset a 00:00 UTC on Wednesdays, correcting a syncing error where D&Ds could have delayed resets of up to an hour.
• Prior to 27 February 2017, Chuck did not provide hints to the location of the Shadow Realm penguin. This was added via a hidden update with the release of Back to the Freezer.

References

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