Opportunity brief
Run Time Arcade is a campus-wide cybersecurity competition organized by Amrita Vishwa Vidyapeetham, Chennai, through its flagship cybersecurity chapter Amrita Cyber Nation (ACN), in collaboration with FACT — Forensic Analysis Club & Triage.
This is not a conventional sit-down CTF.
RUN_TIME ARCADE turns the entire building into the playing field. One half of your team runs; the other half solves.
Round 1 sends your runners across all four floors hunting QR-coded pillars while your solver cracks each question from the event room.
Round 2 puts the whole team in front of a live challenge board, where you decide what to attack, when to attack it, and how much of your time each challenge is worth.
Speed matters in the first round. Judgement matters in the second. Very few teams are good at both.
Event Details
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Date: 8 September 2026
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Mode: In-Campus
- Venue: School of Computing, Amrita Vishwa Vidyapeetham, Chennai -
Duration: 6 Hours
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Team Size: 2–3 Participants
Competition Format
Round 1 — The Pillar Trail
Duration: 90 Minutes
Each team is assigned a number corresponding to a pillar somewhere in the building.
One member is designated as the Solver and must remain in the event room for the entire round. The remaining members become Runners.
Every pillar across the four floors carries a QR sheet containing:
- A cybersecurity question - A short fragment of scrambled text
Runners photograph the sheet and bring the information back to the Solver.
The Solver cracks the question. The answer reveals the number of the next pillar.
The chain continues until the team loops back to its starting pillar.
Every station visited must be logged on the team's answer sheet and verified against the master key before qualification.
Write down every fragment you collect and keep it safe. You will need them.
Round 2 — The Arcade
Duration: 120 Minutes
Qualified teams regroup — all members together this time — at the RUN_TIME portal, where a full board of cybersecurity challenges awaits.
This round follows a Jeopardy-style CTF format.
Every challenge is worth points based on its difficulty, and your team decides:
- Which challenge to attempt - In what order to solve them - How much time to spend on each one
Submit a correct flag and the points are yours immediately.
Pick off the easy challenges for a fast start, or gamble your remaining time on a high-value challenge and hope it pays off.
A live leaderboard runs throughout the round, so you always know exactly how far ahead — or behind — you are.
There is no penalty for a wrong submission and no requirement to clear the entire board.
There is only the clock, and one question:
Which challenges are worth your remaining minutes?
The Final Stage — Hack the Machine
Duration: 75 Minutes
Round 2 points determine the leaderboard.
The top teams advance to a head-to-head battle against a live vulnerable machine.
Your objective:
Enumerate → Exploit → Escalate → Capture the Flag
Enumerate the machine, identify vulnerabilities, exploit them, escalate your privileges, and retrieve the flag.
Fastest team to achieve root takes the arcade.
The number of teams advancing to the final stage will be announced on the day of the event.
Domains Covered
Challenges span a deliberately wide range, ensuring that no single specialization dominates the competition.
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Classical & Modern Cryptography
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Steganography & Hidden-Data Extraction
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Digital Forensics
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Phishing Analysis & Social Engineering Awareness
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Audio & Signal Decoding
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Logical Deduction & Constraint Puzzles
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Web Exploitation, Redirects & Source Inspection
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Archive & Password Analysis
- Enumeration, Exploitation & Privilege Escalation (Final Stage)
Some challenges reward speed.
Some reward patience.
Some reward technical depth.
And some reward the one person on your team who thinks to read the page source.
Eligibility
RUN_TIME ARCADE is open to all students of Amrita Vishwa Vidyapeetham, Chennai and other students from various institutes, across every year and every branch.
The competition is built for:
- Cybersecurity enthusiasts and CTF regulars - First-time competitors with no prior CTF experience - Programmers, developers and problem solvers - Students from interdisciplinary and non-technical backgrounds
Team Requirements
- Teams must consist of 2–3 members. - Team composition cannot change between rounds. - At least one member must carry a smartphone with a working camera and QR scanner.
Round 1 rewards coordination as much as technical skill, so a mixed team can often be stronger than a team of specialists.
For students outside Amrita Vishwa Vidyapeetham, Chennai, accommodation is available for ₹200 per person.
Scoring
Round 1
Teams qualify based on the number of pillars correctly logged and verified.
Total time serves as the tiebreaker.
Round 2
Challenges award points based on their difficulty, with scores tracked live on the leaderboard.
There is no penalty for incorrect submissions, allowing teams to make strategic decisions about risk versus reward.
Final Stage
The final stage ranks qualifying teams based on their time to achieve root access and retrieve the flag.
Why Participate?
- Apply cybersecurity concepts in a live, physical and time-pressured environment - Compete in a format that rewards teamwork, coordination and decision-making - Learn cryptography, steganography, forensics and exploitation by doing, not just studying - Experience a CTF that goes beyond the traditional sit-down format - Walk through the solutions with the organizers at the end of the event - Compete for a ₹10,000 prize pool - Earn serious campus bragging rights
Whether you've played twenty CTFs or none, RUN_TIME ARCADE is designed to be approachable at the start and genuinely difficult by the end.
Rules & Code of Conduct
- Teams must consist of 2–3 participants. Team composition cannot change between rounds. - In Round 1, the designated Solver must remain in the event room for the full duration of the round. - QR sheets may only be photographed. Removing, covering, damaging or defacing a sheet will result in immediate disqualification. - Sharing flags, codes, answers or challenge fragments between teams will result in the disqualification of every team involved. - Attacking the portal or event infrastructure outside the intended challenges is strictly prohibited. - The final stage is the only point at which exploitation is authorized, and only the machine assigned to your team may be targeted. - Out-of-bounds areas will be announced during the briefing and are strictly off limits. - No running on staircases. - The organizers' decision will be considered final in the event of any dispute.
Run Floors. Two Rounds. One Flag.
Insert coin. The arcade is open.