gunters

Gunters is a term originating in the 2011 science fiction novel Ready Player One by Ernest Cline. It is a contraction of "egg hunters" and describes players in the Oasis, a vast virtual reality universe, who search for the creator James Halliday's hidden Easter egg. Finding the egg is said to grant full control of the Oasis and a substantial inheritance.

In the narrative, gunters form online communities to trade clues, solve puzzles, and decode cultural references from the 1980s. The hunt is structured around discovering three keys and passing through three gates, with progress tracked on public forums and wikis within the Oasis. The most prominent group of gunters is the High Five—Parzival, Art3mis, Aech, Daito, and Shoto—who join forces to advance the quest, while rival factions such as the Sixers, agents of IOI, compete to accelerate their own objectives.

Outside the book, the term has entered fan culture to describe real-world puzzle and treasure-hunt communities that embrace pop culture trivia, live events, and collaborative problem solving. Gunters generally adopt a shared lexicon and reference framework drawn from 1980s media, video games, and arcade history, mirroring the practice portrayed in the novel.