The families of solutions are described by the puzzle's author here:

http://apps.topcoder.com/forums/?module=Thread&threadID=...

This is the worst kind of puzzle, in the company of "There's a dead man in a cabin in the woods with items x, y, and z. How did he die?". The "correct" answers are completely arbitrary and the rules change as it goes along.

I like it. It's more a game of psychology than logic or reasoning - you need to get into the author's frame of mind to come up with the same solutions he did.

Can I ask what makes this "for hackers"?

There are hints in the source code.

Are there? I see two relevant fields:

<input type="hidden" name="pans" value=[previous answer]/>

<input type="hidden" name="hint" value=[current question]/>

Neither one tells you anything you don't already know without the source code.

The first two answers are in the source of their questions, which helps get started. I haven't seen any similar hints further on though (up to j).

This is getting tricky. It might be faster to write a brute-forcing Greasemonkey script.

edit Please no one do this.

Are there supposed to be instructions to this somewhere?

I don't know, I'm blocked with 'bee'.

'see' also works..

sea

why?

edit: Nevermind, I understand now.

viewsource

Doing fine until giraffe, completely stumped.

Hint: giraffe is an animal. Next letter is h.

BTW - it's case sensitive so try both ways if it doesn't work.

It's pretty arbitrary - it doesn't accept hyrax, hyena, or hamster, two of which are just as good as the real answer.

keeps me from my work, must go back to work, must go

Google 'accition' to find the answers in paste bin.

stuck on dad... :/

By now you may recognize that each hint uses letters preceding the current letter, therefore use that to guide you on a new answer. After all, it's a hint for a reason :). So for dad, what can you do with the "d" to make it somehow an "e"?

me too...

eve

I still don't get it.

What's the name of the first dad.

I think it's more helpful to think palindromes starting with 'e'

It said "a"

I typed "a"

It still said "a"

I didn't know what to do, so I left.

That's not the only answer it accepts.

I'm stuck on "india". Edit: Got it. On to the next one.

Well? I'm stuck on india a few hours now, any clues?

india could be various things as well as the obvious. Try the wikipedia disambiguation page.

Stuck on off :(

You'll need a three-letter word that ends in "gg" since g is the next letter in the alphabet.