If players input too many "wrong" answers to a puzzle, they will get locked out of that puzzle for a small amount of time.
"Wrong," in this case, refers to submissions that do not have a response associated with them (i.e. the submission is neither correct nor a partial)

Here is what players see when they are locked out:

When the indicated timer runs out, the team will be able to submit answers again.
If they submit enough wrong answers again, they will be locked out for an even longer time.
Each progressive lockout will get longer.
This process will continue until they submit so many wrong answers that they enter "email mode" shown below.
In this mode, they will be locked out of the puzzle indefinitely until someone from puzzle control manually unlocks them. Puzzle control is advised to not unlock the team until that team emails puzzle control with their progress and puzzle control feels that they are actually on the right track this time.

• These rules do not apply to Freeform puzzles (puzzles with the IsFreeform field checked to indicate that the puzzle will be manually marked as "solved")