This puzzle has a Pokemon theme, hinted by the Pokeball styling of the image below the maze, the phrases “very best” and “catch” in flavor text, and the names of the various images.
Each image refers to a specific form of a Pokemon. A transformation must be applied to each set of three “almost words” to make them into real words. They are as follows (given in alphabetical image/form order, although there is no “official” name for a given form, so sources may differ):
Form | Pokemon | Pokedex Number | Transformation to Valid | Example |
|---|---|---|---|---|
Amped | Toxtricity | 849 | Remove LOW | BELOW -> BE |
Caramel Swirl | Alcremie | 869 | Move first letter to end | DICELAN -> ICELAND |
Diamond | Furfrou | 676 | Add K as 2nd letter | ORA -> OKRA |
East Sea | Gastrodon | 423 | Cycle letters by 5 to right | ECARYAPOTH -> APOTHECARY |
Full Belly | Morpeko | 877 | Add M as 2nd to last | ALBUS -> ALBUMS |
Midnight | Lycanroc | 745 | Add O to center | ALNE -> ALONE |
No Ice | Eiscue | 875 | Remove Is, Cs, Es | BICEOURBON -> BOURBON |
Phony | Sinistea | 854 | Remove Ts | BITRD -> BIRD |
Pirouette | Meloetta | 648 | Reverse string | AET -> TEA |
Pom Pom | Oricorio | 741 | Double last letter | BE -> BEE |
Rainy | Castform | 351 | Add R to the front | IGHT -> RIGHT |
Red-striped | Basculin | 550 | Interleave 2nd letter throughout rest of word | LOCMTR -> LOCOMOTOR |
Shield | Aegislash | 681 | Replace As with Ds | AOAGE -> DODGE |
Speed | Deoxys | 386 | Add XY | GALA -> GALAXY |
Sunshine | Cherrim | 421 | Remove R | PRICKLERS -> PICKLES |
Wash | Rotom | 479 | ROT10 | LVEOLOBBI -> BLUEBERRY |
White Flower | Flabebe | 669 | Add W at position 5 | ALLO -> ALLOW |
The Pokedex numbers of these 17 Pokemon can also be found along the solve path of the maze. The other 20 numbers represent Pokemon that aren’t caught. When those are sorted by Pokedex number (clued by “ones I don’t catch” and “sort” in flavor text), their first letters spell out TRANSFORM BATTLE TOWER.
If you take the phrase BATTLETOWER as “where to start” and apply the 17 transformations in maze-sequence, you reach the answer: MARATHONRACE. The Pokeball image provides length checkpoints along the way.
Word | Number | Pokemon | Form | Transformation |
|---|---|---|---|---|
BATTLETOWER (11) | 854 | Sinistea | Phony | Remove Ts |
BALEOWER | 869 | Alcremie | Caramel Swirl | Move first letter to end |
ALEOWERB | 875 | Eiscue | No Ice | Remove Is, Cs, Es |
ALOWRB | 849 | Toxtricity | Amped | Remove LOW |
ARB (3) | 676 | Furfrou | Diamond | Add K as 2nd letter |
AKRB | 421 | Cherrim | Sunshine | Remove R |
AKB | 741 | Oricorio | Pom Pom | Double last letter |
AKBB | 877 | Morpeko | Full Belly | Add M as 2nd to last |
AKBMB (5) | 681 | Aegislash | Shield | Replace As with Ds |
DKBMB | 550 | Basculin | Red-striped | Interleave 2nd letter throughout rest of word |
DKBKMKB | 386 | Deoxys | Speed | Add XY |
DKBKMKBXY | 669 | Flabebe | White Flower | Add W at position 5 |
DKBKWMKBXY (10) | 648 | Meloetta | Pirouette | Reverse string |
YXBKMWKBKD | 745 | Lycanroc | Midnight | Add O to center |
YXBKMOWKBKD | 351 | Castform | Rainy | Add R to the front |
RYXBKMOWKBKD | 423 | Gastrodon | East Sea | Cycle letters by 5 to right |
WKBKDRYXBKMO (12) | 479 | Rotom | Wash | ROT10 |
MARATHONRACE |
When writing this puzzle, we were tasked with making sure the extraction wouldn’t be the common pattern of “take 1 letter from each of X items”. While that was initially a tough goal to break into, given the character Weezing, the Pokemon theme followed naturally.
At the time of writing this puzzle, Alison had actually never played through a complete Pokemon video game (and now knows more about Pokemon via solving/writing puzzles than from playing actual games), but Akira told her about Unown’s many forms. They were both drawn to the transformation theme, how it could play nicely with a word transformation puzzle scheme, and how it could lend itself to the goal of “less standard extraction”. Whenever possible, the form itself was used as inspiration for how the transformation would work: Midnight involves adding an O (the full moon) in the center, Shield leads to replacing A(ttack) with D(efense), and Red-striped means interleaving/striping the second letter through the word.
(If we wrote this puzzle all over again with more time and wisdom, we would have wanted all given word examples and all intermediary transformation steps to yield valid words as well, or to tie each transformation rule even more tightly to each Pokemon and its form.)
The maze was added as a nod to the exploration aspect of Pokemon games, and it (along with the puzzle title) tied together nicely with the “runner” / “race” aspect of the answer.
During test solve, some folks were concerned that teams would get stuck if they were missing 1-2 of the transformation rules. We decided to add the Pokeball image for periodic length checkpoints to hopefully help solvers know they were on the right general track or narrow down where things had gone wrong. A number of teams mentioned they never used it to solve, but we also heard from other teams that it was a useful tool. (We also enjoyed the creative ways hint requesters referred to the diagram, including "caterpillar", "centipede", and "snake of circles").
In an earlier form of the puzzle, half the example transformation words were accidentally food-based (due to Alison and Akira implementing this right before dinner), leading playtesters to ponder some interesting food combos like “TURNIP BLUEBERRY MILK” and “COFFEE APPLE PEAS”. Yum.