Seasons Greetings—We Made You a PACG Puzzle!

Thursday, December 29, 2016

It's the most puzzlable time of the year, and, as we may have accidentally mentioned, there's a hidden puzzle in the Mummy's Mask set of the Pathfinder Adventure Card Game. I won't give you any clues to that, except to say that you probably need more than you have right now to solve that puzzle. When you do, the first person outside the design team to email me the answer will get a free virtual high-five from me.

But I'm in a festive mood, so I made you this puzzle to solve by the fireside. The following words are all anagrams of PACG characters with one letter added. For example, the word AERIFY is FEIYA with an extra R, while MILKIEST is MELISKI with an extra T. Extract those letters and you'll spell a cheerful message.

  1. HELM
  2. RELIABLE
  3. SPUMONI
  4. IMPAIR
  5. LAYOVERS
  6. HONKER
  7. AIRHOLE
  8. LOANER
  9. INFLATE
  10. MIDLANDER
  11. DERMAL
  12. MISLAY
  13. SCHOOL
  14. LIFESTYLE
  15. HEALERS
  16. REZONE
  17. ANIMAL
  18. RIPSAW
  19. NAHUATL
  20. RITALIN
  21. ERSATZ
  22. LOATHES
  23. ARRIVAL
  24. SHRANK
  25. ONSIDE
  26. TRIENNIAL
  27. GHANA
  28. STOOGE
  29. MISLEAD
  30. HATER
  31. NOWADAY
  32. METAPHOR
  33. ROADKILL
  34. SAMOVAR

Don't post spoilers! We'll see all you PACG players in the new year.

Mike Selinker
Adventure Card Game Lead Designer

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Tags: Pathfinder Adventure Card Game
Silver Crusade

Got 'em all! 31 took me a bit.


Found them all!
My way of approaching was to turn the puzzle around. First think of a character and then find his/her name in the list.. :X

Also: This hidden puzzle sounds amazing... :D


I found the message after unscrambling only two names. Thanks, Mike!

Lone Shark Games

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Malcolm_Reynolds wrote:
I found the message after unscrambling only two names. Thanks, Mike!

I would not say this is my hardest puzzle ever.


I know; I'm stuck in the Maze of Games. I just found it fun to find the message without unscrambilng the names.

Lone Shark Games

When I did the puzzle, I first tried to get all the names without looking at the message. When my pace slowed, I did the message and filled in the gaps. It was pretty fun for me that way.

I'm pretty impressed if you got the whole thing from just 2, though.

Dark Archive

Pathfinder Adventure Path Subscriber

Yay, Maze of Games! Which part are you on, Mal?

Sovereign Court RPG Superstar 2011 Top 32

After doing the first one, I was able to find the message all the way down to 22 pretty quickly, then I had to play around a bit to finish it up.

Lone Shark Games

As might be obvious, the test of this puzzle is not to figure out the message. It's to figure out all the characters.


Keith Richmond wrote:


I'm pretty impressed if you got the whole thing from just 2, though.

I solved number one, then none of the others popped out at me so I used intuition to suss out the message from the available letters. The other one I unscrambled just to see who it was.

Misroi wrote:
Yay, Maze of Games! Which part are you on, Mal?

I'm only on the Seven of Diamonds. I've solved the crossword and gotten a phrase from squares A-L but haven't been able to figure out what it means. I haven't looked at it for a while.


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Which clue do you think most appropriately matches the character? If you answer, don't say the character's name, just the clue.

I think "IMPAIR" is the most appropriate.

Grand Lodge

I figured out the message pretty quickly, but took me longer to solve all the characters. But finally did it after 2.5 hours!


I have now unscrambled them all.


I know you said no spoilers but,

"BE SURE TO DRINK YOUR OVALTINE"

Seriously, Mike, seriously? ;)

Lone Shark Games

Hawkmoon269 wrote:

Which clue do you think most appropriately matches the character? If you answer, don't say the character's name, just the clue.

I think "IMPAIR" is the most appropriate.

This next bit is a spoiler. I mean that. So don't open it if you're not done with the puzzle.

Spoiler:
My biggest regret with this puzzle was not getting to use STEALTH for LESATH. But the only T in the message had to go to LIRIANNE, and I needed some O people.

Lone Shark Games

Red Harvester wrote:

I know you said no spoilers but,

"BE SURE TO DRINK YOUR OVALTINE"

Seriously, Mike, seriously? ;)

But it was countersigned in ink!


I finally finished it. I wouldn't have been able to without all the character sheets. This made me realize just how much characters we already have and how much more are yet to come! Thanks Mike, this was fun!

Hawkmoon269 wrote:

Which clue do you think most appropriately matches the character? If you answer, don't say the character's name, just the clue.

I think "IMPAIR" is the most appropriate.

After looking up it's meaning, I'd say "ERSATZ" is most appropriate.


Yep


Wishing you a merry 2017 from here where we for a few hours are one year ahead.

Lone Shark Games

Malcolm_Reynolds wrote:
Misroi wrote:
Yay, Maze of Games! Which part are you on, Mal?
I'm only on the Seven of Diamonds. I've solved the crossword and gotten a phrase from squares A-L but haven't been able to figure out what it means. I haven't looked at it for a while.

Careful with the Maze spoilers there.

Lone Shark Games

Oh, and now I come up with

Spoiler:
LAMIA for AMLI.

Can't believe I didn't think of that earlier.


Sad, took me around 15 to backsolve :(

I was able to solve the full puzzle from my memory of the characters, but I don't think I'm going to be able to recall all the PACG characters from memory anymore :(


Hawkmoon269 wrote:

Which clue do you think most appropriately matches the character? If you answer, don't say the character's name, just the clue.

I think "IMPAIR" is the most appropriate.

Spoiler:
ANIMAL

ERSATZ kinda works too if you understand the backstory

Sovereign Court

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Pathfinder Adventure Path, Starfinder Adventure Path Subscriber

*me sheds a tear, opens a document titled "Puzzle ideas for when Palindrome wins the Mystery Hunt", crosses off an entry*

This looks fun - I'm saving it as a warm-up for the Panda this weekend.

Dark Archive

Pathfinder Adventure Path Subscriber
Mike Selinker wrote:
Malcolm_Reynolds wrote:
Misroi wrote:
Yay, Maze of Games! Which part are you on, Mal?
I'm only on the Seven of Diamonds. I've solved the crossword and gotten a phrase from squares A-L but haven't been able to figure out what it means. I haven't looked at it for a while.
Careful with the Maze spoilers there.

Is there a forum somewhere for Maze of Games questions? Because I looked around and couldn't find anything.

Lone Shark Games

There is a wiki.


Trying to avoid spoilers here, but is one of the answers a name from an ally rather than a character? I'm finding this puzzle pretty tricksy since I only have 2 base sets and 2 supplemental decks. Tricksy tricksy but also fun!


There are a few characters in the game that are also allies. The character sheets might help you.


Trying to do this puzzle while trying to remember all the character names without a reference makes it much harder than it needed to be.

Fun puzzle though Mike.

Thanks.

Lone Shark Games

1 person marked this as a favorite.

Figured I'd post the answer to unstump the stumped:

Really, these are the answers:

HELM - H = LEM
RELIABLE - A = BRIELLE
SPUMONI - P = SIMOUN
IMPAIR - P = AMIRI
LAYOVERS - Y = VALEROS
HONKER - H = KOREN
AIRHOLE - O = RAHELI
LOANER - L = ENORA
INFLATE - I = FLENTA
MIDLANDER - D = MELINDRA
DERMAL - A = DRELM
MISLAY - Y = SALIM
SCHOOL - S = OLOCH
LIFESTYLE - F = SELTYIEL
HEALERS - R = SEELAH
REZONE - O = EZREN
ANIMAL - M = ALAIN
RIPSAW - P = SIWAR
NAHUATL - A = ATHNUL
RITALIN - I = TARLIN
ERSATZ - Z = ESTRA
LOATHES - O = LESATH
ARRIVAL - A = VARRIL
SHRANK - N = HARSK
ONSIDE - D = SEONI
TRIENNIAL - T = LIRIANNE
GHANA - H = AGNA
STOOGE - E = OSTOG
MISLEAD - S = DAMIEL
HATER - H = RETA
NOWADAY - A = ADOWYN
METAPHOR - R = AHMOTEP
ROADKILL - K = RADILLO
SAMOVAR - S = MAVARO

Which spells HAPPY HOLIDAYS FROM PAIZO AND THE SHARKS!


Hope you enjoyed it!

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