01. A Puzzle Whose Answer Isn’t BABY BOWSER
Reassemble the Luigi's Mansion cover artwork, and the red dots spell the word CREEPY in Braille.
02. A Puzzle Whose Answer Isn’t BRIGHT CARD
The screenshots are of Super Mario World levels whose names end in numbers:
BUTTER BRIDGE 1
VANILLA DOME 4
FOREST OF ILLUSION 3
STAR WORLD 2
CHOCOLATE ISLAND 2
DONUT PLAINS 1
VALLEY OF BOWSER 2
YOSHI'S ISLAND 1
Index into the level names by the numbers (that is, take the 1st letter of Butter Bridge, the 4th letter of Vanilla Dome, and so on) to spell the word BIRTHDAY.
03. A Puzzle Whose Answer Isn’t CACTUS MINE
Encircling the Checkpoint Flag are the names of 16 Power Moons from Super Mario Odyssey, two for each of the first eight kingdoms:
[Cap Kingdom] Caught Hopping Near the Ship! (left) / Slipping Through the Poison Tide (bottom-left)
[Cascade Kingdom] Our First Power Moon (bottom-left) / Under the Old Electrical Pole (top-left)
[Sand Kingdom] Bullet Bill Breakthrough (bottom) / Secret of the Mural (top)
[Lake Kingdom] I Feel Underdressed (top-right) / Unzip the Chasm (bottom)
[Wooded Kingdom] Stretching Your Legs (bottom) / Tucked Away Inside the Tunnel (bottom-left)
[Cloud Kingdom] Picture Match: Basically a Goomba (top-right) / The Sixth Face (right)
[Lost Kingdom] A Propeller Pillar's Secret (bottom) / Get Some Rest, Captain Toad (bottom-left)
[Metro Kingdom] Jump-Rope Hero (top-left) / One Man's Trash... (right)
The Checkpoint Flag in the middle suggests semaphore; treating these pairs of Power Moons as semaphore flags, in the order the kingdoms are encountered in the game, spells the word HIDEAWAY.
04. A Puzzle Whose Answer Isn’t CANNON KAOS
The answers to the questions regarding the Paper Mario games (including the crossover with the Mario & Luigi series) are numbers (3, 5, 14, 20, 18, 1, 12). Indexing these numbers into the alphabet spells the word CENTRAL.
05. A Puzzle Whose Answer Isn’t COOKIE LAND
Apply the button inputs to the Yoshi's Cookie board as instructed. A little research explains the game mechanics: pressing a directional button without holding A moves the cursor that direction (wrapping if necessary), and pressing a directional button while holding A moves all the cookies in the cursor's row or column in that direction (wrapping if necessary). Note that, in the game, cookies are eliminated from the board if an entire row or column matches, but this never happens in this puzzle. At the end of each line of inputs, the heart-shaped cookies form the shape of a letter; these letters spell the word FACTORY.
06. A Puzzle Whose Answer Isn’t CRANKY KONG
The screenshots in the two columns are from different levels in Super Mario Land:
Left column (DASH to Daisy’s rescue): 3-1, 3-3, 4-1, 1-1, 3-2
Right column (DOTted with enemies): 2-1, 4-2, 1-2
Grouping the levels together by world and associating them with DOTs and DASHes as indicated, we get this:
World 1: DASH DOT
World 2: DOT
World 3: DASH DASH DASH
World 4: DASH DOT
In Morse code, this spells the word NEON.
07. A Puzzle Whose Answer Isn’t LIGHT BLOCK
The answer to the Mario's Picross puzzle spells the word SOIREE.
08. A Puzzle Whose Answer Isn’t POKEY MUMMY
As hinted at by the image and the text, this one involves Hotel Mario. The names of the seven hotels can be placed in the rows of the grid:
LUDWIG'S THUMP CASTLE HOTEL
LEMMY'S HIGH-ATE REGENCY HOTEL
WENDY'S BLITZ SNARLTON HOTEL
LARRY'S CHILLTON HOTEL
BOWSER'S SEIZURES PALACE HOTEL
ROY'S HARDBRICK HOTEL
MORTON'S WOOD DOOR HYSTERIA HOTEL
The shaded column spells the word MYSTERY.
09. A Puzzle Whose Answer Isn’t WALRUS COVE
On the screenshot of the character select screen from Super Mario Kart, six characters are replaced by a lowercase Roman numeral from i through vi followed by an Arabic numeral:
i,4: LUIGI
ii,11: KOOPA TROOPA
iii,3: MARIO
iv,3: TOAD
v,10: DONKEY KONG JR.
vi,5: BOWSER
Index into the characters' names by the Arabic numerals and order the letters by the Roman numerals to spell the word GARAGE.
10. A Puzzle Whose Answer Isn’t WARIO WORLD
The questions reference historical inaccuracies in the “educational” and “entertaining” game Mario's Time Machine (DAVID COPPERFIELD, LOUIS PASTEUR, TEA BAG, FREDERICK DOUGLASS, HENRY FORD, TELESCOPE). The shaded letters spell the word FUTURE.
Hints for the Finale
Those who solved seven puzzles got this hint:
Those who solved all ten puzzles got this additional hint:
The Meta
The initials of Mario’s text in the first hint suggest that the Mario Party series is involved; the second hint uses cropped cover artwork from the first 10 home console Mario Party games (for Nintendo 64, GameCube, Wii, and Wii U) as confirmation. As it turns out, the answer to each puzzle is a word from the name of a board in one of those games. Sorting the titles chronologically by the Mario Party games corresponding to the answers yields this arrangement:
02. A Puzzle Whose Answer Isn't BRIGHTCARD (Peach's BIRTHDAY Cake, MP1)
08. A Puzzle Whose Answer Isn't POKEYMUMMY (MYSTERY Land, MP2)
01. A Puzzle Whose Answer Isn't BABYBOWSER (CREEPY Cavern, MP3)
07. A Puzzle Whose Answer Isn't LIGHTBLOCK (Koopa's Seaside SOIREE, MP4)
10. A Puzzle Whose Answer Isn't WARIOWORLD (FUTURE Dream, MP5)
09. A Puzzle Whose Answer Isn't WALRUSCOVE (E. Gadd's GARAGE, MP6)
06. A Puzzle Whose Answer Isn't CRANKYKONG (NEON Heights, MP7)
03. A Puzzle Whose Answer Isn't CACTUSMINE (King Boo's Haunted HIDEAWAY, MP8)
05. A Puzzle Whose Answer Isn't COOKIELAND (Bob-Omb FACTORY, MP9)
04. A Puzzle Whose Answer Isn't CANNONKAOS (Airship CENTRAL, MP10)
Read down the diagonal of the titular non-answers as illustrated by the second hint (or index into them by the number of the Mario Party game) to obtain the final answer, BOB HOSKINS (the actor who played Mario in the absolutely terrible 1993 live-action Super Mario Bros. film).
Statistics
39 total entries were received for Part I of the contest.
5 people solved "01. A Puzzle Whose Answer Isn’t BABY BOWSER".
4 people solved "02. A Puzzle Whose Answer Isn’t BRIGHT CARD".
3 people solved "03. A Puzzle Whose Answer Isn’t CACTUS MINE".
4 people solved "04. A Puzzle Whose Answer Isn’t CANNON KAOS".
4 people solved "05. A Puzzle Whose Answer Isn’t COOKIE LAND".
3 people solved "06. A Puzzle Whose Answer Isn’t CRANKY KONG".
4 people solved "07. A Puzzle Whose Answer Isn’t LIGHT BLOCK".
4 people solved "08. A Puzzle Whose Answer Isn’t POKEY MUMMY".
4 people solved "09. A Puzzle Whose Answer Isn’t WALRUS COVE".
4 people solved "10. A Puzzle Whose Answer Isn’t WARIO WORLD".
5 people solved at least one of the mini-puzzles.
4 total entries were received for Part II of the contest.
Winners
The winner of Part II is Stephen Potter! Stephen Potter wins some cool Mario-themed merchandise and a copy of my board game Mammalath (with the Mammalath Plus expansion)!
The winner of Part I is Kevin Orfield! Kevin Orfield wins some cool Mario-themed merchandise!
Stay tuned next week for a contest of cinematic proportions!
