Part I. Solve the Mini-Puzzles!
Solve the mini-puzzles and send your solutions to glmathgrant[at]gmail[dot]com. For each correct solution received (up to 10), you will get an entry in a prize drawing to win some cool Mario-themed merchandise!
Part II. Solve the Meta Puzzle!
Solve the meta puzzle and send your solution to glmathgrant[at]gmail[dot]com, and you will get an entry in a prize drawing to win the grand prize of some cool Mario-themed merchandise and a copy of my board game Mammalath (with the Mammalath Plus expansion)!
The deadline for both parts of the contest is 11:59 PM Central time on November 1, 2020. After this deadline, the winners will be selected (first for Part II, then for Part I from among those who didn't win Part II). Good luck!
(note: you can click some images in this blog post to enlarge them)
01. A Puzzle Whose Answer Isn’t BABY BOWSER
02. A Puzzle Whose Answer Isn’t BRIGHT CARD
03. A Puzzle Whose Answer Isn’t CACTUS MINE
04. A Puzzle Whose Answer Isn’t CANNON KAOS
How many Coins do you get for defeating a Paper Goomba in Mario & Luigi: Paper Jam?
How many green Toads make up the group of "Fun Guys" in Paper Mario: Color Splash?
What is the sticker number of the Flashy Hopslipper sticker in Paper Mario: Sticker Star?
How many FP does a Lime Candy restore in Paper Mario?
What is the number of Spike Top's Catch Card in Super Paper Mario?
In what chapter of Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door do you face Hooktail?
What number is in the full name of the boss in Paper Mario: The Origami King who is known as "Colored Pencils", and is also the number of colored pencils he normally has?
05. A Puzzle Whose Answer Isn’t COOKIE LAND
06. A Puzzle Whose Answer Isn’t CRANKY KONG
07. A Puzzle Whose Answer Isn’t LIGHT BLOCK
08. A Puzzle Whose Answer Isn’t POKEY MUMMY
09. A Puzzle Whose Answer Isn’t WALRUS COVE
10. A Puzzle Whose Answer Isn’t WARIO WORLD
The Meta
As mentioned before, these ten puzzles yield a collective answer as a meta puzzle. You may obtain hints on how to solve the meta puzzle through the following means.
First Hint: Solve Any 7 Puzzles
Just email me any 7 puzzle answers, and I’ll send you the first hint. If you don’t want to wait on me to respond, I have set up the following process so you can obtain the hint more quickly:
Step 1: For each puzzle you’ve solved, go to https://sites.google.com/view/10mariochallenges-XXYYYYYYYYYY/home, replacing XX with the two digits preceding the puzzle’s title and YYYYYYYYYY with the puzzle’s answer. If done correctly, a website will appear with a 57-character string (2 digits, a hyphen, and 54 hexadecimal digits [regular digits plus letters a through f]). These are shares for Shamir's Secret Sharing Scheme.
Step 2: When you have 7 such strings, go to http://point-at-infinity.org/ssss/demo.html. In the “Combine” field, set “Threshold” to 7 and enter the 7 strings you obtained. If done correctly, a 27-digit number will appear as the output.
Step 3: Go to https://sites.google.com/view/ATWENTYSEVENCHARACTERSTRING/home, replacing ATWENTYSEVENCHARACTERSTRING with the 27-digit number. The first hint should appear.
Second Hint: Solve All 10 Puzzles
Just email me all 10 puzzle answers, and I’ll send you the second hint. If you don’t want to wait on me to respond, I have set up the following process so you can obtain the hint more quickly:
Step 1: Go to https://www.md5hashgenerator.com/. Make a string out of all 10 puzzle answers, in puzzle order (01 through 10), in lowercase letters, separated by hyphens (for-example-it-might-look-like-this-string-right-here). If done correctly, the hash should begin with bc8a4.
Step 2: Go to https://sites.google.com/view/ATWENTYSEVENCHARACTERSTRING/home, replacing ATWENTYSEVENCHARACTERSTRING with the hash, minus the first five characters bc8a4. The second hint should appear.
