Written by Edgar Chen and Ivan Wang
Answer: FORTNIGHT
In Act II, some puzzles are entangled with one in the opposite dimension. The two puzzles each have their own theme, core mechanic, answer, and solution, but each requires some information or action from the other in order to solve. This puzzle is entangled with Solving Pumpkin Patch with NO Given Pumpkins?!.
This puzzle contains a list of word problems that solve to integers between 1 and 26. After solving each problem in order and transforming alphanumerically (A=1, Z=26), we get the cluephrase, WATCH PATCH NOTES.
| Math Problem | Answer | Letter |
|---|---|---|
| At 19:00, Goat and Zebra depart, heading towards each other, from two train stations 600 mi apart. Goat travels at 50 mph while Zebra travels at 100 mph. At which hour (military time) will they collide? | 23 | W |
| Zebra, Snail, and Alpaca are crossing a bridge that is 7000m long. Alpaca walks at 7 km/h, Zebra trots at 10 km/h, and Snail crawls at 0.5 km/h. How many hours does it take the second-fastest animal to cross? | 1 | A |
| Wolf, Chameleon, and Leopard are racing to see who can reach the cookie store first. They start 22 miles away, and Leopard is driving at 10 mph. When Chameleon wins the race in 12 minutes, how far is Leopard from the finish line? | 20 | T |
| Snail and Goat are biking at the Tour de France, but Chameleon sneakily drives Goat 3 miles ahead before the race begins. If Snail and Goat are both biking at 30 mph, how far will they be from each other in 20 minutes? | 3 | C |
| Chameleon is eating cupcakes and can eat 18 cupcakes an hour. Wolf pays her a visit at 2 PM; if there are 20 cupcakes at 1:20 PM, how many will be left by the time Wolf arrives? | 8 | H |
| Goat and Elephant are assembling toys and earn 2 dollars for each toy they assemble. Goat makes 7 toys in 30 minutes, and Elephant makes 1 toy an hour for 60 minutes. How much money do they make? | 16 | P |
| Chameleon, Alpaca, and ? are exchanging presents for a party, but the gifts (one per participant) are placed at the end of a 360m obstacle course. Alpaca and Chameleon decide to sneak through the night before, with Chameleon carrying the gifts. Alpaca travels at 6 m/s; Chameleon travels at 9 m/s, but is slowed down by 2 m/s per gift she holds. How long (in minutes) does it take for the faster animal to escape the obstacle course? | 1 | A |
| Alpaca and ? are going on a dinner date at 4 PM, but Alpaca is nervous and asks Wolf and Goat to carpool. Alpaca tells Wolf and Goat they will leave at 3 PM (even though it’s a 20 minute drive). ? decides to reward Alpaca with a wine that costs $0.50 per minute that Alpaca is early. How expensive is the wine? | 20 | T |
| ?, Elephant, and Leopard are skiing from the peak of the mountain. Leopard skis at 5 mph, and Elephant and ? at 7 mph. 1 hour in, Elephant and ? are stopped for questioning in relation to a violent crime by the ski patrol, which takes half an hour per animal. When Elephant and ? start skiing again, how far (in mi) are they from Leopard? | 3 | C |
| Elephant, Snail, Alpaca, and ? meet at an orchard at noon to pick apples. Alpaca, Snail, and ? each can pick 80 apples per minute, but Elephant is hungry and eats 65 apples per minute. How many minutes does it take before they’ve accumulated 1400 apples? | 8 | H |
| Goat and ? decide to train by running stairs. They start on the 84th floor; every second, ? hops 2 flights of stairs, while Goat hops 4 flights. Alpaca, the judge, decides that the training ends as soon as both animals land on a floor that is a multiple of 28 (discounting the starting floor). How many seconds elapse before the regimen ends? | 14 | N |
| At 3:00, Detectives Leopard, Zebra, and ? begin to chase down Elephant, a 2-ton inmate who escaped at midnight in a hot air balloon. The balloon rises at a rate of 16 (ton·mi) / h. Leopard, Zebra, and ? grab jetpacks that move at 6 mph, 10 mph, and 5 mph, respectively. At what hour (military time) does the first detective catch up to Elephant? | 15 | O |
| Peacock, ?, Goat, and Alpaca are walking their pets down the street, with Alpaca and ? in the lead. Alpaca owns 3 cats and 1 dog; Peacock owns 2 cats and 2 dogs; Goat owns 1 cat and 3 dogs. Each cat wears 3 hats and each dog wears 4 hats. If there are 49 hats total, how many hats are in front? | 20 | T |
| Peacock, Goat, Alpaca, and ? are riding an escalator to the second floor of the mall, which is 80m away. The escalator moves forward at 13 m/s. Peacock is too lazy to move, but Alpaca, Goat, and ? decide to walk forward at 3 m/s. How many seconds will it take for Alpaca to reach the top? | 5 | E |
| Zebra, Elephant, Goat, and ? are working on a project together. ? writes 37 pages an hour, Zebra writes 6 pages an hour, Elephant writes 5 pages an hour, and Goat (hungrily) eats 10 pages an hour. How many pages of the group project will they have finished after half an hour? | 19 | S |
At this point, we realize that the WATCH PATCH NOTES cluephrase is a reference to the puzzle Solving Pumpkin Patch with NO Given Pumpkins?!. When we watch or listen to the notes, we find a number of suspicious transformations that might affect the answers to the word problems. For example, we learn that "In the presence of a candle, a lantern always burns 10 units faster." In total, there are 9 different objects in the pumpkin patch, just like there are 9 unique animals in the word problems. We also notice that each animal is paired to a Halloween object by sharing the same first letter. Below is a full list of the transformations (or lack thereof).
| Animal(s) | Halloween Object(s) | Transformation |
|---|---|---|
| Snail, Goat | Scarecrow, Gravestone | The scarecrow is scared of gravestones, so it always runs in the opposite direction. |
| Wolf | Witch | Witches are always 10 minutes late. |
| Leopard, Chameleon | Lantern, Candle | In the presence of a candle, a lantern always burns 10 units faster, so we can pencil in this part of the grid. Hang on, I think I might have misremembered that rule. Lanterns only burn 5 units faster, not 10. |
| Zebra | Zombie | Zombies are much slower than usual -- in fact they're twice as slow. |
| Alpaca | Apparitions | The friendly apparitions in pumpkin patches always slow down to talk to the slowest object. |
| Elephant | Eyeballs | Human eyeballs come in pairs, and so do the eyeballs in this puzzle. |
| Peacock | Pumpkins | There's nothing special about pumpkins. |
For the first 6 questions, we can solve the problems using the modified questions, which yields ANSWER and tells us that the final answer will come from the last 9 questions. For the last 9, there are some question marks that make it unclear which transformations may apply to the puzzle. In Solving Pumpkin Patch with NO Given Pumpkins?!, we place the animals as Halloween objects into the logic puzzle grid, using the colored cages to locate which areas in the grid correspond to given animals/Halloween objects. After we solve the grid, we can take the Halloween objects in the slots of the question marks and translate them back into animals. This tells us all of the transformations we need to solve the final modified word problems and spell out the final answer, FORTNIGHT.
| Modified problem | Answer | Letter |
|---|---|---|
| At 19:00, Goat and Zebra depart, heading towards each other, from two train stations 600 mi apart. Goat travels at 50 mph while Zebra travels at 100→50 mph. At which hour (military time) will they collide? | 1 | A |
| Zebra, Snail, and Alpaca are crossing a bridge that is 7000m long. Alpaca walks at 7→0.5 (match Snail's speed) km/h, Zebra trots at 10→5 km/h, and Snail crawls at 0.5 km/h. How many hours does it take the second-fastest animal to cross? | 14 | N |
| Wolf, Chameleon, and Leopard are racing to see who can reach the cookie store first. They start 22 miles away, and Leopard is driving at 10→15 mph. When Chameleon wins the race in 12 minutes, how far is Leopard from the finish line? | 19 | S |
| Snail and Goat are biking at the Tour de France, but Chameleon sneakily drives Goat 3 miles ahead before the race begins. If Snail and Goat are both biking at 30 mph (away from each other), how far will they be from each other in 20 minutes? | 23 | W |
| Chameleon is eating cupcakes and can eat 18 cupcakes an hour. Wolf pays her a visit at 2→2:10 PM; if there are 20 cupcakes at 1:20 PM, how many will be left by the time Wolf arrives? | 5 | E |
| Goat and Elephant are assembling toys and earn 2 dollars for each toy they assemble. Goat makes 7 toys in 30 minutes, and Elephant makes 1→2 toys an hour for 60 minutes. How much money do they make? | 18 | R |
| Chameleon, Alpaca, and Elephant are exchanging presents for a party, but the gifts (one per participant) are placed at the end of a 360m obstacle course. Alpaca and Chameleon decide to sneak through the night before, with Chameleon carrying the gifts. Alpaca travels at 6→(same speed as Chameleon) m/s; Chameleon travels at 9 m/s, but is slowed down by 2 m/s per gift (3→4) she holds. How long (in minutes) does it take for the faster animal to escape the obstacle course? | 6 | F |
| Alpaca and Peacock are going on a dinner date at 4 PM, but Alpaca is nervous and asks Wolf and Goat to carpool. Alpaca tells Wolf and Goat they will leave at 3→3:10 PM (even though it’s a 20 minute drive). Peacock decides to reward Alpaca with a wine that costs $0.50 per minute that Alpaca is early. How expensive is the wine? | 15 | O |
| Chameleon, Elephant, and Leopard are skiing from the peak of the mountain. Leopard skis at 5→10 mph, and Elephant and Chameleon at 7 mph. 1 hour in, Elephant and Chameleon are stopped for questioning in relation to a violent crime by the ski patrol, which takes half an hour per animal (2→3). When Elephant and Chameleon start skiing again, how far (in mi) are they from Leopard? | 18 | R |
| Elephant, Snail, Alpaca, and Wolf meet at an orchard at noon→(12:10 for Wolf) to pick apples. Alpaca, Snail, and Wolf each can pick 80 apples per minute, but Elephant is hungry and eats 65→130 apples per minute. How many minutes does it take before they’ve accumulated 1400 apples? | 20 | T |
| Goat and Chameleon decide to train by running stairs. They start on the 84th floor; every second, Chameleon hops 2 flights of stairs, while Goat hops 4 flights (away from each other). Alpaca, the judge, decides that the training ends as soon as both animals land on a floor that is a multiple of 28 (discounting the starting floor). How many seconds elapse before the regimen ends? | 14 | N |
| At 3:00→(3:10 for Wolf), Detectives Leopard, Zebra, and Wolf begin to chase down Elephant, a 2→4-ton inmate who escaped at midnight in a hot air balloon. The balloon rises at a rate of 16 (ton·mi) / h. Leopard, Zebra, and Wolf grab jetpacks that move at 6 mph, 10→5 mph, and 5 mph, respectively. At what hour (military time) does the first detective catch up to Elephant? | 9 | I |
| Peacock, Chameleon, Goat, and Alpaca are walking their pets down the street, with Alpaca and Chameleon in the lead (just Chameleon in the lead). Alpaca owns 3 cats and 1 dog; Peacock owns 2 cats and 2 dogs; Goat owns 1 cat and 3 dogs. Each cat wears 3 hats and each dog wears 4 hats. If there are 49 hats total, how many hats are in front? | 7 | G |
| Peacock, Goat, Alpaca, and Snail are riding an escalator to the second floor of the mall, which is 80m away. The escalator moves forward at 13 m/s. Peacock is too lazy to move, but Alpaca (match's Snail's new speed), Goat, and Snail decide to walk forward (Snail walks backward) at 3 m/s. How many seconds will it take for Alpaca to reach the top? | 8 | H |
| Zebra, Elephant, Goat, and Peacock are working on a project together. Peacock writes 37 pages an hour, Zebra writes 6→3 pages an hour, Elephant writes 5→10 pages an hour, and Goat (hungrily) eats 10 pages an hour. How many pages of the group project will they have finished after half an hour? | 20 | T |