March 2025 - Sun Wukong: The Legend of the Monkey King

Tap on any hint box to view it.

Location

  1. What foods could you use to complete the monkeys' thoughts?
  2. The first monkey's completed sentence is: "Did you see him burst out of that rock? BEETS me how he got so powerful!!"
  3. Have you noticed the way the foods are ordered?
  4. The pictures of foods are in alphabetical order, with one picture per letter.
  5. Beets, Apple-ause, S'more, Ham-some, Flan, Udon, Lettuce
  6. Note that the word "first" is bolded!
  7. Take the first letter of each food item to get BASHFUL

The Crowning of the Monkey King

  1. The bridges and rocks are all linked together by overlapping letters. We know the next word has a G in it due to the bridge.
  2. The bridge that comes after TEMPLE is "LEGEND" (Key for a map).
  3. The rocks and bridges are ordered in alphabetical order.
  4. TEMPLE, ENDANGER, DENTIST, PORCELAIN, UTOPIAN, MEXICO, CURSOR, IDEA, THINS, AMBUSH, PEACE, ARCANE
  5. LEGEND, ERODE, STUPOR, INPUT, ANIME, CONCUR, SORDID, EARTH, INSEAM, SHAPE
  6. Once you have strung all the bridges and rocks together, take the single unique letter that bridges adjacent rocks
  7. GO UP IN DREAD
  8. What do you think is meant by "Oddly"?
  9. GUIDED

A Suitable Weapon

  1. All of the crossword clue answers are related to the pictures on the right
  2. For example, "One of Snow White's seven short companions" solves to "dwarf". What category on the right might it correspond to?
  3. Notice how the words "long" and "short" are bolded.
  4. Each clue has a word corresponding to a morse symbol (long/short)
  5. How could you order these words to make things get "progressively smaller"?
  6. Under the category of BEDS, the three words arranged largest to smallest are KING, QUEEN, AND TWIN. King has "long" in its clue, QUEEN and TWIN both have "short". Long-short-short in morse = -.. = D
  7. Within each category, order the words from big to small and use morse code to get the answer: UNDYING

Magical Transformations

  1. Notice that there are fifteen animals and fifteen crossword clues
  2. How might each animal correspond to the answers to the crossword clues below?
  3. Each animal is hidden in the answer of each crossword clue
  4. For example, "RAT" is hidden in the answer to clue 1: "aspiRATion"
  5. The animals and the crossword clue answers are both arranged in alphabetical order.
  6. ANT, BEAR, COW, CRAB, DEER, EEL, EMU, FISH, HARE, HEN, LION, OWL, MOOSE, RAM, RAT
  7. Find the crossword clues in the word search. There are no diagonals and the words can switch directions halfway.
  8. ASPIRATION, BEARDS, BOWLING, COMMANDEER, COWARD, FEMUR, KITCHEN, PHANTOM, PYRAMID, PAVILION, SCRABBLE, SELFISH, SHARE, VAMOOSE, WHEEL
  9. Read the unused letters to get a partial solve: READ LETTERS AT TURNS IN ANIMALS
  10. phANTom in the word search grid makes turns at "h", "N", and "o", but the only turn that happens in the animal is "N".
  11. Reading only the letters that occur at turns within the animals gives: ANSWER IS HOTHEAD

Havoc in Heaven

  1. In the first grove, are there any rows/columns that can only have one possible solution?
  2. The middle row must add up to 12, so the other two spaces must be 3s
  3. Following similar logic, one of the columns in the second grove and one of the rows in the third grove can be solved
  4. Notice the number of leaves on the three different peaches
  5. What code could be used to decrypt your partial solution?
  6. Use ternary to get the solution: MARSHALS

Meta

  1. What does “letter by letter” imply?
  2. Even though there are five answers and five pillars, it does not necessarily mean that each pillar gets a separate answer
  3. Starting from the location puzzle, put a letter for each puzzle answer on every column, going left to right
  4. Notice that first and last are both bolded!
  5. Take the letters on the first and last pillars to get BUDDHA'S FINGERS

Bonus: Double Trouble

  1. The columns and rows with a lot of information are the best places to get started!
  2. For example, the two columns with 1/2/2/2/1 and 1/2/2/1/2 can already be filled out.
  3. Try using dots to denote spaces that must be empty.
  4. After figuring out the puzzle, use Braille to decrypt the final answer.
  5. NO MORE MONKEY BUSINESS