Fuel Synthesis (Holiday Hoopla 2023)
| Fuel Synthesis | |
|---|---|
| Holiday Hoopla 2023 | |
| Answer | Click to revealMINUTE |
| Statistics | |
| No. solves | 65 |
| No. total guesses | 88 |
| Links | |
| Puzzle | Link |
Fuel Synthesis is a word puzzle from Holiday Hoopla 2023. It is the metapuzzle and final puzzle for the hunt.
The puzzle is presented as a recipe to follow.
Solve Path[edit | edit source]
Solvers may notice that the numbering of the steps in the recipe does not start from 1. Instead, there are gaps between the numbers, and the largest number is 25. The instructions say that "X remembers what holidays they collected them on," so solvers should match each step with the appropriate feeder puzzle using its title.
| Date | Puzzle | Answer |
|---|---|---|
| 4 | International Cheetah Day | PLEDGES |
| 8 | National Brownie Day | PIVOTAL |
| 10 | Dewey Decimal System Day | GENRE |
| 12 | National Ding-a-ling Day | GOLD |
| 16 | National Chocolate Covered Anything Day | MOUSSE |
| 18 | Answer the Phone Like Buddy the Elf Day | CHARLIE BROWN |
| 20 | National Dot Your I's Day | WHITEBOARDS |
| 22 | National Mathematics Day | MITTEN |
| 23 | National Roots Day | FINLAND |
| 25 | A'phabet Day | ASTEROIDS |
Each step has an instruction to transform its associated answer.
| Date | Instruction | Answer | Transformation | Result |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 4 | Keep the final two letters and surround it with an abbreviated Facetime. | PLEDGES | (-pledg)ES surrounded by FT → FEST | FEST |
| 8 | Take the abbreviated medical device in this ingredient and concatenate it with the US state abbreviation in this ingredient. | PIVOTAL | IV + AL | IVAL |
| 10 | Keep only the first three letters, but have the first letter follow Caesar back one step. Prepend with the letter O. | GENRE | GEN(-re) → GEN → FEN → OFEN | OFEN |
| 12 | Make it French without an article. | GOLD | GOLD → OR | OR |
| 16 | Discard southeast. | MOUSSE | MOUS(-se) | MOUS |
| 18 | Take the prefix, which corresponds to an abbreviated ability name in Dungeons and Dragons, and append the final letter of this ingredient to it. | CHARLIE BROWN | CHA (charisma) + N | CHAN |
| 20 | Keep only the second letter of the color, remove the snake, and shift the remaining four letters to the left on a QWERTY keyboard. | WHITEBOARDS | (-w)H(-ite)(-boa)RDS → HRDS → GESA | GESA |
| 22 | Extract the tall twins from this ingredient. | MITTEN | (-mi)TT(-en) | TT |
| 23 | Take the code of the largest airport in this ingredient. | FINLAND | HEL (Helsinki Airport) | HEL |
| 25 | Discard everything except the first three letters. | ASTEROIDS | AST(-eroids) | AST |
When concatenated, the resulting transformations fit the enumerated blanks, save for the the last few blanks, which are marked with question marks. An online search for the cluephrase so far reveals that it represents another December holiday, Click to revealFESTIVAL OF ENORMOUS CHANGES AT THE LAST MINUTE.
The answer to this puzzle is Click to revealMINUTE.
