Happy Bunnies Solution
How It Works
Each bunny has four key elements, in addition to the sage advice given by the caption itself: color, arm position, caption's first letter, and capital letter within the caption. The typical solving steps are roughly as follows:
- Notice there are 26 bunnies.
- Notice that each caption starts with a different letter of the alphabet.
- Sort the bunnies by the first letter, and now read the capital letters: SEMAPHORE FLAG RYB COMPONENTS.
- Keeping the bunnies in the same order, treat the bunnies' arms as semaphore flag positions (SEMAPHORE FLAG) and read them based on their component colors (RYB COMPONENTS):
- Read all bunnies with RED as a component color (RED, ORANGE, PURPLE, and BLACK): HEYGUYSWHYHAVE
- Read all bunnies with YELLOW as a component color (YELLOW, ORANGE, GREEN, and BLACK): NTYOUSOLVED
- Read all bunnies with BLUE as a component color (BLUE, GREEN, PURPLE, and BLACK): THISCLUEYET
- Combine the pieces from the three color components to get the phrase, "Hey guys, why haven't you solved this clue yet?"
- Recognize the phrase as a callback to one of the bunny insults, "You guys haven't solved this clue yet because you suck."
- Solve the clue by answering the question.
List of Bunnies
| Insult | Uppercase Letter |
| --- | --- |
| all the good teamS are already done. | S |
| be my valEntine. just kidding. | E |
| can't you do anything sMart? | M |
| does your fAce hurt you? because it's killing me. | A |
| each time I see you, i throw uP in my mouth a little. | P |
| forget plastic surgery, Here's a paper bag. | H |
| go fly a kite. near some pOwer lines. | O |
| how does failuRe taste? | R |
| it takes a "special" person to not count to twEnty-six | E |
| just Forget trying to solve this yourself. | F |
| keep trying, Loser. | L |
| like A delicate flower, you're going to die in the winter. | A |
| maybe you should Get a breath mint. | G |
| no matter what happens, Remember i hate you. | R |
| other teams have alreadY solved this puzzle. | Y |
| please move on Before you make me cry. | B |
| quit while you're ahead. Crap - too late. | C |
| really? you're not dOne with this puzzle yet? | O |
| soMeone in your van needs a shower. | M |
| try Pulling your head out of your ass. | P |
| under no circumstances should you reprOduce. | O |
| very few people anNoy me like you do. | N |
| whEnever you call for a hint, game control kills a kitten. | E |
| x marks the spot. if oNly you knew all twenty-six letters. | N |
| you guys haven'T solved this clue yet because you suck. | T |
| zombieS ate your brains? what a tiny meal | S |
Solution
WE SUCK or BECAUSE WE SUCK
Design Notes
Happy BunnyTM is a fairly-well-known character by Jim Benton. You can check out the official site at http://www.itshappybunnybooks.com/, or do a web search and find tons of mildly amusing riffs on the same theme.
This puzzle was originally written as a bonus clue for the animal-themed Zoobotics Corporation Weekend Amusement Activity. No teams in that event saw the clue, so it was put into the archives for a couple of years. Since the original Z bunny referenced Zoobotics, it had to be updated with a new caption; otherwise, the puzzle was unchanged.
The idea of the bunnies berating the teams while they tried to solve the puzzle seemed like a nice blend of cruel and amusing. Forcing teams to admit that they suck in order to solve the puzzle was just the right amount of evil to satisfy the typically sadistic GC staff.
Construction Notes
We really liked the idea of having teams receive their puzzle on the ferry, instead of in line, or at the previous location. Since we couldn't guarantee that all teams would make the same ferry, we had to plan for two possible drops. This meant that we had to have a full set of bunnies for each team in two separate locations. Two sets times 26 pieces times 19 teams equals one never-ending crapload of bunnies to cut out.
GC Notes
One team managed to defy our dual-ferry planning in an entirely new way. Instead of being late for the optimal ferry, they managed to brave the summer traffic and hop on an earlier boat. Our only electronic version of the puzzle was optimized for printing and cutting, and had the bunnies already sorted. The version of the puzzle seen on this wrap-up site was hastily assembled that morning, by breaking open the PDF and rearranging the pieces (since the author foolishly failed to save the original Illustrator source file). The resultant version was emailed to the teams to work on while we figured out a way to deliver them a paper copy.
During internal trials of the puzzle, we noticed that most testers submitted "You suck", repeating the end of the Y bunny's caption verbatim. This was true for some teams during the Game too, and gave us an extra opportunity for some teasing. We trained GC staff to respond with something like "We don't suck; we've already solved this clue.", and added a special achievement in the answer submission system to commemorate the players' pronoun confusion.