Papers Please

Owner:

Patrick

Solution:

COMRADE

Partial Answers

N/A

GC Notes:

GC to update day-of-game.

Presentation:

As the teams have been solving puzzles in Stevens Pass, they collect "Certification" stamps in their passport. When they solve enough, they receive the PORT entry visa and are sent to the puzzle proper. It contains several labeled areas arranged in a linear order, although they won't be able to get into most of them at first:

  • Harbor

  • National Forest

  • Market District

  • Central District

  • Airfield

  • Artifact Market

Walkthrough:

This is a wordplay puzzle. Most of the areas contain agents that will transform one or multiple stamps into another via various wordplay rules. Once a stamp is used, it's marked VOID, and teams can't use it again. The goal is to get entry visa to enter other areas; the name of the area clues the stamp they need. (Harbor->PORT, National Forest->PARK, etc.) Every time they get an entry visa, they'll get some "endorsement" stamps that they can use to create the next visa.

In the walkthrough, entry visas are bolded. Stars refer to stamps the teams received "for free" when they created the last entry visa.

At the Harbor: The Harbor contains one agents who can change one letter of a stamp's name, as long as the result is a word. (e.g. DIME->TIME)

Starting state: PORT Goal: PARK (to gain access to the National Forest)

  • There are two ways to use the Harbor agent twice to make PARK:

    1. PORT->PORK->PARK

    2. PORT->PART->PARK

  • They can now access the National Forest, but since they destroyed their PORT stamp to do so, they can't return to the Harbor.

The National Forest contains two agents: one drops a letter and anagrams the rest (e.g. LEAD->ALE); the other takes one or more food items and prepends its/their first letter to another stamp (e.g. FRENCH FRY + LIGHT -> FLIGHT.) (e.g. POTATO + HAM + ONE -> PHONE)

Starting state: PARK, SPAGHETTI*, ORE*, ACTOR*. Goal: Store (to gain access to the Market District)

  • SPAGHETTI works as a food item, but ACTOR needs to become one. The "drop and anagram" agent can turn it into TACO or TARO.

  • The "add food" agent turns SPAGHETTI + TACO/TARO + ORE -> STORE.

The Market District contains one more agent: combine two words into a single word or compound phrase. (e.g. HOT + DOG -> HOT DOG)

Starting state: PARK, STORE, BUGS*, TUNA*, SNOW*, WOUND*. Goal: DOWNTOWN (to gain access to Central District)

  • The first half is easy, drop and anagram WOUND -> DOWN.

  • To make TOWN, they have to make OWN and then add something to it. Drop and anagram SNOW -> OWN.

  • TUNA is not a food on its own (the stamp is a picture of a fish so it's an animal not a food). However, the one stamp they haven't used yet, BUGS, can combine with it to make one: Drop and anagram BUGS -> SUB

  • Combine TUNA + SUB to TUNA SUB. Now they can add food to make TUNA SUB + OWN -> TOWN.

  • Combine DOWN + TOWN to make DOWNTOWN.

The Central District doesn't contain any new agents, but they need to go through it to get to their goal.

Starting state: PARK, STORE, DOWNTOWN, SPORT, ACID. Goal: AIRPORT (to gain entry to Airfield)

  • They can drop and anagram ACID -> AID, but they need to make an R somehow. To do so, they have to get back to the Harbor.

  • Drop and anagram SPORT to PORT to regain access to the Harbor.

  • At the Harbor, change AID->AIR.

  • Combine AIR + PORT -> AIRPORT. (losing Harbor access again.)

There are no agents in the Airfield, and they didn't get any stamps this time either. They need to use their existing stamps to get to the Artifact Market.

Starting state: PARK, STORE, DOWNTOWN, AIRPORT. Goal: ARK STORE

  • Drop and anagram PARK -> ARK.

  • Combine ARK + STORE -> ARK STORE.

At the Artifact Market, teams will receive an Ark with the answer to the puzzle, COMRADE.

Hinting:

If you know what the goal of the next stage is, it's usually not too bad to figure out how to get there. Figure out what stage the team's on, and let them know what location they're trying to get into, or if they need a bigger nudge what stamp they're looking for exactly.

When they get to the Central District and Airfield, they need to remember that they can use transformations on their visas. Since they have to go through those locations to get to the Market, they can't use DOWNTOWN or AIRPORT, so only PARK, STORE, and PORT can be used in that way.

It's theoretically impossible to get into a state where you can't continue or have to backtrack. The agents shouldn't let you undo your actions, or make a transformation that's "wrong". (The only time it might be possible to screw up is by turning PARK->ARK too early, before creating AIRPORT. In that case, they do need to talk to the staffers to go back.)

Data:

Map of the locations:

Put links to files on the Sharepoint and any other raw data.