Solution - Elements War
By the Puzzles are Magic crew
Puzzle Answers
GREEN BOOTS
MAID OF THE MIST
LONG BRANCH SALOON
BALTIMORE CONVENTION CENTER
VENETIAN
EMPIRE STATE BUILDING
INSPIRATION
HURRICANE
PERFECT
SONIC
ATTRACTION
GAUNTLET
In this puzzle, the friendships we made along the way are the puzzle answers from the 12 regular puzzles in the hunt. Alphabetize them, take the indicated letters, convert to numbers using A=1, B=2, and apply the math operations.
| Puzzle Answer | Character | Operation | Value |
|---|---|---|---|
| ATTRACTION | Zecora | A * (I - A) | 8 |
| BALTIMORE CONVENTION CENTER | Twilight | R + L - B | 28 |
| EMPIRE STATE BUILDING | Rainbow | D * (P + G) | 92 |
| GAUNTLET | Lyra | (N + A) * E - U + T | 74 |
| GREEN BOOTS | Rarity | O - (B * G) | 1 |
| HURRICANE | Whooves | H * (U - I - A) | 88 |
| INSPIRATION | Derpy | T - R + N | 16 |
| LONG BRANCH SALOON | Applejack | G * (R - L) | 42 |
| MAID OF THE MIST | Pinkie | A + I + H | 18 |
| PERFECT | Button | P + T + R - E | 49 |
| SONIC | Vinyl | S - N | 5 |
| VENETIAN | Fluttershy | V - E - I | 8 |
The resulting numbers are too large to be converted to letters using A=1, B=2. To extract, we need to realize this is a war over the Elements. Convert each number to the corresponding element in the periodic table, and reorder the symbols in the order of ponies at the bottom, which happens to be the order of puzzle unlocks.
The answer is HARMONIOUS RAINBOW, a fitting end to any My Little Pony adventure.
Authors Notes
This puzzle was constructed last. This is not how you're supposed to do things, but in our original planning, the hunt was going to end at Endgame. As the story evolved, it become clear we needed one more puzzle for the final confrontation with Thanos, and it wanted to be a metapuzzle to bookend the hunt.
After noticing that the analogue of "Infinity War" for the Elements of Harmony was "Elements War", the puzzle wrote itself. We considered more complex mechanisms to get the atomic numbers, but decided it was better to keep the final puzzle simple as a last hurrah, instead of a grind. Given that it was built after all the feeders were fixed, we didn't have much flexibility anyways.