A Long Winter's Path - 2025 Holiday Scavenger Hunt

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Archaic

Archaic

黒い王様
Archaic - Webmaster Scorbunny Fan Sprigatito Fan
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THUNDER WAVE! Welcome one, and welcome all to an exciting scavenger hunt constructed by none other than DYN4MO! I'm your host with the most for this Thundershocking event, the electrifying super-streamer, Canari!

We here at DYN4MO hope that you'll have a wonderful time with this year's Scavenger Hunt! We'd also like to take a second to thank our totally awesome sponsor for making this happen! But, we'll talk more about them later!

Listen up, Canatics - here's how this works!

This year's scavenger hunt will lead you all around Bulbapedia while looking for some super sparkly Colorful Screws! Each one you encounter will lead you to another page, just click on it when you find it, where Canari (that's me!) will assist you in unlocking the object's secrets! Each time you're successful, you will recieve a letter and the clue to the next location. Make sure you keep a note of everywhere the riddles are sending you, you're going to need 'em!

Now with all that covered. I know why you're here, and you want to get this show on the road! So, ready your Satchel and grab your Rotom Phone cause this train is ready to leave the station!

FIRST CLUE!
"Seek the ancient spire of seven floors to climb
Its builder and purpose long since lost to time.
When your battle is won, here you may seek appeals
Of the opposing guardian to your truth or ideals."​

Prizes
A total of 10 winners will each receive a Pokémon Center Gift Card to the value of $70 USD / $99 CAD / £60 GBP (for winners in the United States, Canada, or United Kingdom), or an equivalent value in readily available Pokémon merchandise (for winners in other countries).

Winners will be chosen randomly from all people who complete the scavenger hunt prior to the end of the contest.
How to Enter
When you've made your way through all the riddles, you'll need to unscramble the letters to create a word or phrase that's related to Pokémon (you may or may not have to add punctuation in addition to the letters provided). Once you have your answer to the word scramble, you will need to submit the list of Colorful Screw locations, the top secret passwords, each letter you obtain, and the answer to the letter scramble with the submissions form. Once you submit your answer, you won't be able to edit it, so make sure that you're sure of your answer before submitting!

All entries must be received prior to 11:59pm (PST), Wednesday December 31st, 2025.

​
 
FAQ
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For general FAQs applicable to all of our Bulbagarden Holiday Contests, please see the main post in the announcement thread here.
* Can I post answers to the Scavenger Hunt questions publicly?
Absolutely not! The whole part of the scavenger hunt is for everyone to have fun figuring out the riddles and making it to the end on their own. People posting spoilers and other sorts of cheating is completely against the spirit of the game. Anyone caught giving out or receiving answers will be disqualified from all of this year's holiday contests.
* I can't get the answer to this riddle, can I have a hint?
Chances are, probably not. Unless there's some truly exceptional circumstances, where for whatever reason we decide a riddle has proven to be far too difficult to the point that it's proving detrimental to the competition, you'll need to figure it out on your own. In the unlikely event a riddle does end up too difficult for many players, we'll add the hint to the place where you get the riddle.
* Okay, but can I give other people hints to the Scavenger Hunt questions?
We'd prefer you didn't. While working together is within the spirit of the season, there can be a very fine line between something being okay and basically giving the answer away. That line isn't the same for each person either. What might be vague to you could just as easily be an unforgivable spoiler from someone else's perspective.
If you do give someone a hint, don't share that hint publicly. Don't send someone a hint without them explicitly asking you for it either.
* Okay, I'm sure I have the answer for this one... But there's nothing there! What's going on?!
You may have the right idea, but you're checking the wrong article. If you're thinking "Crobat", maybe the riddle meant "Brock's Crobat". Make sure to check related articles!
* How do I get the URLs for the entry?
The URL should be easily located in the address bar at the top of your browser. Just copy it down and keep it safe for your entry!
* Can I use a permutation generator to try and figure out the answer to the scramble?
Technically, there's nothing we could really do to tell if you've used one or not, but we'd certainly prefer you didn't, as it's not really within the spirit of the contest. As it is, there should be so many permutations of possible responses that you're not really going to get any help out of such a brute force method anyway.

 
Are the “Top-Secret Passwords” things you type to get the subsequent clue? Trying to understand what is being asked
 
nuvematown said:
are those I or L?????
Click to expand...

The letters given out appear to all be capital letters, so I would assume the letters in question are "I" and not "L". Then again, I'm not staff, so I could be wrong.

EDIT: 90% of the difficulty seems to be in the word unscramble here, which I am struggling with. I'll comment on the my issues with the low difficulty of finding hidden pages after results go out.
 
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I was stuck on the word unscramble for a bit too. In fact, I was getting so desperate that I was going to run a script to generate all possible permutations (of which there are a lot) and then look through all of them myself for something that works. Well, as a test, I had it print out the first ten permutations (in random order) and while none of them were correct, somehow when looking at them I just knew the answer.
 
I'm certain I have the right answers and letters, but the unscrambling part has me stumped. Any direction or hints in that regard?
I have not been keeping up with the latest Pokémon games and releases as closely as I once did, so already had to do some amount of research just to arrive here, yet even after all that nothing rings a bell with the letters I have...
 
For those struggling on the unscramble, we do recommend this particular tool, which Eleanor suggested on the #bulbamas2025 channel of our Discord.

This isn't a tool to brute force the unscramble, but rather something that can just replace pen and paper for assisting you in figuring out what letters you have left, so you can think through the unscramble on your own.
 
Graxil said:
I'm certain I have the right answers and letters, but the unscrambling part has me stumped. Any direction or hints in that regard?
I have not been keeping up with the latest Pokémon games and releases as closely as I once did, so already had to do some amount of research just to arrive here, yet even after all that nothing rings a bell with the letters I have...
Click to expand...
I know the feeling, I'm 3 hours in on the unscrambling alone, and am confused out of my mind.
 
I noticed that, for me at least, the screw sometimes doesn't appear at first and only shows up on page refresh. Careful of that when hunting.
Btw I'm only like 50% sure my final unscramble is correct. Like I'm either so galaxy brained right now or completely stupid idk I'm comitting though
 
Mothmallow said:
I noticed that, for me at least, the screw sometimes doesn't appear at first and only shows up on page refresh. Careful of that when hunting.
Btw I'm only like 50% sure my final unscramble is correct. Like I'm either so galaxy brained right now or completely stupid idk I'm comitting though
Click to expand...
Got me beat, I took a break after hour 5 and gave yet to go back.
 
This was pretty fun. By pure coincidence I was checking if an area had TMs or not, and stumbled upon the first Canari Screw, decided to see it to the end yesterday. Thanks for hosting!
 
Archaic said:
For those struggling on the unscramble, we do recommend this particular tool, which Eleanor suggested on the #bulbamas2025 channel of our Discord.

This isn't a tool to brute force the unscramble, but rather something that can just replace pen and paper for assisting you in figuring out what letters you have left, so you can think through the unscramble on your own.
Click to expand...
Wait... are there more letters in the answer than whats given out??
 
The sheer rush of adrenaline I got when I got the unscrambling part after multiple hours is unmatched. Thanks for putting this on!
 
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