• A reminder that Forum Moderator applications are currently still open! If you're interested in joining an active team of moderators for one of the biggest Pokémon forums on the internet, click here for info.
  • For those of you who voted in the Arcade Game Night, the next step is scheduling the best time for playing! Check out this post for more details.
  • Due to the recent changes with Twitter's API, it is no longer possible for Bulbagarden forum users to login via their Twitter account. If you signed up to Bulbagarden via Twitter and do not have another way to login, please contact us here with your Twitter username so that we can get you sorted.

Bulbagarden's 12 Days of Trivia 2023

Announcement
Joined
Dec 29, 2002
Messages
16,386
Reaction score
2,192
Pronouns
  1. He/Him
Delibird delivering presents on their sleigh
Bulbagarden's challenging 12 Days of Trivia contest returns for another year! On Tuesday December 12th, we'll be posting a set of 12 trivia question for you here in this thread, and you'll have roughly 12 days to find the answers to all of them. As always, the trivia questions will be drawn from all corners part of the Pokémon franchise. Some questions will be easy, others devilish, but you'll be able to find the answers to all of them on Bulbapedia if you search hard enough.

As with our last few 12 Days of Trivia contests, all the questions and answers for this year's trivia will be following some theme. If you're getting stuck on any one question, you might find a hint in the answers you've already come up with to other questions.

We'll be accepting responses to all 12 trivia questions right up until 11:55pm Sunday December 24th (US Pacific Standard Time), so you'll have plenty of time to get your answers in. No prizes will be awarded this year based on how quickly people submit their entries, so feel free to take as much time as you need within that deadline to think about your answers.

Prizes
For the 12 Days this year, a total of 12 winners will each receive a $60 USD Pokémon Center Gift Card (for winners in the United States), or an equivalent value in Pokémon Merchandise (for winners outside the United States).

Prizes this year will be distributed depending on the highest score achieved in the contest. The template distribution we will be working towards will be as follows:
  • 2 prizes will go to people selected randomly from those entries who answer all 12 trivia questions correctly.
  • 2 prizes will go to people selected randomly from those entries who answer at least 11 trivia questions correctly.
  • 2 prizes will go to people selected randomly from those entries who answer at least 10 trivia questions correctly.
  • 2 prizes will go to people selected randomly from those entries who answer at least 9 trivia questions correctly.
  • 2 prizes will go to people selected randomly from those entries who answer at least 8 trivia questions correctly.
  • 2 prizes will go to people selected randomly from those entries who answer at least 7 trivia questions correctly.
To avoid confusion, people eligible at one tier are eligible for all subsequent tiers, so someone with a perfect score of 12 would have 12 separate chances to win in the above distribution, while a person with a score of 11 would have a total of 10 chances, and so on.

Should we not get any perfect scores, or if there are only a limited amount of entrants with scores above certain values, then these amounts will be re-weighted to achieve as similar a distribution as possible. Prizes will only be distributed to people scoring below 6 correct answers in the event that there are less than 12 people with a score of 7 or better. The exact distribution will be announced as soon as the final scores are known.

If you have any questions about the contest, please post them in this thread, or in the #bulbamas2023 channel on our Discord server.

Good luck everyone! Once they've been posted on December 12th, you'll be able to find your questions in the third post of this thread. You'll be able to find the entry form for the contest in a link on this post shortly after those questions have gone live.

 
Last edited:
Frequently Asked Questions
  • Thread starter
  • Staff
  • #2
==FAQ==
* I have a question...

Read this FAQ and the FAQ in the main Holiday Contests thread first before you ask me anything. It's probably already been answered. If it hasn't been, then go ahead and ask it. Please note that I will NOT respond to questions via Bulbagarden Forums private message. Questions about this contest must be asked in this thread, or in the #bulbamas2023 channel on our Bulbagarden Discord.

* I can't find the answer! Are they really all on Bulbapedia?
All of the answers are there, we've checked.

* Will I need to include links to where I found the answer?
Yes. This will be specified in the form. This assists us in identifying if we've made any mistakes, or if someone has added incorrect information to Bulbapedia which might have confused entrants.

* For (insert question here), do you mean (something) as opposed to (what the question says)?
Please re-read the question. Does it say (what you just said)? If it doesn't say that, then why would you think it meant that?

* Will you clarify a question for me?
As a rule of thumb, no. "Clarifying" a question after it has gone up could result in a situation where we are effectively changing the questions after people might have already submitted answers.

* I think one of the questions could be answered in several different ways, is that a problem?
No. If there's multiple possible answers for a question, that's probably intentional. And even if you've found an an additional possible answer that we didn't consider, all this would mean is that an additional possible answer would get added to the list of accepted answers at the end.

* So if there's multiple possible answers, do I need to put them all down?
No. You should just put down the answer that you think is the best answer. If you put down multiple answers, you run the risk of the judges taking that as you trying to game the system and invalidating your response.

* The answer on Bulbapedia is wrong! The actual answer is (BLAH), and I have proof!
That's not a question, it's a statement! But seriously, in the event that an error on Bulbapedia is leading people astray, we will accept both the actual correct answer, and the answer as it currently stands on Bulbapedia for the purposes of figuring out your score. We do this to avoid disadvantaging people who have already entered before a mistake is uncovered.

* I think someone's cheating! The info on Bulbapedia changed!
Theoretically, it is possible for someone to change information on Bulbapedia to try and give themselves an advantage. But we'll be watching the pages with the answers closely to prevent issues. In the event the change corrects an error on Bulbapedia, then both the old info (as it stood on December 12th when these questions were posted) and the new info will be valid for answers. In the event the change introduces an error, we'll revert the error and make a note of it when going through answers, to make sure those taken in by it aren't disadvantaged. The person who made the change introducing that error would also find themselves disqualified from the competition.

* Will you be revealing the correct answers after the competition?
Yes, we will. Though we likely won't be revealing the answers until after prizes have been awarded and prize winners have confirmed their details.
 
The Trivia Questions for 2023
  • Thread starter
  • Staff
  • #3
Question 1:
Name an instance in which a Pokémon in the anime successfully used a move that it shouldn't be able to learn, where at least one character in the episode itself noted the incident.

Question 2:
Excluding the signature moves of mythical and legendary Pokémon, name a move which was exclusive to an event Pokémon when it first made its debut, but which later became available more widely.

Question 3:
The Pokémon series occasionally makes references that are unfortunately lost in translation. Name an in-game location that lost the significance of its original name in localization, and what the original name referenced.

Question 4:
What Pokémon has had the most distinct Pokémon cards printed specifically for it (i.e. not including reprints, trainer cards including the Pokémon in their artwork, or cards for other Pokémon where this Pokémon is simply included in the artwork)?

Question 5:
Without trading, hacking, using a cheating device, or performing arbitrary code execution, how could you obtain a Rattata that knows the move Fly?

Question 6:
As a group, what do Arbok, Skiploom, and Cacnea have in common, which they do not share with any other group of Pokémon?

Question 7:
In which Pokémon game do Pokémon eggs only hatch after being repeatedly hit by an opponent?

Question 8:
A surprising number of Pokémon characters have botanical themed names. Excluding Professors, Gym Leaders, Facility Leaders, Trial Captains, name a plot-relevant character in a piece of Pokémon media other than a Pokémon manga series whose canonical name is a type of fruit.

Question 9:
Before Kadabra received a new card in the 151 expansion earlier this year, it had been almost 20 years since the Pokémon had last appeared in the Pokémon TCG. As of the release of the Paradox Rift expansion, which Pokémon has not received a new dedicated card in English for the longest period of time?

Question 10:
Prior to the debut of the Premier Ball in the Generation III core series games, name a piece of Pokémon media that a similar white-colored Poké Ball appeared in, and the context in which that ball appeared.

Question 11:
Name a move which can be learned through leveling up by at least one Pokémon of every shape.

Question 12:
Name all of the Pokémon with regional forms which have also been given non-standard (excluding shiny) colour schemes for their regular form in an episode of the Pokémon Anime.
 
Last edited:
@coordinator lissi
If you check the main FAQs, you can find this:

* Who can enter the contest?
Our contests are open to anyone aged 18 or over.
If you are aged under 18 but over 13, then you may also enter, provided that you have the permission of your parent or guardian. If you do not have the permission of your parent or guardian, then you will forefit your prize should you be selected as a winner.
If you are aged under 13, then you should ask your parent or guardian to enter on your behalf.
Only 1 entry is accepted per contest, per household.
 
My Confirmation of entry Email contained a code for entries to a raffle which upon further inspection seems to be for last years raffle, since it links to the 2022 page.
I assume this is just a mistake and that there is no raffle this year? Just making sure/bringing awareness to the isssue.
 
My Confirmation of entry Email contained a code for entries to a raffle which upon further inspection seems to be for last years raffle, since it links to the 2022 page.
I assume this is just a mistake and that there is no raffle this year? Just making sure/bringing awareness to the isssue.
That is indeed a mistake. I thought I’d removed that, but I must have only removed it from the finish screen and not he email. I’ll correct that after I’ve had breakfast. Thanks for letting us know!
 
Due to circumstances beyond our control, with what appears to be a case of some bot forcefully browsing the entire forum in much the same way as those Bytespider bots we had to block earlier this year (while masking its user agent so as to present itself as a regular user to avoid detection as a bot, and so avoiding our filters), we're going to be a bit lenient about entries coming in a little late this year. Both the forums and the platform we use for our entry forms are absolutely chugging due to handling this fraudulent traffic, and while it's not an outright DDoS like the Bytespider ones were earlier this year, it's undoubtably going to be impacting more than a few people.

If you have entered some time in the past 24 hours, after these bots started hammering us, please make sure that you received the email confirming your entry. If you did not, then contact me on the #bulbamas2023 channel on the Bulbagarden Discord so I can manually check if it did go through or not.
 
We've had a significant number of users reporting to us that they currently can't load the entry form due to the issues mentioned in my post above. If you're in that situation, please DM me via the Bulbagarden Discord with your answers so that can confirm your entry. Later, when the entry form is available for you again, you'll need to submit that as normal so that we have your entry properly in the system, but at least if you DM us now we'll be able to confirm what your answers are to ensure everything's fair.
 
Due to the DDoS that was only resolved this morning Australian time, we've extended entry to this contest by a day. So if you weren't able to submit earlier, go right ahead and do it now, before the form locks again for good. If you already submitted and you want to change an answer now that you have extra time, DM me here or on the Bulbagarden Discord and I'll handle that for you.
 
While we await the judging, any guesses as to this year's theme? I think it's something to do with change over time, or changes between generations. At least four questions are also repeats from previous years, with either wording tweaks to change the answer or answers that have changed since the question was first asked in the 12 Days.
 
Winners
Apologies for the delay on this. There were delays in the judging of the Creative Contest due to some IRL issues for one of the judges, and since we had potential winners from that in the running here also, we needed to finish prize allocations for that first, since it'd be problematic to redo the random draws as per the system we set up for 12 Days this year if certain people were ineligible.

As it was, because the prizes were equal between Rapidash and 12 Days this year, and because there were more potential winners in 12 Days than in Rapidash, anyone who won in Rapidash was ineligible and thus excluded from the draw here. Since that meant a number of people who had higher scoring entries were excluded, it opened up the field a lot more to people without perfect or near-perfect scores.

Our 12 winners this year, in the groups in which they were drawn, were:
  • 2 prizes to people selected randomly from those entries who answered all 12 trivia questions correctly.
  • 2 prizes to people selected randomly from those entries who answered at least 11 trivia questions correctly.
  • 2 prizes to people selected randomly from those entries who answered at least 10 trivia questions correctly.
  • 2 prizes to people selected randomly from those entries who answered at least 9 trivia questions correctly.
  • 2 prizes to people selected randomly from those entries who answered at least 8 trivia questions correctly.
  • 2 prizes to people selected randomly from those entries who answered at least 7 trivia questions correctly.
    • axolotter (no forums account)
    • Wasply (no forums account)
Please note that because of the way we drew prizes for the contest this year, picking up your prize in a later tier does not mean that everyone in the previous tiers had a higher score than you.
Similarly, there are people who had higher scores than some people on the winners list who lost out just on luck of the draw. For the record, the lowest score of any prize winner was 8, while there are several people who scored 9 who didn't pick up a prize.

I'll be in contact via Forums DM for all winners where forums accounts are known, and via Discord for everyone else.

The actual answers to all questions should go up sometime later this week.
 
Back
Top Bottom