Columbus, GA REPRESENT

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Annnnnnnd SCENE

Posting fingers down, everyone! Book 3 is officially CLOSED FOR SHOWDOWN BUSINESS.

Look for the Puzzle 3 Solution here on the Hub, Mandy’s Book 3 recap over at FYA, and Alexis’ final captains’ email earlyish on Monday—there may be a surprise waiting for you!

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Harry Potter and the gang would probably prefer this summer treat to cool them down over a glass of Butterbeer.

Gamemaker Bonus: +2 MW

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Photo Bonus #3: Low-Key Cover Cosplay

Have you heard of Disneybounding? Well, read up on it, because for this final Photo Hunt bonus we are giving you a chance to do (almost) just that! Our twist? We want you do low-key cosplay as the YA covers you’ve chosen for your Book 3 Photo Hunt submissions. Natch!

Guidelines:

- Each Photo Hunt submission featuring one of your team’s members cosplaying the cover scheme will earn +4 bonus points.

- The cosplay cannot be the *only* element of the cover interpretation; set up the photos how you would have without any bonus points on offer, so that anyone unaware of the cosplay scheme would still get the pun/tableau/joke if they saw the photo without context.

- That said, include context! Specifically, the cover image of whatever edition of your book you chose (foreign editions absolutely welcome).

Need a boost of inspiration? Check out the genius Twitter account, Harry as Books:

Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, JK Rowling (@jk_rowling) pic.twitter.com/hiJkpR0ZmL

Or go even fancier with something like The NOVL’s Re(a)d Carpet:

Tag all your bonus-eligible submissions with #2016 photo bonus 3.

Deadline for cosplay bonuses is midnight PT, July 31. 

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2016 Puzzle #3: The Old School One

Email your guesses to [email protected]. As the letter states, you can make up to three guesses this time and still be eligible for points. Deadline is midnight PT, July 31.

NB: There’s still only +10 points on offer for this puzzle, so if mental decryption aerobics aren’t your thing, go ahead and apply your energies instead to slaying the final set of Artifact Hunt items!

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Puzzle #2: Mischief Managed

Put away your compasses.  Puzzle 2 is over!  

This puzzle had a few tricky aspects, but they didn’t throw most teams off course.  Here are your answers:

Part One

1. The Wrath and the Dawn by Renee Ahdieh 2. Shades of London by Maureen Johnson 3. An Ember in the Ashes by Sabaa Tahir 4. Brightly Woven by Alexandra Bracken 5. Everything Everything by Nicola Yoon 6. Carry On by Rainbow Rowell 7. The Illuminae Files by Amie Kaufman & Jay Kristoff 8. We Were Liars by E. Lockhart 9. A Court of Thorns and Roses by Sarah J. Maas 10. The Impostor Queen by Sarah Fine 11. Chaos Walking by Patrick Ness

Part Two

HOMONCULOUS (the word “charm” in the instructions was a clue - in the Harry Potter books, the Homonculous Charm enables the possessor of the Marauder’s Map to track the movements of people in the mapped area).

Part Three

“See? Life goes forward. More, much more, will happen after this. Things involving maps and books and true love and tragedy, tragedy like you wouldn’t believe.”

Part Four

Essential Maps for the Lost by Deb Caletti 

Great job, teams!  Just one more puzzle to go!

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Photo Bonus #2: MELEE

Welcome to Book 2! 

You may have wondered why certain FYA-beloved books were struck from the master Photo Hunt list—this second scoring period’s photo hunt bonus is why. Those missing titles belong to a handful of authors who have graciously agreed to judge some all-or-nothing photo hunt melees, in which the team to create each author’s favorite title/cover interpretation will receive a (relatively) whopping +20.  

The Authors (& their chosen titles):

Adi Alsaid, Never Always Sometimes (FYA)

Ashley Hope Perez, Out of Darkness (FYA)

Jenny Han, Always and Forever, Lara Jean  (a yet-unpublished title! Stretch those creative muscles on this one and see if you can’t match or top the final cover design we’ll all be seeing next year!)

Jennifer E. Smith, Hello, Goodbye, and Everything In Between (FYA)

Siobhan Vivian, The Last Boy and Girl in the World (FYA)

The rules:

Keep reading

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Puzzle #2: We Solemnly Swear We Are Up to No Good

Time to get out your Google, ‘cause this puzzle isn’t going to solve itself. 

2015′s Grand Champion team, ATLFYA, elected to craft a puzzle as part of their prize package, and they, like the Goblet of Fire, are NOT holding back. So get out that precious vial of felix felicis you’ve been saving, and read on!

Logically, we understand why maps are a rarity in YA books. They’re expensive to create, require an insane attention to detail, and work best with unique settings (most of us can probably imagine a suburban neighborhood just fine). But irrationally? We would like maps for everything please, from fantasy lands to high schools cafeterias to Midwestern mini malls. 

This puzzle has FOUR tasks:

1. Determine the title/author of the books or book series containing the maps below.  We’ve noted whether we’re looking for a series name or book title.

2. Find the selected letter in each title and put them together in numerical order (i.e. the order they’re already in) to create a keyword that will serve as your charm in the next section.  

Keyword: _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

3. Using your keyword, decipher the following book quote:

QCC EAUC LICQ UIPWHPN FIPC FTMS FIPC WAEE SHJJCG HURCP RSAQ RSAGLQ AGVIEVAGL FHJQ HGN OIIDQ HGN RPTC EIVC HGN RPHLCNY RPHLCNY EADC YIT WITENGR OCEACVC OTR UAGC RSAGLQ RII RSC OCQR IGCQ

4. Give us the title/author of the book from which this quote hails. 

Solutions will only be counted as correct if ALL FOUR bars are met. Correct guesses receive +10.

Email your guesses to [email protected]. Deadline for guessing is midnight PT, Sunday July 17.

As with the last puzzle, teams only get one guess and there are no speed bonuses, so take your time!  

Need more direction?

We’ve asked for the series title for all books in a series.  If we’ve asking for a book title instead, the book is a stand alone.

All series titles come from Goodreads, so if they got it wrong, we got it wrong. Check there first!

When finding letters, don’t count spaces, but do count articles (a, an, the) even at the beginning of a title.  For example, the 7th letter of The Grisha is “s”.

Ready? Get up to no good!

1) Series name, 8th letter

Keep reading

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Puzzle #1: A Clichéd Solution

First, some Casper-born Backwards cocktails to add to your cocktail party list. 

via Oil City

Why? Y’all deserve it! 100% accuracy across the 2016 Showdown Scoreboard!

Next, the solution:

Part One

(The) (Girls) at the Kingfisher Club

(The) (Girl) is Murder

(The) (Girl) of Ink and Stars

(The) (Girl) of Fire and Thorns

(no The) (Girl) Against the Universe

(The) (Girl) at Midnight

(The) (Girl) with the Wrong Name

(no The) (Girl) in the Blue Coat

(no The) (Girl) in the Shadows (though there is a small pub title with the THE—thanks, FYAON!)

Title #10:

(The) (Girl) Who Soared over Fairyland and Cut the Moon in Two

Part Two

For better or worse, these titles are all about (The) Girl(s). Alexis wasn’t as diligent as she should have been when copying the titles to paper from Goodreads, so titles that were supposed to be missing the “the” or had a plurality of girls were accepted in any format. 

Part Three

THE  BACKWARDS  MOONKIN

I.e., the awesome early autumn cocktail Alexis’ mixologist friend/one of the coolest people she knows whipped up at the end of the 2015 Showdown. We hope some of you take up the challenge of walnut syrup and make a few of these at your own cocktail parties this summer!

And that’s a wrap on 2016′s first puzzle. See you soon with Puzzle #2!

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Babies and burning sparklers. Happy Independence Day from CSGFYA!

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John laughing manically at his bike tire.

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Our very own CSGFYA mum using Dumplin’ colors!

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Fangirling over Fangirl and Golden Girls.

Gamemaker Bonus:  +4 FD

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Okay? Not okay. *sniffle, sniffle* #allthefeels

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“In the movies the good guy gets the girl. In real life it's usually the prick.”

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Because...besides Lisa Frank, who knows unicorns better than Bruce Coville?

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Photo Hunt Bonus #1 (expires July 3)

For the five possible photo submissions between now and July 3, any that are taken at a local teen summer haunt will get an extra +3 points. 

Please tag all photos with 2016 photo bonus 1 in addition to the title, author, and your team name, so that we can easily filter and apply points.

You must include a brief description of the location to get the points (we don’t have ESP/perfect local knowledge of all your places). **Particularly fun/thrilling/gross/romantic** personal anecdotes about your own youthful follies either there (if it is your hometown) or a haunt similar in style to the one pictured (if you are not in your hometown) are likely to attract Gamemaker attention when it comes time to award Best Bonuses…

Please tag all photos with 2016 photo bonus 1 in addition to the title, author, and your team name, so that we can easily filter and apply points.

Have fun!

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The Cliché Who Jumbled the Puzzle (#1)

No holds barred with this first puzzle, friends! With two weeks to work on the solution, and no speed bonuses to trick y’all into submitting too early, we’re starting in high gear and not looking back.

With literally hundreds of books being published every year (to wit: the Photo Hunt list is made up of almost entirely releases from the last ten months), it’s inevitable that some trends in naming those books will occur. There are only so many words in the English language!

Still, there are some trends that we’d be happy to see fade away in favor of something else for awhile. Given the state of things, it doesn’t seem like that will happen anytime soon, so in the meantime, let’s make use of the cliché.

Below are the skeletons of ten (fairly recent) titles that share the same first two words, and a word cloud of the rest of the words needed to make NINE of those titles complete. The tenth title (the one with the extra “guide” word in it) will become obvious once you have identified the title trend we’re playing off of.

(word) (word) _____  _____  _____  _____

(word) (word) _____  _____

(word) (word) _____  _____  _____  _____

(word) (word) _____  _____  _____  _____

(word) (word) _____  _____  _____

(word) (word) _____  _____

(word) (word) _____  _____  _____  _____

(word) (word) _____  _____  _____  _____

(word) (word) _____  _____  _____

(word) (word) _____  _____  _____  _____  over  _____  _____  _____  _____  _____

agaiNst and and at at Blue club CoaT fIre in in inK is Kingfisher Murder midNight nAme of of ShaDows stArs the the thE the the thOrns univeRse With wrOng

_ _ _    _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _    _ _ _ _ _ _ _

You will notice that several of the words in the word cloud have highlighted letters. These are a jumble of a name of a cocktail posted to FYA in the past year, which is directly related to the tenth title and fits in the spaces provided.

Your task is THREEFOLD:

1. Correctly rearrange the word cloud to complete the first nine titles (listed in your solution email).

2. Identify the commonality and complete the tenth title (include both in your solution email).

3. Unscramble the highlighted letters to find the cocktail post in question (include the link to the post in your solution).

Solutions will only be counted as correct if ALL THREE bars are met. Correct guesses receive +10. 

Email your guesses to [email protected]. Deadline for guessing is midnight PT, Sunday July 3.

Remember that you have two weeks to work on this puzzle, there are no speed bonuses this year, and you are only allowed to guess once, so you have every reason in the world to take your time. And then, when you’re done, mix up that cocktail and relax!

Good luck!

NB: Participating in the puzzle element is completely voluntary—the points are low and the mental energy needed, high, so only dive in if you’re going to have fun with the frustration. If that’s not your team’s thing, head to the Cocktail doc and skip ahead to the relaxation part :-)