This book is written in the style of R.L. Stine’s choose-your-own-adventure series, the Give Yourself Goosebumps books.
The first thing a solver might notice is that the first letter of each page is bold. The first letter of each page, concatenated in page order, yields the clue phrase FIND TITLES OF GOOSEBUMPS BOOKS AND PARSE DECISION PATHS AS FIVE-BIT BINARY.
The titles of the first 34 Give Yourself Goosebumps books can be found within this book, always on ending pages. Each ending page can be reached after exactly five binary decisions. Solvers should:
GYG # | GYG title | Page where title is found | Binary path to reach page | Binary path converted to decimal | Extracted letter |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
1 | Escape from the Carnival of Horrors | 52 | 10011 | 19 | S |
2 | Tick Tock, You’re Dead! | 43 | 10000 | 16 | P |
3 | Trapped in Bat Wing Hall | 47 | 01100 | 12 | L |
4 | The Deadly Experiments of Dr. Eeek | 9 | 01001 | 9 | I |
5 | Night in Werewolf Woods | 15 | 10100 | 20 | T |
6 | Beware of the Purple Peanut Butter | 62 | 00100 | 4 | D |
7 | Under the Magician’s Spell | 49 | 00101 | 5 | E |
8 | The Curse of the Creeping Coffin | 4 | 00011 | 3 | C |
9 | The Knight in Screaming Armor | 9 | 01001 | 9 | I |
10 | Diary of a Mad Mummy | 52 | 10011 | 19 | S |
11 | Deep in the Jungle of Doom | 9 | 01001 | 9 | I |
12 | Welcome to the Wicked Wax Museum | 51 | 01111 | 15 | O |
13 | Scream of the Evil Genie | 21 | 01110 | 14 | N |
14 | The Creepy Creations of Professor Shock | 43 | 10000 | 16 | P |
15 | Please Don’t Feed the Vampire! | 6 | 10101 | 21 | U |
16 | Secret Agent Grandma | 13 | 11010 | 26 | Z |
17 | Little Comic Shop of Horrors | 13 | 11010 | 26 | Z |
18 | Attack of the Beastly Babysitter | 47 | 01100 | 12 | L |
19 | Escape from Camp Run-For-Your-Life | 49 | 00101 | 5 | E |
20 | Toy Terror: Batteries Included | 15 | 10100 | 20 | T |
21 | The Twisted Tale of Tiki Island | 38 | 00001 | 1 | A |
22 | Return to the Carnival of Horrors | 18 | 01011 | 11 | K |
23 | Zapped in Space | 49 | 00101 | 5 | E |
24 | Lost in Stinkeye Swamp | 26 | 00110 | 6 | F |
25 | Shop Till You Drop...Dead! | 9 | 01001 | 9 | I |
26 | Alone in Snakebite Canyon | 30 | 10010 | 18 | R |
27 | Checkout Time at the Dead-End Hotel | 52 | 10011 | 19 | S |
28 | Night of a Thousand Claws | 15 | 10100 | 20 | T |
29 | Invaders from the Big Screen | 48 | 00010 | 2 | B |
30 | You’re Plant Food! | 9 | 01001 | 9 | I |
31 | The Werewolf of Twisted Tree Lodge | 20 | 00111 | 7 | G |
32 | It’s Only a Nightmare! | 30 | 10010 | 18 | R |
33 | It Came from the Internet! | 38 | 00001 | 1 | A |
34 | Elevator to Nowhere | 36 | 01101 | 13 | M |
This indicates that there is a split decision puzzle afoot. On each decision page, the two branching options clue a pair of words which vary by one bigram. The bigram of the first word from each branching page can be concatenated in page order to yield the clue phrase YOU MUST LOOK AT THE TIMES WHERE JACK SKELLINGTON IS EXPLICITLY MENTIONED.
Page # | Word #1 | Word #2 | Bigram #1 | Bigram #2 |
---|---|---|---|---|
1 | YOGI | MAGI | YO | MA |
2 | MUMFORD | MEDFORD | UM | ED |
3 | MUSICIAN | MAGICIAN | US | AG |
7 | STATLER | STAMMER | TL | MM |
8 | SOOTHE | SEETHE | OO | EE |
10 | KARATE | PIRATE | KA | PI |
11 | REGATTA | REGALIA | TT | LI |
14 | THEOLOGY | TOPOLOGY | HE | OP |
16 | INCOMPATIBLE | INCOMPARABLE | TI | RA |
19 | MESSENGER | PASSENGER | ME | PA |
22 | SWORD | CHORD | SW | CH |
24 | SHERWOOD | SOURWOOD | HE | OU |
25 | THREONINE | THYRONINE | RE | YR |
28 | JACKMAN | BECKMAN | JA | BE |
29 | CACKLE | CANDLE | CK | ND |
31 | GASKET | GADGET | SK | DG |
32 | WELFARE | WARFARE | EL | AR |
33 | LITHOGRAPHY | ORTHOGRAPHY | LI | OR |
34 | GANG | GATE | NG | TE |
37 | ENTOMOLOGY | ENZYMOLOGY | TO | ZY |
41 | CONVENIENT | CONVERGENT | NI | RG |
44 | SECEDE | ACCEDE | SE | AC |
45 | EXPORT | EFFORT | XP | FF |
46 | SLITHER | SMOTHER | LI | MO |
50 | CONCISE | CONFUSE | CI | FU |
53 | TITLE | TINGE | TL | NG |
55 | LYMAN | LOGAN | YM | OG |
56 | INTENTION | INTUITION | EN | UI |
58 | POTION | POISON | TI | IS |
61 | SONATA | STRATA | ON | TR |
63 | EXPEDITION | EXPOSITION | ED | OS |
Jack Skellington is explicitly mentioned by name (first, last, or both) on five different pages throughout the book. On each of those pages, his name occurs a different number of times, 1–5.
Each of these pages can be converted to a letter according to page number (using A=1, B=2, etc.). Ordering these letters by the number of mentions per page yields the final answer: BLOAT.
Page # | Number of occurrences of Jack’s name | Letter |
---|---|---|
2 | 1 | B |
12 | 2 | L |
15 | 3 | O |
1 | 4 | A |
20 | 5 | T |