Before WPC 2023, I ran a Puzzle Getchu!, a contest themed on Ape Escape. I had intended to queue these puzzles for posting before WPC, but didn't have the time. Better late than never!
The sixteenth level in Ape Escape is City Park. City Park is almost objectively the hardest to execute level in virtually any speedrun category (except time attacks, where it's the second easiest - and it used to be the easiest before I found a way to save a lag frame) - digression aside, I wanted this to be tough. Statue Park was also the perfect genre pick and while it's certainly a genre capable of high difficulty, did I know how to set that up?
Yes, yes I did figure out how to make this standard size puzzle worth a whopping 25 points. Once I hit on the main layout and idea, I kept running into no remaining solutions from very early steps. Going back a bit, it took me probably an hour to find any potential packing for the conclusion of the puzzle. Once I had one I quickly found a family of similar solutions and started setting out to force an interesting one, which took another hour.
This is probably the highlight puzzle from the entire set - and a couple very good solvers at WPC asked me how to break in! Honestly the feedback on Puzzle Getchu as a whole, in person, was extremely validating. I know I said this already but I had such a great time in Toronto, I can't wait to be able to go to another WPC in the future.
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