Whirring ofthe Wheels

Written by Brian Shimanuki and Herman Chau

Answer: DEATH

We are given 9 wheels, each labeled “Wheel of Y”. No matter how many time we spin the wheels, they always land on the black sector.

A few insights are needed to break into the puzzle.

  1. Each wheel represents a word or phrase X that can be used to form the phrase “X of Y”.
  2. Each black sector represents an expression of surprise, frustration, or otherwise related to losing.
  3. Each losing word is a substring of the X phrase of the wheel containing it.
  4. The X phrases without the losing substring fit exactly into the rest of the sectors.

By using the losing word to align the X phrase (remember wheels are cyclic), we can place a single letter in each colored sector.

Boy Scouts of America
BOYSCOUTS
The Triplets of Belleville
THETRIPLETS
Crack of Dawn
CRACK
Soldier of Fortune
SOL*DIER
Admission of Guilt
ADMISSION
Frame of Reference
FRAME
Colossus of Rhodes
COLOSSUS
Comptroller of the Currency
COMPTROLLER
Diet of Worms
DIET

Each prize symbol appears exactly 5 times aggregated across the wheels, once each in 5 of the 6 colors. If we order the letters for each prize in rainbow order, there is a unique 6 letter word that can fit with the missing color as a blank. The letters used here spell out AMATTERO, but we're not done yet.

At this point, we have the prize icons, and the words obtained from aggregating and ordering the colors. Each icon and word pair can be combined to get an associated object or entity. If we index the prize amounts (in hundreds) into these associated words, we get the letters FLIFEAND.

PrizeROYGBPMissingFull ROYGBPAssociationAmountIndexed
M_SCOTAMASCOTFREDBIRD1F
SODIU_MSODIUMLITHIUM1L
PONYT_APONYTARAPIDASH4I
MO_HERTMOTHERFANTINE1F
LE_TERTLETTERHIEROGLYPH3E
TRIB_SETRIBESISRAEL4A
A_CADERARCADEPACMAN6N
S_CCEROSOCCERSOUNDERS5D

Reading out the missing letters followed by the indexed letters, we get A MATTER OF LIFE AND, which is a cluephrase that completes to DEATH.