I vividly bear in mind from younger maturity the fun of pulling my 3DS out of my bag on the finish of the day and seeing the acquainted blinking gentle indicating I’d obtained a StreetPass whereas I used to be out and about. I’d open the app and see the Miis of the totally different individuals I’d handed that day, with cute messages and foolish hats. And each time, I’d instantly open Puzzle Swap to see what puzzle items that they had given me.
When I first began Puzzle Swap, I entertained delusions that I’d sometime full each puzzle simply by passing fellow 3DS homeowners on the road. I rapidly realized this was a nigh-impossible fantasy for various causes, considered one of which being that a number of of the out there puzzles couldn’t even be unlocked except I traveled throughout the globe for particular, limited-time occasions the place distinctive puzzles had been being handed out. I settled for attempting to complete the assorted Mario, Kirby, and Zelda-themed puzzles that got here by default on the gadget, or by means of occasional on-line updates. Admittedly, I by no means managed that both.
Now, my 3DS is gathering mud in a cupboard someplace, its on-line providers having been completely shut down earlier this yr and my motivation to make use of it having lengthy since dried up. But a devoted group of followers are nonetheless attempting to comprehend the dream of amassing each Puzzle Swap puzzle, and so they’re doggedly working to seek out their white whale: ANA: the rarest puzzle of all of them.
Chasing ANA
The lacking puzzle is a little bit of an odd one. It’s referred to as ANAでDS, ANA for brief, with ANA standing for “All Nippon Airways.” It’s a particular puzzle distributed manner again in 2012 from July 21 to September 30 in Japan, however solely at three choose airport places: Haneda Airport Terminal 2 (Tokyo), New Chitose Airport (Hokkaido), and Naha Airport (Okinawa). What’s extra, the puzzle itself can’t be handed to others by way of StreetPass. You can acquire items from others who’ve them if you have already got the puzzle unlocked, however with the occasion having concluded over a decade in the past, there’s no “official” option to purchase the puzzle in case you didn’t obtain it on the time. As a end result, the puzzle is exceptionally uncommon in comparison with different puzzles distributed extra extensively, eluding many hunters over time.
Which is the place Benny and his fellow puzzle hunters are available in.
Benny runs a Discord server referred to as The Search for ANAでDS, the place roughly 20 people have been collaborating over the past a number of weeks to trace down the ultimate lacking puzzle. Benny tells me he turned focused on discovering ANA solely just lately, after his love for the 3DS was reignited due to a homebrew software referred to as NetPass, which permits gamers to obtain StreetPasses over the web.
Through his curiosity in NetPass, Benny stumbled upon and joined the seek for the Japan-exclusive マックでDS ビッグマック (a picture of a McDonald’s Big Mac), which was solely simply formally cataloged final month. Just earlier than that, others locally managed to trace down one other time-limited puzzle, EU-exclusive Mario & Happy. With the inclusion of each Mario & Happy and the Big Mac, 62 of Puzzle Swap’s 63 whole puzzles had been formally uploaded on-line and out there for anybody to obtain. With only one puzzle left, Benny’s subsequent goal was clear: ANA.
“Those puzzles had been simpler to recuperate as a result of the required SpotPass information had already been dumped by customers on the Internet; it was primarily only a matter of discovering the information,” Benny explains. “In this case, it’s tougher as a result of to the most effective of our data, the ANAでDS puzzle information has not been publicly dumped wherever, so we have now to seek for somebody who has the puzzle so we are able to recuperate the required information from them immediately”
What Benny and his fellow hunters must doc ANA is easy on its face: they simply have to seek out one particular person who has the puzzle unlocked on their 3DS who’s prepared to add a file from their SD card to the web. That’s it! No homebrew or modding required, and the person doesn’t even must have the puzzle accomplished. Just a single piece is sufficient.
Since May, the group has been spreading the phrase to information shops, subreddits, boards, and different communities in an effort to seek out ANA. Once the file is uploaded, the neighborhood will take issues from there and incorporate the puzzle into a bigger file with all the opposite puzzles, enabling anybody who desires an entire puzzle assortment and doesn’t thoughts a little bit of homebrew to obtain all 63 puzzles directly.
Do you’ve the rarest StreetPass puzzle? ✈️
In summer time 2012, Nintendo collaborated with All Nippon Airways to distribute the Puzzle Swap puzzle “ANAでDS”. Currently, that is the one misplaced puzzle out of the complete assortment.
(a 🧵; 1/?) pic.twitter.com/XqogPwQvSD
— The Search for ANAでDS (@PuzzleSwapANA) June 25, 2024
“If somebody has the puzzle, they will contact us by e mail at puzzleswapana@gmail.com, ship us a Twitter/X direct message at @PuzzleSwapANA, or be part of our Discord server at and we’ll information them by means of finishing the easy steps wanted to recuperate the puzzle’s SpotPass information (it ought to solely take at most 10 minutes),” Benny explains.
Puzzle Preservation
It could seem unusual {that a} neighborhood has rallied round a sport like Puzzle Swap particularly after Nintendo formally discontinued online communications for the gadget earlier this yr. While native communications are nonetheless potential, that means StreetPass itself nonetheless works, not quite a lot of of us are carting 3DSes round of their luggage in 2024.
But various these I spoke to locally inform me that it was Nintendo’s discontinuation of providers for the 3DS that motivated them to choose up the hand-held gadget once more.
“I’m personally utilizing it about as a lot as my change, however I feel the shutdown motivated lots of people (me no less than) to begin archiving, modding, getting substitute providers (ie Pretendo), and many others,” mentioned Croton, one other neighborhood member who’s been closely concerned within the hunt, “like I overlook when the shutdown was introduced however I solely simply modded on a random Tuesday in October, and when the SpotPass archival server began recovering sport information I modded my household’s 4 different 3ds’s to archive extra information.”
Some of these locally are in it merely for the collect-a-thon. One neighborhood member, MrNoobingtonThelll, tells me that after the Big Mac puzzle was discovered among the vitality for puzzle looking began to die down. “[T]he lacking puzzles matter kinda died however Benny was one of many few one [sic] actively looking for it, so with my collectors nervousness of [100 percenting] a sport I began to supply a bit of assist.”
Others, like Ninja Squid, see the hunt as important to sport preservation. “It’s rewarding to be part of this crew and see all of the wonderful work we’ve accomplished,” he mentioned. “Finding this puzzle is necessary as a result of, even when it’s a comparatively unknown or area of interest a part of the legacy of the 3ds, it nonetheless issues and is a giant a part of ultimately archiving many of the historical past of the 3ds. [I]t’s a really neat novelty from an fascinating time in Nintendo’s historical past that I’d like to know is accessible to anybody. Being part of this offers me the chance to assist archive an necessary and uncommon piece of this wonderful console’s historical past, and it’s good to know that we’re attending to be one massive step nearer to archiving as a lot of the 3ds as potential.”
At the time this piece is being written, the ANA hunters do have one lead – a comment on a NintendoLife article from a user claiming to have ANA on their DS. The neighborhood has reached out and is ready for a response. In the meantime, they’re protecting their eyes open for different leads on ANA in case this one falls by means of. But total, the temper is hopeful.
“[D]ude because the file for each puzzle mixed is new the primary individual to finish ana ds could be the primary to truly beat puzzle swap,” noticed MrNoobingtonThelll.
He could be proper – and it solely took 13 years.
Rebekah Valentine is a senior reporter for IGN. Got a narrative tip? Send it to rvalentine@ign.com.
