Professor Layton and the Miracle Mask Puzzle 059: Flowery Footpath Hints and Answer

Puzzle 059 is Flowery Footpath, a 40-picarat Arrange puzzle in Old Towne in Stansbury, during the Chapter 4 flashback to Hershel Layton's school days. Doug, the bald man with the white mustache who also gave you Puzzle 021, stops young Hershel, Randall and Angela as they slip out for an adventure. The tiles on a street have faded, and you have to fill a 12 by 12 frame with eight new pieces, each already made of several tiles, so that the old pattern shows again. You can turn the pieces, and the question says the pattern doesn't have to face the same way as the old one. It's probably not mandatory.

Video: Flowery Footpath solved. It shows the answer, so skip it if you only want the hints.

This page covers story Puzzle 059 in Professor Layton and the Miracle Mask on Nintendo 3DS. The pieces and the answer are the same in the US and UK English versions; the UK wording differs slightly. Quotes use the North American text. If you're after Daily Puzzle 059 or Puzzle 59 from another Layton game, see Wrong Puzzle 059? below.

Professor Layton and the Miracle Mask Puzzle 059 Flowery Footpath: on the top, a square of faded brown street tiles in a brick pavement, showing a pale five-petal flower, with a small red-haired figure in a round frame at the upper right; below, an empty 12 by 12 checkered frame in the middle of a brick wall, with eight red tile pieces showing parts of a white pattern around it, four on the left and four on the right — Illustration of the faded street tiles on the top screen and the eight new tile pieces on the touch screen. The game's menu buttons aren't shown.

What Puzzle 059 is

Puzzle 059 at a glance
Name	Flowery Footpath (US and UK)
Type	Arrange (slide and turn pieces, then tap Submit)
Picarats	40
Location	Old Towne, Stansbury
Chapter	Chapter 4
When	Flashback
Given by	Doug, a bald man with a white mustache
Solved by	Randall
Previous puzzle number	Puzzle 058, Sorting Blocks (Market Street)
Next puzzle number	Puzzle 060, Dangerous Holes (Old Towne)

The question reads: "The tiles on this street are rather faded. Can you help out and replace them with some fresh tiles? The tiles are already stuck together into several larger pieces. The pattern is the same as the old one, but it doesn't have to be oriented the same way. Oh, and you can rotate each section!" The objective bar sums it up as "Replace the tiles!"

How the pieces work

The top screen shows the old, faded mosaic. The touch screen has an empty frame, 12 tiles wide and 12 tiles high, with the eight new pieces around it. Together the pieces have exactly 144 tiles, so every piece is used and nothing overlaps.

Drag a piece with the stylus to slide it. It lines up with the tile grid when you let go.
Pieces can be turned a quarter turn at a time, but they can't be flipped over.
Tap Submit when the frame is full. If anything is wrong, the game says "Try again."

The pieces' outlines are uneven, with tiles sticking out here and gaps there, so the shapes and the bits of white pattern on them are your two clues. If you lose track, the game can reset the puzzle and put every piece back where it started.

Puzzle names

Puzzle 059 names
Version	Puzzle name
North America	Flowery Footpath
UK	Flowery Footpath
Japanese	タイルのナゾ (Tairu no Nazo, roughly "the tile puzzle")

There doesn't seem to be a separate UK name. The UK hints probably differ only in small details of spelling and punctuation, such as "downwards" instead of "downward" and "centre" instead of "center". The pieces and the answer are the same in the US and UK English versions.

Wrong Puzzle 059?

Daily Puzzle 059 in Miracle Mask is a different puzzle: Sailing 07, from the Perilous Voyage set. There are no tiles in it.
Puzzle 143, Flowery Footpath 2, is a 60-picarat follow-up in Layton's Challenges. If yours comes from that menu, that's the one.
Puzzle 021, A Lick of Paint, is the puzzle Doug gives you in Old Towne in Chapter 2. Puzzle 060, Dangerous Holes, is the other Old Towne puzzle in Chapter 4, and Puzzle 058, Sorting Blocks, is on Market Street.
Puzzle 59 in another Layton game is a different puzzle. If yours doesn't have faded street tiles and a 12 by 12 frame, you're in the wrong game.

Where you find it

In Chapter 4, once your objective is "Sneak out of the House!", Doug is in Old Towne, which you reach from Market Street. He's the bald man with the white mustache and the red sweater, standing on the grass right of center, the same spot as in Chapter 2. He calls out, "Ahoy there! What are you three up to?" Randall answers, "We're just taking a brisk walk to stimulate our intellectual appetites," and Doug says, "Well, I've got something for hungry brains right here!"

He keeps the puzzle while your objective is "Sneak out of the House!", "Go to the Forest!" and "Head to Norwell!", and it's gone once your objective is "Investigate Norwell!".

Old Towne: a cobbled street curving past old brick and timber houses, with a green awning on the left, a tall house in the middle and green trees and a stone stairway on the right. Numbered gold rings mark hint coin spots 1 at the white hanging signboard above the green awning at the upper left, 2 on the roof of the tall middle building at the top edge and 3 under the eaves of the small blue roof at the upper right. A teal ring on the grass right of center marks a bald man with a white mustache and a red sweater, with a label reading Doug: Puzzle 059 — Illustration of Old Towne. The teal ring shows where Doug stands, and the numbers mark where the three hint coins are.

Old Towne has three hint coins, all in the normal view, with no zoomed-in view to search. They're on the white hanging signboard above the green awning at the upper left (1), up among the chimney pipes on the roof of the tall middle building (2) and under the eaves of the small blue roof at the upper right (3). Each coin can be collected only once, so if you picked them up in Chapter 2, they won't be there again.

If you leave it unsolved, it probably goes to Nanna Grams (known as Elizabeth in the UK version) at the start of Chapter 5.

When you're stuck

A piece won't fit anywhere. Turn it. Every piece has four possible turns, and the right one often looks wrong until the pieces next to it are in place.
You're trying to copy the top screen. The question says the pattern doesn't have to face the same way, so look at the shapes of the edges first and the white pattern second.
Two pieces almost fit but leave a gap. Look at the single tiles that stick out. Each one has to drop into a matching notch in a neighbor.
The game says "Try again." At least one piece is in the wrong place or turned the wrong way. Check that the white lines join up across every seam.
You can't find the puzzle. Talk to Doug on the grass in Old Towne once your objective is "Sneak out of the House!".

Hints, one at a time

These are the game's own hints, word for word from the North American version and in the same order. Open only the next one you need. In the game, Hints 1 to 3 cost one hint coin each and the Super Hint costs two.

Hint 1: the size of the mosaic

The finished mosaic is 12 x 12, while each piece is roughly 3 x 6, plus or minus a few tiles. The pieces will end up laid out in quite a neat pattern.

Hint 2: where to start

Let's get you started on your way. See that three-pronged piece in the middle of the right-hand side? Rotate it 180 degrees and place it in the bottom left. Now take the piece in the bottom-right corner, rotate it 90 degrees, and place it next to the previous one to complete the bottom edge of the mosaic.

Hint 3: the next piece

After you place the tiles as described in Hint 2, you'll see four gaps between the "teeth" along their top edge. Look for a piece with tiles sticking out that would fill two of those gaps, and rotate it so those tiles are facing downward. You should then be able to see most of the pattern's middle section.

Super Hint: the rest of the mosaic

With the tiles arranged as per the previous hints, you should be able to complete the pattern in the center. You're looking for a long piece with one tile sticking out. Once you put that piece in place, it should be obvious which piece goes on the left-hand side if you pay attention to both the shape and the pattern. The remaining three pieces are up to you.

Answer and full solution

The answer below covers every piece, with a lettered picture of the start, the build in four stages and a picture of the solved puzzle. Open it when you're ready.

Show the answer

Answer: the pieces fit together into a five-petal flower, facing the same way as the faded one on the top screen. Build it from the bottom up: the three-pronged piece and the corner piece along the bottom edge, then the piece with two downward tabs above them, the long piece with one tile sticking out in the center, and the last four pieces around the edges. Then tap Submit.

In the picture and table below, the pieces are lettered A to H by where they start. Rows and columns are counted from the top left of the frame, 1 to 12.

The touch screen at the start with each of the eight pieces marked with a letter: A and B, two tall pieces at the upper left; C and D, two wide pieces at the lower left; E at the upper right; F, a three-pronged piece in the middle of the right-hand side; G and H at the lower right, with H in the corner. The empty 12 by 12 frame is in the middle — Illustration of the eight pieces, lettered by where they start.

Where each piece goes, in building order
Step	Piece	Turn	Where it goes
1	F, the three-pronged piece on the right	Half turn	Bottom left: columns 1 to 6, rows 10 to 12, prongs pointing up
2	H, the bottom-right corner piece	Quarter turn clockwise	Bottom right: columns 7 to 12, rows 10 to 12
3	E, the upper-right piece	Half turn	Middle: columns 4 to 9, rows 7 to 9, its two tabs filling the gaps in row 10
4	C, the upper of the two wide pieces on the left	None	Center: columns 4 to 9, rows 4 to 6, its single extra tile in column 3 of row 4
5	D, the lower wide piece on the left	Quarter turn counterclockwise	Left edge: columns 1 to 3, rows 4 to 10
6	G, the left one of the pair at the lower right	Quarter turn counterclockwise	Top left: columns 1 to 6, rows 1 to 4
7	B, the right one of the two tall pieces	Quarter turn clockwise	Top right: columns 6 to 12, rows 1 to 3
8	A, the tall piece at the far left	None	Right edge: columns 10 to 12, rows 3 to 10

Step by step:

Bottom edge (F and H). Give F a half turn so its three prongs point up and put it in the bottom-left corner. Give H a quarter turn clockwise and put it next to F to finish the bottom three rows. Their top edge now has four one-tile gaps, in columns 2, 5, 8 and 12.
E. Give it a half turn so its two tabs point down, and set it on top of F and H so the tabs drop into the gaps in columns 5 and 8.
C. Don't turn it. Put it right above E, with the one tile that sticks out pointing left in row 4. The center of the flower is now complete.
D. Turn it a quarter turn counterclockwise and stand it up along the left edge, from row 4 down to the gap in column 2 of row 10.
G, B and A. Turn G a quarter turn counterclockwise for the top-left corner and B a quarter turn clockwise for the top-right corner. A goes in unturned down the right edge, filling the last gap in column 12 of row 10.

Four copies of the touch screen in a 2 by 2 grid, the pieces marked with letters. Panel 1, captioned 1–2: F and H make the bottom edge, shows F and H filling the bottom three rows of the frame. Panel 2, captioned 3: E goes on top, tabs down, adds E in the middle above them. Panel 3, captioned 4–5: C in the middle, D on the left, shows the center of the white flower complete with D along the left edge. Panel 4, captioned 6–8: G, B and A finish it, shows the full frame with G at the top left, B at the top right and A down the right edge, forming a five-petal flower — Illustration of the build in four stages.

The game confirms it: "Well done! That looks much better!"

The puzzle after it's solved: on the top, the street tiles are bright red again and the white five-petal flower is complete, with the red-haired figure in the round frame raising both arms; below, all eight pieces fill the 12 by 12 frame and make the same flower — Illustration of the finished mosaic on both screens.

If it still says "Try again.":

The bottom edge is swapped. F, with its three prongs pointing up, goes on the left and H on the right.
A corner piece is turned the wrong way. G and D both take a quarter turn counterclockwise, and B and H a quarter turn clockwise. A and C aren't turned at all.
The white lines don't meet. Follow each petal across the seams. If one breaks off, the piece next to the break is in the wrong place or turned the wrong way.

Picarats, hints and hint coins

Flowery Footpath shows 40 picarats when it starts. Its three picarat values are all 40. If you quit, Doug says, "You're going to let those starving minds go without solving my puzzle?" When you come back to try again, he says, "How about this intellectual appetizer?"

Hints cost hint coins, not picarats. The costs are one coin each for the first three hints and two for the Super Hint, five in total. Old Towne has only three coins, so they don't cover all the hints even if they're still there. You'd need coins saved from elsewhere, or you can use the free hints on this page.

Does it unlock anything?

No. It doesn't unlock anything. You get the picarats, and the puzzle counts toward your total.

Versions

Nintendo 3DS family: this page covers the 3DS game. You move the pieces on the touch screen and see the old mosaic on the top screen.
US and UK English versions: the pieces and the answer are the same, and so is the name. In the UK version, the hints probably differ only in small details of spelling and punctuation.

The scene around the puzzle

When it's solved, Doug says, "You young people are so clever these days. So what are you sneaking around for?" Randall protests, "Sneaking? There's no sneaking! We're... strolling. Just strolling along." Doug isn't fooled: "Hah! Can't fool me, boy. You're going off exploring without your father's permission again, aren't you?" Randall admits, "Well, technically...yes. You won't tell him, will you, Doug? He'd just worry if he knew."

Talk to him again and he says, "I dunno... Seems rather irresponsible of me to let this young lady wander around with you two troublemakers." Randall replies, "Oh, it's all right. Hershel and I are looking out for Angela," and Doug answers, "That's what worries me."

FAQ

Where is the answer to Puzzle 059?

It's in the Answer and full solution section above, hidden until you open it. If you only want a push, open the hints one at a time first.

What is Puzzle 059 called?

Flowery Footpath, in both the North American and the UK version. The official Japanese title is タイルのナゾ.

Where is Puzzle 059?

In Old Towne in Stansbury, in Chapter 4. Talk to Doug on the grass right of center once your objective is "Sneak out of the House!".

Can I flip a piece over?

No. You can slide the pieces and turn them a quarter turn at a time, but you can't flip them.

I missed Puzzle 059. Can I still get it?

A missed copy probably goes to Nanna Grams at the start of Chapter 5.

How many picarats is Puzzle 059 worth?

It shows 40 picarats when it starts. Its three picarat values are all 40.

Is Daily Puzzle 059 the same as Puzzle 059?

No. Daily Puzzle 059 is Sailing 07, from the Perilous Voyage set. Story Puzzle 059 is the tile puzzle in Old Towne.

More Miracle Mask puzzles

For the rest of the game's puzzles, see the Miracle Mask puzzle index.