The story behind the riddle of Jenafur in World of Warcraft is bigger than you think. Because it is based on the wish of a girl suffering from cancer.
The riddle surrounding the cat Jenafur has driven players of World of Warcraft to near despair. For almost a year, attempts were made to find the solution to the riddle and obtain the Battle Pet. Just before the release of the new expansion Shadowlands, they finally managed to crack the riddle. But the story behind it is bigger than initially assumed. Because behind Jenafur and the piece of music “Amara’s Wish” is a girl with a serious illness.
What is it about? The colleagues from PCGamesN conducted an interview with Amara Strande. She is now an 18-year-old young woman who was diagnosed with a rare form of liver cancer three years ago. The survival rate with this form of cancer after 5 years is only about 10%. Following this, the “Make-a-Wish Foundation” reached out to fulfill the heart’s desire of children with serious illnesses. Strande knew immediately what she wanted: to visit Blizzard Entertainment and create a piece of music for the game together with the composers there – after all, she loves composing and World of Warcraft.
How the riddle came about: Jeremy Feasel, who is responsible for many of the puzzles in World of Warcraft, collaborated with Strande to ultimately create the riddle.
Jeremy and I spent two hours intensely thinking about how we could incorporate my song not just as a reward, but also as part of the puzzle. I chose the location “Return to Karazhan” because of the musical elements and because I simply love [the dungeon]. When Jeremy mentioned that he was thinking about having a battle pet as a reward, I was initially hesitant because I don’t play Pet Battles. But then I thought: I can immortalize my cat! So Jenafur was my idea. She is based on my real cat, Jenny.
The most difficult puzzle of all: Although the solution actually consists of only 3 steps, it was the longest unsolved riddle so far. This was mainly due to the last step, which was quite complex. Various items had to be looted in Karazhan and then placed in the correct order and perfect arrangement on floor plates.
There was virtually no way to solve the riddle through “brute force”, that is, through the blunt testing of all combinations – there were simply too many. The limited duration of looted items in the inventory made this even more complicated.
The short piece of music “Amara’s Wish” is not only played when solving the riddle. A smaller excerpt of it can also be heard when the player summons Jenafur as a pet.
The puzzle creator laughs heartily at attempts to solve her riddle
This is how the woman experienced the riddle: Strande has been thoroughly amused over the past year by the players who failed at the riddle. She said:
To be honest, it was wonderful to see the community struggling with Jenafur. My family and I often gathered in the living room and read the best posts, comments, theories, and memes out loud and then we just laughed our heads off. Every time people like Asmongold or Taliesin and Evitel [famous WoW streamers] talked about it live or in a video, I had to watch with excitement. When people created fan art, I was brought to tears.
Currently, Strande is doing quite well. According to her, she feels “healthy, strong, and full of energy”. And even though she is chronically ill and there is no cure for cancer, she wants to “leave that behind”. For her, it feels as if the solution of the riddle surrounding Jenafur has also “ended a chapter of her life and a new one has begun.”
Are you interested in more puzzles in WoW? We have presented the 10 hardest ones here.
