by Dan Katz, Mike Selinker, and Meta Group A, animal illustrations by Francis Heaney
Answer: FIRE ANTEATER CAGE

The Astro Jail turns out to be a loose translation for "zoo." Solvers move between rooms on the map: the outer rooms are empty, while the lettered rooms each contain an animal. Each animal room has an animal and an associated puzzle (the animals and puzzle answers are given below). Solvers start with access to Rooms (f), (g), (j), and (k). Solving a puzzle gives the solver access to all orthogonally adjacent rooms to that puzzle. So for example, Room (g) contains the Copperhead's Sandcow. Solving the puzzle in this room (which has the answer DIE) opens Rooms (c) and (h). If you then solved (c) it would open (b), (d), and an empty room. (Note that empty rooms never give access to adjacent empty rooms.)

Here are the animals in the sixteen puzzle rooms and their puzzle answers:

• a - Blentonic Rock Stork - EVOLVE
• b - Uddersome Newt-Horse - VERSE
• c - Green-Eyed Med-Croc - NAGIN
• d - Iota Dwarf Lion - TERN
• e - Midston Alienfish - CHAI
• f - Baying Avitalic Terror - AMPERE
• g - Copperhead's Sandcow - DIE
• h - Cementbeat Walrus - ELLIS
• i - Leonine Centaur - GOUT
• j - Vinga Shore Leopard - CHO
• k - Fenmate's Peccary - ARCHES
• l - Tunabird of Moonclan - TAR
• m - Scrawny Cider-Hippo - POLLY-O
• n - Creche Koalabird - EGON
• o - Brutish Foo-Eagle - ROW
• p - Wolipi Tree Hamster - DIO

Each of the sixteen cards that come with the boardgame has some flavortext with a single word in boldface:

• AIRLOCK BREACHED!: leave
• ALIEN ENCOUNTER!: beast
• BIOFUEL SHORTAGE!: university
• BROKEN CONTROL STICK!: piece
• CODE RED EMERGENCY!: immortal
• DIMENSIONAL SHIFT!: cheers
• ENEMY SPACECRAFT!: noblewoman
• ESCAPE POD CRASHDOWN!: farewell
• GRAVITY RECALIBRATION!: masseuse
• HOSTILE TIME WARPER!: fool
• ONBOARD MALFUNCTION!: console
• OVERLOADING PHASER!: Angel
• PSYCHIC POWER DRAIN!: fluid
• RADIATION FLOW!: bones
• SUDDEN METEOR SHOWER!: run
• UNSTABLE CREWMATE!: musician

Adding a letter at the beginning and a letter at the end of each puzzle answer forms a word clued on the Escape from Zyzzlvaria card which anagrams to the animal associated with the puzzle. If you read the added beginning letters from left to right, you get four-letter strings which form animals if you (again) add a letter at the beginning and at the end. The same process works on the added end letters, reading down each column.

	E	F	I	R
G	R(EVOLVE)R (piece)	O(VERSE)E (run)	U(NAGIN)G (immortal)	S(TERN)A (bones)	E
A	L(CHAI)M (cheers)	P(AMPERE)R (masseuse)	A(DIE)U (farewell)	C(ELLIS)T (musician)	A
C	A(GOUT)I (beast)	I(CHO)R (fluid)	M(ARCHES)A (noblewoman)	A(TAR)I (console)	N
R	A(POLLYO)N (Angel)	B(EGON)E (leave)	B(ROW)N (university)	I(DIO)T (fool)	T
	E	T	A	E

The across animals are the GROUSE, ALPACA, CAIMAN, and RABBIT. The down animals are the ERMINE, FERRET, IGUANA, and RATITE. Reading around the added outside letters spells Ralph's location, the FIRE ANTEATER CAGE.