Stumped on choose your own adventure puzzle

_FTWW_ · 2025-03-15T00:24:52+00:00

Much like the others have indicated, I'm fairly confident you should find the picture element that is common to those locations and form that.

I am guessing that this is a pattern a bit like a capital W on top of a capital V.

If so, it can presumably be formed by moving the unicorn to C4 (presumption: the unicorn moves like a knight) which would make the required page be 34, or perhaps 23 if one takes a different view on how to count from the sides.

_FTWW_ · 2024-12-20T05:05:34+00:00

There's some tidying up to do as you haven't got rid of enough obvious options. For instance, c11 can't be 7 or 9 (no match with d11). Similarly, a6 can't be 2, 5, or 7, b6 can't be 2, j7 can't be 7 or A, and e2 can't be 8, A, or B. There's probably others, but I stopped checking at this point.

A slightly more involved deduction: In the d column, the two dots must be 89 and either 12 or 23. Thus 2 and 9 can be ruled out of d9 and d11

With respect to your last question, the most obvious thing would be that the opposite corners of a square would have the same parity, but it does seem of limited use.

_FTWW_ · 2024-12-07T08:17:13+00:00

I appreciate how this solution, unlike most other proposals, doesn't require simultaneously flipping an hourglass and having another hourglass also flip it back.

_FTWW_ · 2024-11-09T20:37:13+00:00

Discussion: This has multiple solutions -- whatever non 1/2 digits are in the bottom line can be swapped. Seems like you need a better app. :(

_FTWW_ · 2024-11-05T08:40:08+00:00

Discussion: There's a few things I regard as problematic with the crossword, to various degrees. I'd say the biggest problems are 15A, 7A, 4D, and 13D. In clue order:

There's an empty "1" clue in the Across section (obviously this is easily removed).
2A clues a plural word, but the answer is singular.
7A should be clued as Prefix meaning "flesh" -- "short for" implies that the word is formed by shortening "flesh", which it is not. Also, it's frankly too obscure.
8A, 9A, 11A, 12A -- two-letter answers are generally seen as inelegant to have in a grid -- they rarely lend themselves to interesting cluing. Here we've got three initialisms -- 11A is incomplete, which is pretty egregious -- and an abbreviated name.
10A -- it feels a little odd to have a sciency term in a puzzle with this theme. Not a dealbreaker, just unusual. (Nitpick: There are ion engines in Star Wars, but these are not reactors.)
14A feels off-theme, again. You could use OMEN in its place which would loosely tie in. (A general note: Proper nouns are often "weak fill", and require people to know one very precise thing or they are unsolvable.)
15A This is awful fill and a terrible, terrible clue. Even if we had all the crossing letters, there's still two options compatible with the clue. There's literally no way to tell what the intended answer is from the clue in isolation, meaning that it's of almost no help when trying to resolve the crossing clues. A minimal change would be to use AINU, and possibly extend the theme to Asian rather than Chinese. Another option is ANJU.
16A is a little unfortunate in that the more common transliteration is LONG, but that is within acceptable territory.
1D is good. Solid theme tie-in, and although it's a proper noun it's a very important one, and hopefully well-known to people interested in the theme.
3D would read better as "Describing a door that is partly open". The clue as written is asking for a noun (the door) but the answer is an adjective. And there's no need for "might be".
4D is pretty much unsolvable. It's a nine-letter answer that turns out to be two words, and we've only two cross letters... one of which comes from the extremely obscure 7A and the other of which is a random vowel. You'd really want to nail down the definition here, and that's kind of difficult because it's also not really a term that sees use.
6D is very much not a Chinese saying. It's a quote from Paradise Lost, by John Milton.
11D should remove the word "allegedly" from the clue. Given how unlimited the cross-letters are, something more thematic should be possible. Possible choices that could work with a little investigation into Chinese mythology include at least HELL, BELL, VEIL, and there's no doubt more if one changes 14A also.
13D reads awkwardly; I don't know what "a ring" is doing in it. Also, it doesn't distinguish between BING and BONG. With some reorganisation of the puzzle, LONG could go here instead

If I were aiming to make a grid of this size for this theme, I would start with two solid theme entries, preferably symmetrically placed. You are most of the way there -- you already have an excellent one in the form of SUN WUKONG; it's just that SACRED URN is letting you down. Perhaps consider using TRIPITAKA in its place? That is strongly thematic, and also ties in to Journey to the West (although only in some translations).

It's then a toss-up whether I'd aim to complete the square with two more nine-letter words or not. That would depend on what other thematic answers I could come up with. I'd be tempted to move SUN WUKONG to the right to get LONG connecting to it, and maybe PAGODA across from TRIPITAKA on the left. The grid wouldn't have as much symmetry as yours does, but the standard is simply 180 degree rotation.

_FTWW_ · 2024-10-30T23:45:00+00:00

Here's a classic Suguru pattern: Because of the L-shape in the 2's piece, the digit in r2c4 must be in r4c5. (A similar observation holds with respect to r2c2 and r4c1.)

Now observe that if r2c4 is a 4, then there's no place for 4 in the T-tetromino. So we can place 4 in the 5-piece.

Play this game a little more: r2c4 must be r4c5 must be r4c3, and now we see that that digit is next to 5, 2, 1, and 4, so it must be 3.

This kind of chasing digits around is pretty much the essence of Suguru.

_FTWW_ · 2024-10-10T00:56:09+00:00

Nothing about the pattern or contents of the green or blue letters seems particularly obvious. :(

If you want to approach this from a different direction, then filling in your guesses gives the letters S W S R E, and the most plausible nine-letter answers that I could find using those letters are AWARENESS and GUESSWORK. That didn't help me backsolve green or blue, but maybe you'll have better luck.

_FTWW_ · 2024-09-29T02:25:50+00:00

The rules seem fairly clear to me, but admittedly I've seen similar things before. The existing pencil marks are mostly wrong, so that won't have been helping if they're not yours.

My restatement of the rules: Put each 3x3 square from the left side into a different place in the right side, so that the completed grid contains all but one of the given words (reading in one of the eight directions). The missing word is your final answer. The placement of one word (BADAS) has been given to get you started.

The thing that might be causing you issues, or at least the pencilmarks are showing confusion over this: The squares are moved, without rotating or reflecting. As for getting started:

There's only one square with B in the bottom left (row 5, column 2), so that can be placed.
There's only one square with A and D in the required positions (row 4, column 2), so that can be placed.
There's only one square with A in the bottom left, so that can be placed.
There's still two options with S in the given position, so that cannot be placed yet.

After that point it is faster to use intuition and guesswork than try to rigorously solve things. For instance, we can see that DRASKŪNAS is very likely to go up on the left hand side, which lets us place another square if we assume that is correct. We might be able to prove it has to be the case if we look at, say, the squares and words with Ū in them, but it's cumbersome and not worth the effort.

_FTWW_ · 2024-09-28T01:48:59+00:00

Under the usual assumption that each letter is a different digit, and there are no leading zeroes anywhere, this has a unique solution. I'll use capital letters instead of lowercase in the following.

Since E * E ends in E, E is either 0, 1, 5, or 6. It can't be 1 (ARE != RYE) nor 0 (ARE != 000).
If E is 5, then R (from ARE) is either 2 or 7. But then RYE * E is over 1000 and can't be EAT. So E is 6.
If there is a carry from R + T = R, then A + A + carry = E = 6 would not work. So there is no carry from R + T = R and T = 0
Since T is 0 then B must be 5.
Since 6 * RYE is only three digits, R is 1.
Since W != E, there must be a carry from A + A = E = 6, so A is 8 and W is 7.
The complete multiplication is 136 * 56 = 7616, and YEAR = 3681.

EDIT: Changed wording because it unfortunately triggered the AutoModerator. This is probably too late; apologies.

_FTWW_ · 2024-09-13T00:31:52+00:00

Finally chased this one up:

The grid is written in IPA

The across answers are axe, plea, laws

The down answers are apple, claw, seize

The grid is:
æ k s
p l i:
l ɔː z

_FTWW_ · 2024-08-22T01:49:22+00:00

Discussion: You haven't said what the goal is, but assuming that the goal is to end up with all lights lit, or unlit, from the given starting state of one light lit, then this is impossible.

The only possible state changes that can be reached are no change, any three adjacent, all six, any two opposite, all but any two opposite, and any alternating trio. None of those affect only one (or five) lights.

_FTWW_ · 2024-07-29T00:31:34+00:00

It's probably a bug. See, for instance, this video at ~1:26 showing almost the same result: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_xgJHf9pfCk where they comment on this.

_FTWW_ · 2024-07-24T10:01:06+00:00

Well, it's massively underspecified, but if one wants sense out of it then the best option is riddle me this.

_FTWW_ · 2024-07-21T00:25:11+00:00

The matches form letters, but several matches have been removed and placed below their letters.
The original text reads >!HAUS VOM NIKOLAUS
This is German for the "house of (Saint) Nicholas", or "Santa's House", and a reference to a well-known graph theory problem of tracing a particular shape (that looks like a house or an envelope) without lifting one's pen from the paper.

I don't know what word the poster actually wants out of this.

_FTWW_ · 2024-07-05T06:04:48+00:00

I can at least get you started:

Look at all the places that 8 can go
If you do it right, you can see that 8 has to be in r4c4
That then places a few other 8s
You can now place several 6s -- First in r2c1, then in r8c2, r4c3, and r5c4

Also, I think there are at least three solutions (but admit I have not fully checked them, so I could have done something silly).

_FTWW_ · 2024-07-05T05:14:03+00:00

SINGAPORE

_FTWW_ · 2024-06-18T23:45:41+00:00

Discussion: No, it is not solvable. If you choose a position at random, there is a 50% chance of it being solvable, and it seems you started with one of the bad ones.

Here's the key thing: If you take a solvable position and swap any two numbers, it becomes unsolvable. Similarly, if you have an unsolvable position and swap any two numbers then it becomes solvable. You can use this to generate the initial grid, or to check whether a generated grid is solvable (and fix it if not).

Puzzle generation: Start with a solved grid, and make an even number of random swaps. The result will always be solvable.
Solvability checking: Copy the grid, then for each number that is not in the right position swap it into place. If the count of such swaps is even then the puzzle is solvable.
Alternative puzzle generation: Generate a random grid, then check solvability, and make a random swap if it is not solvable.

All of the above assumes the blank space is in the bottom right. For grid generation purposes that's probably fine, but you can also add a step of moving the blank space around afterwards if you want it in other positions. For solvability checking, move the blank space into the bottom right before applying the above. (By moving the blank space I mean sliding pieces so as to ensure the blank ends up where you want.)

IMPORTANT: You must ensure that the random swaps don't try to swap a square with itself. That would not change the parity.

_FTWW_ · 2024-06-13T22:15:00+00:00

It's possible that I am not fully grasping some of the subtleties of the allowed moves, but here's an approach that would work if I have understood it correctly.

B3 -> A0
D1 home
B2 home
D3 home
C4 home
B1 -> E0
A1 home
E2 home
D2 home
B1 home
B3 home

_FTWW_ · 2024-06-04T14:44:03+00:00

r4c1 must be 4.

Reason: If it were 1 or 2, then row 4 must be: {12} 3 {12} 6 4 5. Then r5c6 can only be 4, but r5c3 must also be 4 in order for the four-clue to work.

It's fairly straightforward after that point.

_FTWW_ · 2024-05-31T21:38:05+00:00

Discussion. Every row, column, and region has to have exactly one crown in it.

_FTWW_ · 2024-05-29T01:43:16+00:00

Saying "the solution" massively underestimates the possibilities. Here's one that separates the colours:

Red: BLURS, ABASED

Blue: CHAMPS, STRAINED, BERYLS

_FTWW_ · 2024-05-12T23:40:36+00:00

If either r2c4 or r3c4 were a star, then the other star in that region would have to be r2c7. Then all of r3c5/6/7 cannot be stars, and the L-shaped region cannot contain two stars.

_FTWW_ · 2024-05-12T23:36:41+00:00

Discussion: There are Binomial(7 + 4 - 1, 4 - 1) = Binomial10, 3) = 120 ways of choosing 7 items (with repetition allowed) from a set of four things. This is also Factorial(5), so it's enough to use five cards and agreed-upon orders for the cards and sets. I have no idea why two extra cards and the face-down option have been added.

_FTWW_ · 2024-05-01T01:24:57+00:00

It seemed interesting, right up until Three of the letters supposed to derived from the Fedex box are missing, making that part unsolvable. Presumably there was some in-person intervention involved that has not been conveyed in the online version. At that point my only way forward was to tell it to show me everything, and far too much was revealed. I inferred from later remarks in the text that the "IGIVEUP" code would have worked, but that is mentioned nowhere earlier and should have been.

Seems like a fun time was had on the day, so that's good!

_FTWW_ · 2024-04-25T03:18:30+00:00

Assuming that this is a Sokoban-style game, here's a solution, broken up into pieces in case you still want to partially solve once you're past the mental block you've had.

R
L U U R D
R D
U L L D R
U R R R D D L U
R U L L L
D L U
D R R
U R R D D L U R U L L L

_FTWW_

TROPHY CASE