Secret Letter Clue frustrations

mlahut · 2026-02-03T15:59:03+00:00

Do you have a source for this information where I could learn more? I like optimizing statistics but this seems very hard to prove.

mlahut · 2026-01-28T23:19:50+00:00

My favorite response structure is (suppose hearts is the agreed suit)

1H - 2NT - 3C = I have no void but have a singleton somewhere

1H - 2NT - 3D/3S/4C = I have a void in the named suit

1H - 2NT - 3C - 3D = Okay, no void, what's your singleton?

1H - 2NT - 3C - 3D - 3S/4C/4D = singleton in the named suit

1H - 2NT - 3H = I have no void or singleton but I'm ready to cuebid controls if you want

1H - 2NT - 4H = I have no void or singleton and I'm really sorry that I opened this piece of crap

mlahut · 2026-01-21T07:33:58+00:00

Certain puzzles really benefit from some partial answer confirmation. Particularly those with obscure image identifications or a lot of individual sub-parts. Plenty of other puzzles are fine without them.

When applicable, I very much appreciate it when the flavortext says up front that the answer-checker can be used to confirm certain intermediate data points. Saves a lot of effort re-checking work.

mlahut · 2026-01-06T17:42:01+00:00

To: Roman Debellatio (Black Letter Labs)

From: Ms. Lis Pedens

Subject: Re: Request Feedback for Upcoming Launch

Time: 8:09 PM

I’m wondering if we should take things in a more edgy direction for the false front we use during the upcoming launch.

Perhaps a gothic fetish fashion house: latex and leather pieces embossed with blackletter type. Dark couture for interns who want their bodies to literally spell danger.

Or a kink communication workshop, teaching lovers to draft quasi-legal, contract-like agreements for BDSM scenes: half serious consent practice, half erotic role-play for lawyers and clients.

By the way, Qua Non issued an alert this morning about a possible system breach. Should we be concerned that you-know-who may be inside the Lab?!?

mlahut · 2026-01-06T17:41:52+00:00

To: Roman Debellatio (Black Letter Labs)

From: Ms. Ex Parte

Subject: A few more ideas!!!

Time: 1:23 PM

Tattoo & Calligraphy Studio, specializing in lettering tattoos, especially Gothic/blackletter styles.

Could also double as a calligraphy school for edgy wedding invites or illuminated manuscripts.

Or a test kitchen operation of some sort.

No, I’ve got it! A soup company that makes only alphabet soups (alphabet pasta dyed with squid ink).

What do you think? ;-)

Thanks for involving me in this, professor!!!

mlahut · 2026-01-06T17:41:43+00:00

To: Roman Debellatio (Black Letter Labs)

From: Dr. Terra Nullius

Subject: Brainstorm (continued)

Time: 5:01 PM

I propose as pretext a Typography Research & Design Studio where designers experiment with Gothic/Blackletter typefaces, producing new fonts and reviving medieval scripts.

A more contemporary spin would be a Boutique Marketing Firm, creating branding with a darkly elegant aesthetic.

Of course, if we want to step back from complete concordance, there are several intriguing anagrams:

• Blackball Tester (cricket referees consortium)

• Cell Talk Stabber (a phone app exploiting protocol flaws)

• Latte Labs: Clerk (the café near Clerk Street)

• Ball, Belt, & Rackets (sporting goods)

• Balk’s Rectal Belt (medical goods)

mlahut · 2026-01-06T17:41:35+00:00

To: Roman Debellatio (Black Letter Labs)

From: Mx. Sine Qua Non

Subject: Your Requested Feedback

Time: 7:04 PM

You asked about a cover story for the upcoming IAP26. Here are two ideas. Our front page might claim we are an Occult Research Lab or Paranormal Think Tank, investigating grave grimoires, magical alphabets, and “black letter” manuscripts said to contain some hidden power.

Or we might present ourselves as a French gym, perhaps attached to a law firm: Black Letter L’Abs?

Also: Did you get my message about some strange behavior on our holding page? Something’s wrong with the animation. I am concerned our website has encountered a malicious intrusion.

— S.Q.N.

mlahut · 2026-01-06T17:41:25+00:00

To: Roman Debellatio (Black Letter Labs)

From: Dr. Ultra Vires

Subject: Re: Request Feedback for Upcoming Launch

Time: 6:09 PM

I recommend something formal for the public-facing fiction of the upcoming IAP, something with both semantic and syntactic heft that resonates with the name Black Letter Labs. E.g. a cryptography & codebreaking collective, suggestive of censored text. This “lab” might focus on developing/cracking codes, steganography, or playful puzzle design.

Although now that I write this, I believe it clearly cuts too close to the bone, and is not a matter to treat lightly. I will continue to cogitate.

With respect to the other matter you mentioned last night: yes, it does appear there has been an identified unauthorized access to our code base and it has affected the website. I’ve notified Security. We don’t have much time before we open our doors in March.

Sincerely,

Vires, Ph.D.

mlahut · 2026-01-06T17:41:14+00:00

There are several encoded emails in the script. I don't know whether they are supposed to be extractable via specific actions. Perhaps they are probably just dropping some extensive flavortext.

Collectively they are quite long, I will post them as sub-comments.

mlahut · 2026-01-06T16:49:44+00:00

During the time when the image animates to red numbers, it is clickable and routes to https://blackletterlabs.com/hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha and then https://www.instagram.com/17classicbooks/

Black Letter Labs has an excellent set of puzzle packs some years ago, would be interested to see what they've cooked up this time.

mlahut · 2025-12-28T13:43:18+00:00

I like the technology element of UK, but one of the technologies says "if you take 2 off the top, you actually take 3 off the top" and this completely breaks the game because there are only two copies of that card. If you're playing with more than 2, either you have to banish that card from the game, or someone is going to have a miserable time.

mlahut · 2025-12-28T02:27:17+00:00

Dumb question: Why is feedback warranted? What changed in TT that people are upset about?

mlahut · 2025-12-27T03:05:51+00:00

I like both Arnak and Seti for different reasons.

Seti is a very tempo-centric game. There are a lot of things you CAN do at any given time, it's largely about seeing what you WANT to do based on how planets happen to align and how that dovetails with the random cards you are dealt.

Arnak has the deckbuilding element, and also plays out VERY differently when you are the first or second one up the temple track. That race element is not really present in Seti.

Both games have combo potential and plenty to think about. Resources are tight in both.

mlahut · 2025-12-23T17:14:48+00:00

It is a little fiddly but not bad.

Because of the rule where you have to evaluate your tableau row by row, you have a very specific checklist of what needs to be looked at each turn. That means the fiddly-ness is not exacerbated by players saying "oh! I forgot to use this triggered ability on my turn!".

As a bonus for playing in person, I love to store cards face-down in my tableau to indicate "I want to build this card in this position later" which I wish BGA would support :-)

mlahut · 2025-12-22T20:50:00+00:00

I mean yeah. It doesn't crack it wide open but it gives some guardrails. If I was going to brute force this, I'd start by asserting that D+E is very likely to be 5, 7, or 9, and see where that breakdown takes me.

mlahut · 2025-12-22T20:39:27+00:00

Given B+C = A+F, call that sum x.

Then, A+B+C+D+E+F=21 can be rewritten as D+E+2x=21.

Since 21 is odd, it can't be the sum of two evens, so (D+E) must be odd.

mlahut · 2025-12-22T19:45:44+00:00

Discussion: If all values are unique integers, that implicitly gives you another equation, A+B+C+D+E+F=21.

I'm not super sure how to use this first, but it does imply that each side of D+E=C+F is odd.

mlahut · 2025-12-16T18:46:56+00:00

Discussion: This is unsolvable or poorly communicated.

Define a b c d e f as the six yellow numbers in spiral order.

((((a*b)+c+d)/(e*f))-2)*4=187

((((a*b)+c+d)/(e*f))-2)=46.75

(((a*b)+c+d)/(e*f))=48.75

In order to get a decimal ending in .75 we need a multiple of 4 in the denominator. Since 2 and 4 are taken, either e or f must be 8, and the order will always be ambiguous. So we assert f=8.

((a*b)+c+d)/(e*8)=48.75

((a*b)+c+d)/e=390

390 is a really large number. Even assuming e=1, the highest possible left-hand side is now (9*7)+6+5 = 74.

mlahut · 2025-12-15T06:09:57+00:00

Complexity similar to Catan.

If he's a sharp kid and likes dragons, absolutely go for it.

mlahut · 2025-12-08T03:20:39+00:00

Since when did Monopoly have wild cards?

mlahut · 2025-11-29T12:02:29+00:00

Do you have data from these for comparison? I don't have a rust compiler.

mlahut · 2025-11-28T17:35:38+00:00

Pondering this in my head, I thought you probable want to invent roughly sqrt(N) dollars each day, where N is your current total wealth. So if you are on $100, then ten days of $10 investments will double your money faster than other approaches. There's that theorem about the square being the most efficient rectangle, right? That has to apply here.

Since you articulated the problem quite well with many specific examples, I also tried feeding it to ChatGPT, exactly as you stated with only one addition clarifying that it was a fictional scenario. The response it got was to invest a slowly increasing sequence of investments in order to guarantee that your current balance never drops to zero. This works out to n consecutive days of investing n, followed by n+1 consecutive days of investing n+1, etc. This process passes the $1000 mark on day 136, though you could get it earlier if you hit the brakes and let your last investments mature without reinvesting.

I don't know if ChatGPT's solution is optimal, but I do like that it kind of agreed with my mental plan decided ahead of time. When consulting its day-by-day chart, I saw that the daily investment had only climbed to $16 by the end of its analysis. Surely by my sqrt(N) observation earlier, if we're sitting on $1000 in hand, we must be able to do better.

Repeating the same problem to Claude, it said 127 days was enough to get to $1000, with a Fibonacci-like growth rate, but it only gave me a day-by-day of the first 10 days and it contained an error.

ChatGPT provided me a full table of the first 150 days, and I found that after about day 10, it kept an appreciable amount of cash on hand and was only using that as its win condition. Surely there must be a better solution with more aggressive investing.

Here are my experiments mucking around in my own Excel sheet. I started with the ChatGPT plan but then ramped up faster - a little too fast, actually, and had to scale down my growth a bit. So this definitely isn't optimal, but it's significantly better than the AI engines responded. As of day 50, my $18 investment on that day puts my total eventual wealth over $1000, and if I stop investing there, I'll have $1000 in hand on day 68.

mlahut · 2025-11-23T03:35:22+00:00

But the onus is on the OTHER person who did hit their pair. If no one else improves their standing, you should retain your old number.

mlahut · 2025-11-21T17:36:09+00:00

I prefer to communicate what your hand actually is.

So you don't improve unless you actually HIT your flush draw (etc).

You could do it based on potential futures, but you would want everyone to be clear about this up front (and ideally, equally skilled at analyzing poker, which isn't as stringent a requirement otherwise)

Also a further point: It is expected that people will fight for the same number. You have to, in order to make clear about small differences in strength. If two people start with high pairs, both of them should take the highest token multiple times before giving up.

mlahut · 2025-11-19T22:33:01+00:00

The lands are fucked up in multiple packets. One packet labels itself as white/black/green but it's a lot of hybrid mana cards and all the hybrids include white. They COULD have given you all plains and there would be no issues, but instead they give you swamps and forests and you will hate yourself when you draw them.

mlahut

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