PXC: Black Puzzle Cards-Responses

[Ivy Set] - #193 Three Thousand Words

Guest@forums.unfiction.com — Mon, 11 Aug 2008 21:16:24 +0000

[S2] [Cards Set] #196 Marble Loss

Guest@forums.unfiction.com — Mon, 26 May 2008 20:04:29 +0000

i got it in 7 moves.

i dont know how to make a highlight thing so ima make it small
e s w n e s w

so that was 7 moves any idea if i was right?

[S2] [Dice Set] #197 Murder at the Liars Club

volvox@forums.unfiction.com — Tue, 15 Jan 2008 22:47:18 +0000

Not that it really matters now, but I'll add this here for posterity...

I basically did a brute force approach by listing out all the possible combinations, then weeding out the ones that don't work. It's insane, took several days to work through the errors, and is horribly inefficient. But, solving it this way became personal after a few hours, so I was determined to make it work.

I created all possible combinations, then all possible combinations for each statement. You can then hilight that parts of the all possible combinations list that agree with the statements. You can then pick out a few rows that agree with most statements, and weed out the answer from there.

Anyways, here it is.

[S2] [Dice Set] #198 Colourblind

pineapplejelly@forums.unfiction.com — Tue, 27 Nov 2007 04:38:14 +0000

I started off by looking for letters.
Looked for C and got most of those, then realised that this process was probably going to take too long.

So I did it by working out the six grids.
It's a lot quicker than you think, especially after the first two girds when you know most of the characters.

Anyway, I'm going to post them here in case there are hidden messages in the other letters:

Grid 1:
xo (I've used this notation to mean that the top
oo left hand corner of the grid is where the
oo x is in the 6 top-left dots of the main grid)

http://i5.photobucket.com/albums/y158/pineapplejelly/Perplex%20City/S2198Grid1.jpg

(note the spoiler is to a link of a picture)

Grid 2:
ox
oo
oo

http://i5.photobucket.com/albums/y158/pineapplejelly/Perplex%20City/S2198Grid2.jpg

Grid 3:
oo
xo
oo

http://i5.photobucket.com/albums/y158/pineapplejelly/Perplex%20City/S2198Grid3.jpg

Grid 4:
oo
ox
oo

http://i5.photobucket.com/albums/y158/pineapplejelly/Perplex%20City/S2198Grid4.jpg

Grid 5:
oo
oo
xo

(Okay, can't find the piece of paper atm, will edit when I've tidied some of the mess off my desk.)

Grid 6:
oo
oo
ox

http://i5.photobucket.com/albums/y158/pineapplejelly/Perplex%20City/S2198Grid6.jpg

Please note there are mistakes in these, as I ended up with four missing colours, not two.

(Got it right on first guess anyway though :D )

Corrections are welcome and encouraged.

[S2] [OXO set] #203 Treason

aliendial@forums.unfiction.com — Sun, 25 Nov 2007 13:19:53 +0000

I'll spoiler in case you were trying to figure this out for yourself, but you've made an assumption that is incorrect.

Could a certain cypher system use 26 letters PLUS symbols for some common words?

[S2] [OXO set] #203 Treason

aliendial@forums.unfiction.com — Fri, 23 Nov 2007 01:19:45 +0000

I tried to do this by statistical analysis (letter frequency) but I found more than thirty different "letters"!

I guessed that // was . and ; was ; but I'm still left with lots more than 26 (>30) letters :(

Am I making wrong assumptions about punctuation? Or are there numbers in there that I'm not allowing for?

Even with allowing for letter variations all being one (there seem to be about three different | characters) I think it's still too many...

Can someone explain where I'm going wrong?

[S2] [Dice Set] #197 Murder at the Liars Club

volvox@forums.unfiction.com — Fri, 16 Nov 2007 17:00:44 +0000

Oh, and a method-hint:

You won't be able to easily determine who is/isn't members (and murderers) one at a time. It's easier to look at all possible combinations. You can get rid of some of them pretty fast.

[S2] [Dice Set] #197 Murder at the Liars Club

volvox@forums.unfiction.com — Fri, 16 Nov 2007 16:57:51 +0000

Been looking at this puzzle for about a week now and just ccant seem to find a foothold :oops: it looks as if working out the status of 1 will quickly yield a solution but hav'nt got that far yet. also seems as if archer, Davis, Flint and hart must be sorted first as they are the only ones who say anything blunt

any ideas?

edit: just after posting gave this a good look and have convinced myself

Hart is a member because if he isnt archer is the murderer and archer and davis' statements make a paradox. this also means that archer and davis must have different membership status

No, this logic is wrong because

well, Archer and Davis' statements do not make a paradox. I'm not sure which bit you thought was paradoxical. Remember one or the other or both or neither could be members.

The correct logic for that bit runs something more like this:

EITHER Hart is not a member (and Archer killed him) OR Hart is a member, and Hart, Archer and the murderer are the only three members.

In fact the "OR" bit of that logic would not be something you would assume as a detective - but we can assume it because if it wasn't true, we wouldn't be able to work out the murderer. And Mind Candy wouldn't do that to us :wink: ... right?
Basically

it's possible that there are four members (A, H, murderer, another person), but if there were, there wouldn't be sufficient data to tell which of the two members that weren't A or H was the murderer.

Got the card this morning - am so happy to have solved it already! It was very satisfying!

I will post a How To later in the week if people want/need it.

[S2] [Dice Set] #198 Colourblind

pineapplejelly@forums.unfiction.com — Thu, 19 Jul 2007 05:00:02 +0000

I found it easier to look for letters and find the colours from them. The ones I used were

V P L G R E W L

and that narrowed it down to unused spaces, given you'll probably miss the odd one. I found this much easier than looking for whole words.
Also, less of a giveaway if you want to look yourself,

All of the colours are hidden in the same directions as the two clues, which made looking a whole lot simpler than if back to front or diagonals had been used.[spoiler]

[S2] [OXO set] #203 Treason

aliendial@forums.unfiction.com — Tue, 29 May 2007 01:11:22 +0000

This card was great! One of the few blacks I've been able to solve all on my lonesome, so I feel terribly accomplished :P

It's also fun to read other peoples mail :twisted:

I found this site, though, to be a bit easier to reference than the one aliendial provided. It was just easier to read for me: http://www.simonsingh.net/The_Black_Chamber/maryqueen.html

[S2] [Cards Set] #196 Marble Loss

Guest@forums.unfiction.com — Sun, 13 May 2007 19:00:33 +0000

Thank you for the simulator it made it much easier :) I'd have been there for weeks keeping track of pencil lines.

[S2] [Cards set] #193 I'm so sorry

Phill4269@forums.unfiction.com — Sat, 12 May 2007 09:07:49 +0000

The decoded message is quite clear with no gibberish!

All of the command groups must have spaces between them. The last line needs to be 4 groups with a space between.

[S2] Dice Set - #199 The Name Game

DrKra37@forums.unfiction.com — Sun, 29 Apr 2007 22:30:21 +0000

Okay. How the hell have you guys come up with this? I'm a complete duffer at this sort of thing. Any pointers?

It's a pity that we don't have a scan for this card (and I'm not in any position to provide one at the moment either) because, as is often the case, the picture is itself a clue.

Think about what subject the students are being taught.

Or, if you still need a hint (a really big one that you shouldn't look at unless you're just about to ask someone to tell you the answer right out):

Once you know the subject, the answer is elementary...

[S2] [OXO Set] #201 Sound Dialogue

coffeegirl18@forums.unfiction.com — Mon, 16 Apr 2007 19:30:55 +0000

Yeah. Really. One google search. But an interesting bit of trivia in the answer

distant drums impasse sergeant rutledge harper explorers willow them harper kid green berets thirteen days scorched

I liked it but I agree it was too easy for a Black card.

[S2] [Dice Set] #198 Colourblind

pineapplejelly@forums.unfiction.com — Mon, 16 Apr 2007 18:31:42 +0000

Here's a Python script I wrote to solve this guy. I figured it would be easier on my eyes, and a much better way to start learning Python than Hello World.

Basically, the program loads in letters and their braille representations from a file, then loads in the card data from another file. It starts at one of six starting places and goes through the whole grid by row and column looking for braille patterns. The result is a series of six grids of letters from which you can easily find the color names by hand.

Probably not the greatest script ever, but I'm pretty happy with it since it is my first Python program :D

Main script (since I can't attach it):
import sys

#-----------------------------------------------------------

def printData (pData):
# Pretty printing functions

for rowIndex in range(0, len(pData)):
for colIndex in range(0, len(pData[0])):
sys.stdout.write(pData[rowIndex][colIndex])
print

return 0

def GenerateLetters(pStartX, pStartY):
# Generate a letter grid from a particular start location

aOutput = [ ]
for rowIndex in range(pStartX, len(aData), 3):

if (rowIndex+1 < len(aData)-1 and rowIndex+2 < len(aData)):
aOutputRow = [ ]

for colIndex in range (pStartY, len(aData[0]), 2):

if (colIndex+1 < len(aData[0])):
strKey = ""
strKey += aData[rowIndex][colIndex]
strKey += aData[rowIndex][colIndex+1]
strKey += aData[rowIndex+1][colIndex]
strKey += aData[rowIndex+1][colIndex+1]
strKey += aData[rowIndex+2][colIndex]
strKey += aData[rowIndex+2][colIndex+1]

try:
aOutputRow.append("%s" % (dictBraille[strKey]))
except KeyError:
aOutputRow.append(".")

aOutput.append(aOutputRow)

print "Start location (%s,%s):" % (pStartX,pStartY)
print
printData(aOutput)
print "-"*30
print

return 0

#-----------------------------------------------------------
# Main program
#-----------------------------------------------------------
fileBraille = open('braile.txt','r')
dictBraille = { }

for curFileRow in fileBraille.readlines( ):
curFileRow = curFileRow.replace('\n','')
curFileRowSplit = curFileRow.split(',')

dictBraille[curFileRowSplit[1]] = curFileRowSplit[0]

# Open the file of braille letters and read into an array
fileData = open('data.txt','r')
aData = [ ]

for curFileRow in fileData.readlines( ):
curFileRow = curFileRow.replace('\n','')

aDataRow = [ ]
for curChar in curFileRow:
curChar = curChar.replace('.','*')
curChar = curChar.replace(' ','.')
aDataRow.append(curChar)

aData.append(aDataRow)

# Find letters
GenerateLetters(0,0)
GenerateLetters(0,1)
GenerateLetters(1,0)
GenerateLetters(1,1)
GenerateLetters(2,0)
GenerateLetters(2,1)