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nhansard · Decorated Joined: 07 Apr 2005 Posts: 159

**Posted:** Wed Jun 08, 2005 11:22 am

ShadowRuleZ · Boot Joined: 17 May 2005 Posts: 47

**Posted:** Wed Jun 08, 2005 11:39 am

Ehsan · Entrenched Joined: 09 May 2003 Posts: 992

**Posted:** Wed Jun 08, 2005 12:09 pm

helper · Boot Joined: 29 May 2005 Posts: 29

I agree with all of you. This puzzle is diabolical. This "ROT the plane" clue just adds more frustration. Finding all these words, especially repeated words, is maddening.

In other words, its a pretty good puzzle. Somebody obviously worked very hard, putting this one together.

On the other hand, if "The Nisha Chronicles" is going to have a hint book, I hope Virgil has somebody besides Emile write it. I haven't been able to find any way to make the word "infatuation" the way Emile described it either. I thought maybe that was a clue that we had something wrong - the sheets in the wrong order, or the data garbled, or a bug in the programs I'm using. But apparently not. I checked the order of the sheets, then printed the sheets and tried to find "infatuation" by hand. I couldn't find any ordering of the sheets that would yield both "almost" and "infatuation" the way he described it. Clearly, there is something we're missing.

And I agree that we're ignoring the explicit instructions in the cube. That's because they haven't helped us yet. Looking for words and phrases directly may not solve the puzzle, but I hoped it would at least "clear the brush" on the way to a solution. It might be a waste of time - I don't know. Wordsearch puzzles are hard for me personally - I don't process visual information very well (long story) - so I wrote some code to make it easier. I apologize to anyone who has been confused by the flood of random stuff.

Attached is the code to the programs I'm using. I did delete a lot of dead code from them, but not much else. They're pretty inelegant, and completely undocumented, but maybe they are short enough to figure out. They haven't much of a user interface. Almost everything is hard coded, so I tend to run them in the debugger, modifying the code to do what I want as I go. Incidently, I write much better code for work Smile

.

ps: If you run these, you'll find one more phrase than I listed last night: "king of code":

**Posted:** Wed Jun 08, 2005 12:35 pm

vector

Hey can someone direct me to the login for these sites? I Know its trout but I cant seem to find em. Thanks!

**Posted:** Wed Jun 08, 2005 12:40 pm

_________________
The bookworm is just the larval form of the barfly

GateKeeper · Decorated Joined: 22 Apr 2005 Posts: 156

**Posted:** Wed Jun 08, 2005 12:47 pm

johnny5

**Posted:** Wed Jun 08, 2005 12:51 pm

jlandgr

**Posted:** Wed Jun 08, 2005 12:53 pm

Ehsan · Entrenched Joined: 09 May 2003 Posts: 992

I'm doing the ROT layer thing.. here's what I've got so far choosing random layers.. I only went up to ROT 19 but the pattern is obvious.. so stop at ROT 10 for the rest..

Layer 0 - VANGOGH
Layer 1 - VERMEER
Layer 2 - ELGRECO
Layer 3 - COROT
Layer 4 - NIETZSCHE
Layer 5 - RABELAIS
Layer 6 - TORMENT
Layer 7 - HIDEKO
Layer 8 - CUBISM
Layer 9 - SOPHISM
Layer 10 - CHEAT
Layer 11 - ZORRO
Layer 12 - DEMISE
Layer 13 - GRIEF
Layer 14 - BURROW
Layer 15 - DEMON
Layer 16 - FORGER
Layer 17 - DEFRAUD
Layer 18 - ARTISTRY
Layer 19 - MUDDLE

Please note that I got lazy and only looked for half of the words in 2 ROTed layers.. looked back at all the ROT's of layer 4, it seems the word nietzsche only apears in 12 of them..

Edit: Thanks to J5 and Nivra for doing ROTs

ShadowRuleZ · Boot Joined: 17 May 2005 Posts: 47

**Posted:** Wed Jun 08, 2005 1:12 pm

johnny5

Here's the cube with ROTs per Emile's suggestion for anyone who wants to play with it.

The ROT value is changeable, just change the value next to "Rot"
Interesting words are also hilighted.

[edit] Just to let you know, The ROT routine is VBS, so it will warn for macro presence.

**Posted:** Thu Jun 09, 2005 11:49 am

Scott

awesome! thanks johnny5! Smile

Say, is it possible there is no absolute solve to this?

I mean it's a wicked cool puzzle thing. but what possible solution could there be? And how will we know it when we see it?

**Posted:** Thu Jun 09, 2005 1:43 pm

_________________
Perplex City is a game whose only rule is: There must be a party.
Balance of Powers is a game whose only rule is: There must be a political party.

GateKeeper · Decorated Joined: 22 Apr 2005 Posts: 156

Just got a big hint in response to a PM I sent emile;

**Posted:** Thu Jun 09, 2005 2:31 pm

toongoon

I haqve been of absolutely no help what-so-ever on this so far....

Is the "Error 202020" a hint to something ROTing 20 then 20 and 20 again?

GateKeeper · Decorated Joined: 22 Apr 2005 Posts: 156

**Posted:** Thu Jun 09, 2005 2:42 pm