Return to Unfiction unforum
 a.r.g.b.b 
FAQ FAQ   Search Search 
 
Welcome!
New users, PLEASE read these forum guidelines. New posters, SEARCH before posting and read these rules before posting your killer new campaign. New players may also wish to peruse the ARG Player Tutorial.

All users must abide by the Terms of Service.
Website Restoration Project
This archiving project is a collaboration between Unfiction and Sean Stacey (SpaceBass), Brian Enigma (BrianEnigma), and Laura E. Hall (lehall) with
the Center for Immersive Arts.
Announcements
This is a static snapshot of the
Unfiction forums, as of
July 23, 2017.
This site is intended as an archive to chronicle the history of Alternate Reality Games.
  

The time now is Tue Nov 12, 2024 5:40 pm
All times are UTC - 4 (DST in action)		 View posts in this forum since last visit
View unanswered posts in this forum
Calendar
 Forum index » Diversions » Perplex City Puzzle Cards » PXC Puzzle Cards - Questions, Meta and Sub-puzzles
[PUZZLE] Playing Card Suits on Cards
Moderators: AnthraX101, bagsbee, BrianEnigma, cassandra, Giskard, lhall, Mikeyj, myf, poozle, RobMagus, xnbomb
View previous topicView next topic
Page 6 of 6 [85 Posts]   Goto page: Previous 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6
Author Message
aliendial
Unfictologist


Joined: 29 Sep 2002
Posts: 3438
Location: Far Far Away. Nowhere Near You. Really.

 		Hmm. Been giving away my dupes and mostly kept my wave 0.5 versions, which means I'm probably missing the suited cards that were misprinted initially. Grrr.
_________________
aliendial

PostPosted: Sat Jul 29, 2006 8:54 am
 View user's profile
 Back to top 
Purdy
Boot


Joined: 29 Jul 2006
Posts: 17
Location: London UK

 		God this is all so hard...

I look at the (available) letters (seemingly) spelling out: "I stole the cube help me (combec?) thunderclap..."

and reading that you wouldn't guess this is my first day playing the game would you?

LOL!!

as a newbie I have to say my initial impression is that this is gonna be LOADS of fun/the death of me

Hello All!

PostPosted: Sat Jul 29, 2006 5:23 pm
 View user's profile
 Back to top 
aliendial
Unfictologist


Joined: 29 Sep 2002
Posts: 3438
Location: Far Far Away. Nowhere Near You. Really.

 		Yeah "combed thunderclap" not solved.
_________________
aliendial

PostPosted: Sat Jul 29, 2006 11:57 pm
 View user's profile
 Back to top 
arieh
Boot


Joined: 13 Apr 2005
Posts: 35

 		Some Wave 4 Playing Card symbols:
#029 - 7 of Diamonds
#031 - 7 of Spades
#061 - 5 of clubs
#127 - 5 of hearts
#191 - 3 of spades
#223 - JOKER (in Black).

PostPosted: Tue Aug 01, 2006 5:07 pm
 View user's profile
 Back to top 
arnezami
Veteran


Joined: 14 Apr 2006
Posts: 136

 		Don't think this has been mentioned yet. Rolling Eyes

The playing card symbols aren't shuffled properly. They don't seem to be randomly located on the cards. Playing cards with the same numbers are grouped closely it seems. At least for the lower ones. In fact there are many cases that there are several directly next to eachother. And for all of the lower ones the cardnumber differences are all quite small.

Here is what I am talking about.

2: Three of them right next to each other. The other one is close too.

Quote:
Card #199 - Three 2 of Clubs
Card #227 - NAND 2 of Diamonds
Card #229 - Ball Night 2 of Hearts
Card #233 - The Earth's Destiny 2 of Spades


3: Again three of them right next to each other. The other one close.

Quote:
Card #157 - International Superhits 3 of Diamonds
Card #191 - My Dear Watson 3 of Spades
Card #193 - Three Thousand Words 3 of Clubs
Card #197 - Linguini Junction 3 of Hearts


4: Two of them right next to each other. The other two are close.

Quote:
Card #103 - Sudoku 4 of Clubs
Card #131 - Detail 4 of Diamonds
Card #163 - Domino Dilemma 4 of Hearts
Card #167 - Circular 4 spades


5: Two of them right next to each other. The other two are close.

Quote:
Card #061 - Ticket to Ride 5 of Clubs
Card #097 - 419 Scam 5 of Diamonds
Card #101 - Petals around the Rose 5 spades
Card #127 - Card House 5 of Hearts


6: Two of them right next to each other. The other two are fairly close.

Quote:
Card #007 - Aromarama 6 of Clubs
Card #037 - Muscae Volitantes 6 of Diamonds
Card #067 - Popcorn 6 of Hearts
Card #071 - Discovery 6 of Spades


7: Two pairs right next to each other. And the pairs a close too.

Quote:
Card #003 - Earth, Sea, and Moon 7 of Clubs
Card #005 - Out on a Limb 7 of Hearts
Card #029 - Beware the Puzzle Monsters 7 of Diamonds
Card #031 - St. Ives 7 of Spades


Higher cards seem to be more distributed. In fact (except for the 10) they are never right next to eachother (so they seem properly shuffled).

Could this be an indication of some kind? Is there something going on with these lower playing card numbers? Which cardgames don't use the lower cards? Is the deck (or part of it) badly shuffled and could we reconstruct this by doing several perfect shuffles backwards? Or are the lower cards added later and then only shuffled lightly?

Just me thinking out load here.

Regards,

arnezami

PostPosted: Sun Aug 20, 2006 2:04 pm
 View user's profile
 Back to top 
BrianEnigmaModerator
Entrenched


Joined: 05 Oct 2003
Posts: 1199
Location: Pacific Northwest
arnezami wrote:
Higher cards seem to be more distributed. In fact (except for the 10) they are never right next to eachother (so they seem properly shuffled). Could this be an indication of some kind?


The short answer is that the playing card symbols are only on prime-numbered cards. The reason cards are not right next to each other is that because only odd numbers are prime (excepting 2.) Some of them are spaced one card apart because they are twin-primes. While prime number distribution is a tricky and difficult subject (see also: Riemann), at least with the number range we are dealing with, primes are more-or-less closer together in the lower portion of the number range, spacing out a bit more toward the top. You can see the spacing a bit better at the catalog. The inverse rows are the prime numbered ones.

So that addresses distribution of which cards get playing card symbols. The mystery in my mind is why a given card has a given symbol. Why is #002 the 8 of spades and not some other card? I seem to recall some spec from back in wave 1 that the playing cards incremented in some direction relative to a fully-assembled map...? The map pieces don't directly increment in one direction, they assemble to little pods of 4 that then tile together. Or maybe, it was that the playing cards incremented relative to the "secret message" in giant letters across the cards?
_________________
Y0 Resources / VP Wiki / PXC Catalog / Metacortex

PostPosted: Sun Aug 20, 2006 2:37 pm
 View user's profile Visit poster's website
 Back to top 
arnezami
Veteran


Joined: 14 Apr 2006
Posts: 136
BriEnigma wrote:
arnezami wrote:
Higher cards seem to be more distributed. In fact (except for the 10) they are never right next to eachother (so they seem properly shuffled). Could this be an indication of some kind?


The short answer is that the playing card symbols are only on prime-numbered cards. The reason cards are not right next to each other is that because only odd numbers are prime (excepting 2.) Some of them are spaced one card apart because they are twin-primes. While prime number distribution is a tricky and difficult subject (see also: Riemann), at least with the number range we are dealing with, primes are more-or-less closer together in the lower portion of the number range, spacing out a bit more toward the top. You can see the spacing a bit better at the catalog. The inverse rows are the prime numbered ones.

So that addresses distribution of which cards get playing card symbols. The mystery in my mind is why a given card has a given symbol. Why is #002 the 8 of spades and not some other card? I seem to recall some spec from back in wave 1 that the playing cards incremented in some direction relative to a fully-assembled map...? The map pieces don't directly increment in one direction, they assemble to little pods of 4 that then tile together. Or maybe, it was that the playing cards incremented relative to the "secret message" in giant letters across the cards?

Thanks for your reaction Brian. But I think you missed the point of what I was trying to say.

I am very well aware of prime number distribution (including the twin prime conjecture etc) and of course the fact the card symbols are placed only on the prime numbered cards. With my description of them being "close" I was implying they were on close prime numbered cards. With "directly next to each other" I meant following primes.

What is interesting is that the distribution of certain lower playing card symbols (2-7) is not random over the prime numbered cards. In other words: its many times the case that when a lower number playing card symbol is on one prime numbered card the same playing card number (of a different suit of course) is on the next prime numbered card (regardless of the actual difference between these primes!).

Let me try again. I may have been unclear. Here is the same list (well shorter you will hopefully get the point) but now I have numbered the primes. So first prime is 2. Second prime is 3. Third prime is 5. The fifty fourth prime is 251. And I removed the (irrelevant) card numbers.

2: Three of them right next to each other. The other one is close too.

Quote:
46 - 2 of Clubs
49 - 2 of Diamonds
50 - 2 of Hearts
51 - 2 of Spades


3: Again three of them right next to each other. The other one close.

Quote:
37 - 3 of Diamonds
43 - 3 of Spades
44 - 3 of Clubs
45 - 3 of Hearts


So when you put all primes in order you can see these card symbols are right next to each other. This is unusual and can't be explained by the maps on the back sides of the cards (the progressive revelation of the whole map that is). And it only happens with the lower card symbols.

It could to some degree be explained by the thunderclap message. But not enough. If they wanted to reveal only certain letters of the thunderclap message in a wave then they still had plenty of choice (between the roughly 13-14 prime numbers in the wave) to prevent this clustering of playing card symbols. And it would also not explain why it only happens with the lower (2-7) numbers and not with the higher numbers/symbols.

I hope I'm a bit clearer now. Smile

arnezami

PostPosted: Sun Aug 20, 2006 3:24 pm
 View user's profile
 Back to top 
PerplexHero
Boot


Joined: 16 Jun 2006
Posts: 30
arnezami wrote:
The playing card symbols aren't shuffled properly. They don't seem to be randomly located on the cards. Playing cards with the same numbers are grouped closely it seems. At least for the lower ones. In fact there are many cases that there are several directly next to eachother. And for all of the lower ones the cardnumber differences are all quite small.


I think you're right that this is intentional. Not because the numbers themselves are significant, but because the letters of the secret message they reveal "COMBED THUNDERCLAP" are significant. As I mentioned in the other thread, I think we might have a Solitaire cipher against these words.

Speaking of which... why are there 2 threads on the same topic? Should we get these merged?

-PerplexHero

PostPosted: Tue Aug 22, 2006 6:16 pm
 View user's profile
 Back to top 
arieh
Boot


Joined: 13 Apr 2005
Posts: 35

 		Crypto Backdoor?
I don't suppose there's any possible relation between the number-strings and the Crypto backdoor? all the 4s made me think.

PostPosted: Tue Aug 22, 2006 9:53 pm
 View user's profile
 Back to top 
Agent Lex
Entrenched


Joined: 11 May 2006
Posts: 1188
Location: No longer London, still in England

 		arnezami:

I think the distribution of the lower numbers (toward the end of the message) is like that because the message, from what I can see, was revealed to us roughly from start to end. Waves 3 and 4 had very structured sets of cards, for example wave 3 was all ivy, flames and (in the case of rares) a couple of hex cards. These cards are all naturally close to each other anyway, so the primes in those sets to choose from, for the purposes of gradually revealing the message downward, would be close to each other.

This contrary to waves 1 and 2, which I haven't seen a concrete pattern for, and generally contain the cards with higher playing card symbols.

PostPosted: Wed Aug 23, 2006 8:10 am
 View user's profile Visit poster's website
 Back to top 
Display posts from previous:   Sort by:   
Page 6 of 6 [85 Posts]   Goto page: Previous 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6
View previous topicView next topic
 Forum index » Diversions » Perplex City Puzzle Cards » PXC Puzzle Cards - Questions, Meta and Sub-puzzles
Jump to:  


You cannot post new topics in this forum
You cannot reply to topics in this forum
You cannot edit your posts in this forum
You cannot delete your posts in this forum
You cannot vote in polls in this forum
You cannot attach files in this forum
You can download files in this forum
You cannot post calendar events in this forum



Powered by phpBB © 2001, 2005 phpBB Group