You Are Games:
Letters In Boxes #22
...Yeah, I'll just come right out and say it, salt has nothing to do with these puzzles. You've got four puzzles to tackle in this week's Letters In Boxes challenge. To play, click on the puzzle below to open the image up in a new window. When you think you've found an answer, go to your browser's address bar and change the image's filename (in this case, "start22") to your answer, making sure you stay in the same directory and maintaining the same file extension. If you're right, you'll zoom through to the next puzzle. If you're wrong, you'll get an error message, but you can always back up and try again.
This batch of puzzles contains four puzzles to solve. On the fourth puzzle, you'll find the email address for sending your final answer. We'll hand out a prize to the first correct entry we receive, plus one additional randomly-selected correct entry. Please include your Casual Gameplay account display name with your entry. You must be at least 13 years of age to enter. Only one submission per participant, please. Offer void where prohibited. Your deadline for submitting your answers is Monday, November 21st at 11:59 PM (GMT-5:00). Good luck!
Update: Congratulations to the following winners! :D
Both winners were given a choice of prizes. Congratulations and thanks for playing with us! Look for another Letters in Boxes again soon!
- ThemePark ...First!
- Sunney444
This was a nice and easy LIB. It felt like I was reading through a puzzle magazine, coming across some dear friends. :D
I'm sure I can work out #3 as soon as I remember what it's called...
I'm already stuck on #2.
I think I know what it is:
A 4X4 Magic Square
And I don't know how to solve it:
so I used a website that automatically solves it
But now I have no idea what to do.
So i got a msg but dont think its right.
I combined the positive and negative for each square, and highlighted the ones that equal 0.
The letters anagram into a phrase but wouldnt even know where to click! any help?
Could anyone give a hint for #2? Me dumb.
Donhuando is on the right track for #2.
once you solve the "magic square" try substituting letters for numbers.
After that, you dont have to read far for the answer.
Nevermind about #2, got it.
Didn't think it was possible to do something like that... nice job!
aquareflections:
It's not a phrase, it's a word. Try what you have without spaces.
Oy, I just figured out what #3 is.
nested
magnets; essentially
binary dominoes
The first three were pretty straightforward, but I'm stuck on 4.
I thought the + and - might mean letters are or aren't in the solution in each set, so I'd have to cross out some blocks of two to get the answer, but that leads me to contradictions everywhere.
Thanks for the hint, donhuando!
Considering I'd never heard of a 4x4 magic grid, I would have been here all day!
I have a guess about #3:
is the puzzle called domino?
Oy, I just figured out what #3 is.
nested
magnets; essentially
binary dominoes
Sorry for the double post. My browser spazzed.
I'm feeling pretty dumb because I'm stuck on 1. I know what the letters are, but not sure what to do with them.
ray9na:
I tried to find an example of what you wrote but couldn't.
Does it have any other names? or could you give an example?
Could anyone give me some hints as to how puzzle 3 works? I've tried googling the names that were posted above, but can't seem to find any useful sites...
@donhuando
Google Simon Tatham
Aggh, I meant I'm stuck on 3. Can't count. Anyway, ray9na's hint didn't help.
If you total everything up, you get some +2, some +1, 0, -1, -2, and I don't know which ones are part of the solution. I also don't know if you're supposed to get 1 total for each domino or go square by square I already tried all the dominoes that add up to 0 and all the squares that add up to 0, and neither one gave me a useful anagram.
I guess #3 might be hard for people since this puzzle only seem to occur in puzzle magazines, and seemingly can't easily be found on the internet, so I'll explain the rules of that puzzle here.
Only read it if you're absolutely stuck, and don't expect a solution. This is only an explanation of how the puzzle works.
As mentioned by ray9na, it's a magnet puzzle. Imagine that you have two types of bars, a magnetic bar and a basic non-magnetic iron bar.
Either bar takes up exactly 2 grid spaces. A basic bar is neutral in both spaces, while a magnetic bar is obviously positive in one end and negative in another.
The numbers at the top and left indicate how many positive and negative spaces can be found in that row or column. The neutrals are not counted, but the number of neutrals can easily be calculated.
Keep in mind that you only have two bars. Thus a bar can't have a negative and a neutral, or two positive spaces, just as an example. So when you fill out half of a bar, you ALWAYS know what the other half should be.
The goal is to fill the grid out completely with neutral bars and magnets.
#3
It's not Dominoes. It's Magnets, which on the surface is similar. Google "Simon Tatham's Portable Puzzle Collection" and find Magnets (he's got them all out in alphabetical order). Steve basically gave us two sets of clues instead of the usual one.
Actually ray9na, the way Steve has made #3 is how it's printed in puzzle magazines. Never seen the other version before except for where you found it.
@ThemePark
Well, that says something about my experience with that type of puzzle, doesn't it? :-P
Thanks guys, after
googling Simon Tatham I saw the rules and solved it. nice puzzle.
Funny, on #4:
First I solved it, then
I found all the words I was supposed to find.
yay, thanks for the help with 3! googling the person's name helped :)
And I actually solved 4 (like, got all the words and stuff), but I
was crossing out words that matched the clues, and had 2 words left, and it took me forever to decide which was the right answer lol!
so if anyone has the same problem as I do... look down :P
snowmoon:
I'm gonna guess that you were missing a 3 letter word, like me. :P
haha! actually no... I got that one, but I had two left, and I was trying to decide which was a clued-word, and which was 'YOUR FINAL ANSWER'... and I couldn't decide which word was
'close to home' XD
I got #3!
The spreadsheet is my friend.
Snowmoon, I did the same thing....
i just don't get the logic of this puzzle. I'm going through the examples from the guy we googled/ the other guy he referenced on his page and I still don't get the logic.
is it
a) that the positive/negative are suppose to represent how many are in each column/row...
or b) or are they directly related to each square. for example +2/-2---+2/-2 = a +?
Maybe I'm over thinking it as would be usual
It's before noon and I finished without any help.
What is the world coming to? :-D
Am I missing something really obvious on 2?
I've done the magic square and replaced the letters with A=1 etcetc. It doesn't make a word or phrase no matter how I'm looking at it. The only thing I've noticed is that the letters of 'magic' are all in there, but removing them does nothing.
Gah. Rushed through 1...
What you haven't got left will help you.
2...
Here, what you have got left will help you.
3...
Start from the rows/columns which have the highest totals of plus and minus signs.
But now I'm stuck in number 4! All the way through it but...
I can't solve which is which; Close to Home and your final answer. So I've got two words left.
@sunney444
It's a magnets puzzle. Go with option A.
@Dom
Once it's solved, just look down once.
@TaylorB
It helps to have a standard keyboard layout. Once the first 11 are solved, what remains is what you need.
Thanks @Ray9na. I eventually got it. Took awhile but your help helped as well as @ThemePark!
this set of puzzles made up for missing last week - fun and challenging but ultimately solvable. Hints/Comments for each puzzle:
#1
just look for what is missing, then use your anagram skills
#2
this one was deceptively simple. I kept trying to make it harder, but ultimately went with the only word I saw - and it worked! @ray9na gave the best hint at 12:49.
#3
I never would have solved this without finding out it is a magnet puzzle. Even then, I found it a challenge to solve. Once there, however, everything was in order.
#4
This one was fun. Just don't assume that the clues are in order of appearance in the puzzle. I don't have the right kind of keyboard for one of the clues, but I figured it out by the process of elimination.
All in all, another great LIB. Thanks @Steve!
This was a fun set of puzzles, moreso since I actually solved them with minimal help. I had to read the comments here about #3 to understand how to solve it, but that turned out to be fun to solve once I got the hang of it, and the other three puzzles were a breeze.
@ray9na: Thanks, helped me break #4.
can't do any puzzle because it's so hard and with the hint is really confused me i guess i should try next puzzle
Something I found to help work through #3:
Don't bash your brains in trying to figure out which are positive and negative...try simply figuring out which ones can be neutral and which ones can't.
Excellent round of Letters in Boxes again (I really missed my weekly dose of puzzling, previous week).
And a special message for Steve. (feel free to help him decode it)
Oh, now I got ray9na's clue for number 4.
Although it isn't too close to home for me.
I have been bashing my brain in trying to figure out how to do #3, and I've finally figured out how to do it -- though I haven't solved it. It would have been nice if I'd noticed that the grid is broken up into blocks of two!
Took me a while to get that bit on #4 about
Close to home
...Of course, that makes sense, considering
I'm a Mac user.
Also, Crouch? About your "special message," all I can say is...."Huh?" (I don't get it.)
Onyx Mouse, a hint for the "special message":
Telegraph
Morse
Ahh, I get it now! Hehe, very clever.
...I just hope he doesn't try using that in an upcoming LiB. X_x
Onyx Mouse: no need to worry about that, it will probably be the first thing you'll think of if you get stuck :)
It's probably a good thing I'm not in charge of LiB, as I've got some ideas for puzzles that are even more crazy.
Here are this week's answers:
Puzzle 1
The grid in the first puzzle contains every letter except for C, E, J, O, P, R, S, and T. (There's no particular reason why the remaining letters were strung through the grid in an up-and-down fashion.) Rearrange these letters, and you get PROJECTS.
Puzzle 2
Puzzle 2 Answer
This puzzle is a magic square, in which every row, column, and diagonal add up to 34, using the numbers 1 to 16. Once the puzzle is filled in, change all the numbers to letters, with A=1,. B=2, etc. Reading down in the first column, you'll find the word MELD.
Puzzle 3
Puzzle 3 Answer
The third puzzle is a magnet puzzle, where each rectangular block in the puzzle is either a magnet (with a positive or negative pole in each square) or a neutral block (with no magnetic charge). As a rule, the positive pole of one magnet can't be next to the positive pole of another magnet, and the same applies to the negative poles. The numbers along the top and side tell how many of each pole appear in that row or column. To practice this puzzle on your own, you can take a look at Magnets from the Simon Tatham Puzzle Collection.
I won't go into specific details on how to solve the puzzle, but I will suggest that one way to start solving the puzzle is to determine which blocks must contain a magnet (such as the fourth column, with three positive poles and three negative poles, meaning every square in that column must contain a column). Once you've solved the puzzle, you will find the word GRINDSTONE spelled out in the boxes covered by the neutral blocks.
Puzzle 4
Puzzle 4 Answer
The final puzzle is solved by placing the nine tiles on the right into the grid so that a crossword puzzle is formed. The clues, though shuffled, all correspond to a word in the crossword. The only word not paired to another standard clue was ESCALATOR, your final answer.
Winners will be announced soon!
Update