I’ll skip over the giveaway answers, here’s what I reckon for b:
tadang + miit
aleeb madi
ataling madi - aleeb
bokob madi
is this even slightly close
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response to falsedan
That’s right! Bonus points if you can explain what madi means.
To everyone else, here’s my hint: madi does not mean “base +”
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it means 28. putting the number name for 𝑥 in front means “𝑥 before 28” or 28 - 𝑥
all conjecture and guessing what people might want to count/track
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part a
9 + 10 = 19
6 + 1 = 7
5 * 5 = 25
part b
tadang + miib = aleeb madi
ataling madi - aleeb = bokob madi
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This is killing me!! Love it tho, been working on it in spurts all day
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One would think that given how many puzzle games I play and my solid math skills I’d be a natural for something like this, but I don’t even think I have a starting point.
Well that’s not entirely true as if no number can be higher than 30 then:
-it appears that ataling would have to be either 3, 4 or 5
-ataling x ataling = ataling + tadang = (asumano x ataling) + ataling
-I think that means asumano = ataling - 1
I then spent some time going “madi must be the base figure (like base 12) that the first mentioned number is added onto” but that seems like a dead-end (I tried with 3, 4 and 5 for ataling and none added up), and without figuring out the madi part I can’t continue any further so i think that’s that.
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your first part is where I started. I took each interpretation and went as far as I could before hitting a contradiction/obvious impracticallity
also thinking of <number 𝑥> madi as f(𝑥) and thinking of suitable definitions for the function
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To Username
Yes! You are so close!
Try solving this sequence and you may discover what it means.
ataling x ataling = tadang madi
tadang + ataling = tadang madi
asumano x ataling = tadang
asumano + ataling = feet
asumano x feet = feet madi
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Dang, I seem to be running into the same problem as username. I think the only way the numbers work is if I have tadang as 12, ataling as 4, tadang madi as 16, asumano as 3, feet as 7, and feet madi as 21. Ran down the number sequence you gave username for numbers 5-2 bc of the all numbers are less than 30 rule. But those numbers give me no sense of what madi functions as! did I just mess up the numbers somewhere?
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you haven’t messed up. look at the number pairs of tadang madi/tadang and feet madi/feet. What do those two pairs have in common?
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the prize I really want is to know the word for 8, which, unless I accidentally skipped it, isn’t in the list of available numbers
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In this puzzle, particularly with madi, it’s easy to mistake a misconception of how the numbers work to be a contradiction in your logic.
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Unfortunately, there is no way to figure that out with the provided information! We also don’t get to know the words for 11 or 13
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So I went back to this and read what you wrote and I’m gonna spoiler my answers here, but I think I got it, sorry it is some days later but this is where my free time fell.
A.
9 + 10 = 19
6 + 1 = 7
5 x 5 = 25
B.
X = aleeb madi
Y = bokob madi
Assuming that is correct, I really was on the right track but I kept trying to add stuff to a theoretical madi until I eventually went “wait, I’ve been comparing these numbers wrong, the gap between these madi numbers is in the wrong direction” which made me think I should subtract from a theoretical madi number. Perhaps that is wrong but when doing that with madi as 28 everything fit so… fingers crossed?
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Apparently #enigmarch is some kind of annual puzzle-designing event that runs through the end of this month. Ryan Veeder (the prolific interactive fiction author I’ve written about elsewhere on this site) has been making puzzles for this every day this month, and I only tried the first one before the need to plan for another March activity took precedence and interrupted the habit I was trying to form.
This thread hasn’t been very busy, and I like the options we have for spoiler text, so I’ll be posting my attempts to solve these puzzles here as I get to them over the next couple of days. If you’d like to try them yourself, consider the following links:
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 | 24 | 25 | 26 | 27 | 28 | 29 | 30 | 31 | Meta Puzzle (Not Yet Revealed)
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oh man the first one is like an icebreaker game I do with people that I learned at daycamp
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Yeah, I’m familiar with a similar game (“Snaps is the name of the game.”), but I’d never heard of this version before seeing this first puzzle. That said, the basic rule seemed pretty easy to intuit. I did my first pass of answers without looking anything up.
First attempts
Pee-Wee: Dottie
Hotel: Broadmoor, isn’t it?
Valley: Silicon was my guess, based on the fact that it’s CG, and I did not think about it further
Echo: no idea
Ievan Polkka: I wrote onion because it’s been too long
Arcana: I guessed Strength, but I thought it didn’t qualify because apparently I cannot spell, so I had to look this up…
Stuff I looked up
Arcana: Empress.
While I’m at it,
Echo: The Bunnymen
The answer checker asks for a single response, and the answers to the six individual clues were rejected, so clearly there’s a macro puzzle to figure out here. I tried a few things, but I missed the hints and accidentally spoiled myself. Looking at it again, though, this puzzle is pretty clever.
What I liked about this one without spoiling it
Each clue has two components that contribute to the solution. I was trying to use the first letter, but while the first letters can provide you with a nudge, you do need to have the answer to the six clues correct to work it out the “right” way. You can also figure out the answer the sneaky way, in a manner very similar to one of my favorite books as a kid, The 11th Hour by Graeme Base. (Ryan told me last year that this book was a huge influence on him, and I can see why.)
On to puzzle #2!
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opposite day: I found the clues tedious. I don’t understand the appeal of crossword puzzles without the grid, not a fan of when the puzzle-maker is cultural-specific, and my interest tanked once I turned on Puzzled Pint mode. I liked that the answers demonstrated the Buddha nature, but the admonishment in the hints that the answers did not clue to the real answer made me feel like this was about being clever than about being fun
I have enough inscrutable systems to reason through at work. I also hate the MIT puzzle hunts: just know a bunch of stuff and apply it creatively? pay me first
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Fair enough; sounds like these aren’t for you, then!
but I am a big fan of word puzzles, crosswords, etc. and I feel like, with a few changes to tone and domain, these would be real fun puzzles.
we have a blackboard at work and some people write Quiz Questions on it. the last one was “How many countries does Russia share a border with?” and, while I am a big fan of The Times Atlas of the World and the history of the Kaliningrad exclave, I feel like this is something that could be solved by opening Wikipedia. putting trivia questions around a puzzle to make them harder also puts up a barrier for people who could solve the puzzle but don’t know the password (that barely relates to it)