An Economic Index

An Economic Index

“£” indicates that this is British currency. But it’s weird! What’s that s and d stuff? A bit of googling reveals the units of pre-decimalization British currency. The invitation to “write in plain english” suggests that you put this in words, and since you’ve been told about indexing in the rules, you know you need to get this into a number and a word. There are a few non-unique solutions, but not enough so as to make it much more difficult at all. Fiddle around with it.

¼d = ONE FARTHING 5s = FIVE SHILLINGS £2.2s = TWO GUINEAS 3s = THREE SHILLINGS £5 = FIVE POUNDS 2¼d = NINE FARTHINGS

£6.6s = SIX GUINEAS 8d = TWO GROATS 2s.6d = FIVE SIXPENCE

£2 = FOUR CROWNS ½d = ONE HALFPENCE 1s.4d = FOUR GROATS 1s.8d = FIVE GROATS

FLUIDS ARE WHAT

So the answer is: WET. While it may be argued that gases are fluids, but are not wet, the word “Chill” in the flavortext suggests you look at the cooler fluids, i.e. liquids, which are wet.

Suite For Unaccompanied Telegraph

Title should indicate morse code, or even more literally––play this on a telegraph, that’s morse code, whatever. It says CHICKEN ROOSTER RED DEER

CHICKEN ROOSTER is an obvious relation, so how does RED DEER fit? Well, what’s a male red deer? The answer is STAG.

Weird Science

Each set of emojis is a coded movie about a scientist/mathematician - numbers indicate the indexing of the title.

1. The Imitation Game - G 2. Hidden Figures - I 3. The Theory of Everything - V 4. A Beautiful Mind - I 5. Interstellar - N 6. Gravity - G

The answer is GIVING.

Meta 1: Musty Tomes

You have received the answers WET, STAG, and GIVING. Put them in the blanks appropriate to their length. Then you have to add letters somehow––they don’t work when you just put them simply on the end, so you try inserting them. They just go in the order they’re presented, because this is meta 1. That gives you GRIEVING’S WETTEST STAGE

One of the five stages of grief is denial. The flavortext asks where the dream will take you; this combined with the word “wettest” suggests that the answer is thenile, which is a pun on denial.

You Think You're Clever!

Firstly, notice the clue CHAOS < ORDER. It emphasizes that the reader should take into consideration the order of objects. This will be somewhat of a recurring theme in the puzzle.

α. OAMOCLES : DWORD :: AROCRUSTES : MED ● The phrase “Sword of Damocles” and the term “Procrustean bed” are both derived from their respective stories in Greek mythology. However, to make matters more difficult, the first letter of each item has been shifted by 11. Hence, the first letter of the answer should be shifted as well, leading us to the answer MED.

β. SMALL : LARGE :: OMICRON : OMEGA ● Just as the Greek letter omicron translates to “small”, the Greek letter OMEGA translates to “large”.

γ. HOLLOW VICTORY : PYRRHIC :: HOLLOW VILLAGE : POTEMKIN ● Another word which characterizes a hollow victory is a pyrrhic victory (named after King Pyrrhus of Ancient Greece). Another word which characterizes a hollow village is a POTEMKIN village.

δ. 677 : SCIPMYLO :: 357 : EMOR ● SCIPMYLO is OLYMPICS backwards. Applying this logic to the other items, the analogy becomes 776 : OLYMPICS :: 753 : ?. The Olympics were first held in Olympia, Greece in 776 BCE, and Rome was founded in the year 753 BCE. Therefore, the answer is its backwards equivalent, EMOR.

ε. A Θ B Θ A H B ● These are all letters from the Greek alphabet. Furthermore, suppose we assign each letter to the order in which it appears in the Greek alphabet. Doing this yields the sequence (1 8 2 8 1 ? 2). This sequence is the first digits of the well-known mathematical constant e (2.718281…) backwards. Therefore, the next term is the seventh letter in the Greek alphabet, H.

ζ. ALPHA.jpg : BETA.jpg :: -NELOPE : -TEMNESTRA ● ALPHA.jpg and BETA.jpg both refer to the first and second images, which have respective answers of EREBUS and APOLLO. Therefore, the analogy can be represented as EREBUS : APOLLO :: -NELOPE : ?. Erebus is the Greek god of darkness, and Apollo is known, among other things, as the Greek god of light. Therefore, these words behave as antonyms and, applying the same logic, we need to find someone who has a well-known feature that juxtaposes Clytemnestra in some way. In Homer’s Odyssey, Penelope is known for her fidelity to her husband Odysseus while he was absent, even despite having many suitors. In Greek mythology, Clytemnestra was unfaithful to her husband Agamemnon while he was at battle in Troy. Their opposing traits resemble antonyms. Finally, the clue omits the first syllable of PENELOPE (-NELOPE) and so the answer is, by the same logic, -TEMNESTRA.

η. ALEXANDER : ARISTOTLE :: PLATO : SOCRATES ● Alexander the Great was a student of Aristotle just as Plato was a student of SOCRATES.

θ. PERMITTIVITY : EPSILON :: RESISTIVITY : RHO ● In physics, the permittivity of free space is represented by the Greek letter epsilon just as electrical resistivity is represented by the Greek letter RHO.

1) AIR + REBUS = EREBUS ● Through rebuses and some clever wordplay, we can decipher the analogy. The first image is the alchemical symbol for the element AIR. The second image demonstrates what a REBUS is, and each expression is an example of one (“TOP SECRET”, “HEAR/HERE”, and “THUNDERSTORM” are their respective interpretations). Concatenating the first and second associated words, we arrive at AIR + REBUS = EREBUS (using homophonetical wordplay).

2) A + POLLO = APOLLO ● Similarly, the first component is a report card that has the grade A on it. The second image is a chicken wearing a sombrero. With wordplay, “Mexican Chicken” leads to the Spanish word for chicken, POLLO. Concatenating the first and second associated words, A + POLLO = APOLLO.

The answers to all of the sections of the puzzle are thus as follows: MED OMEGA POTEMKIN EMOR H -TEMNESTRA SOCRATES RHO EREBUS APOLLO

The clue that “α β γ δ ɛ ... → _ _ _ _ _ … ???” means we can rearrange these terms to arrive at the answer. (This is hinted at by the CHAOS < ORDER clue.) By taking the first letter of each word, we get MOPEHTSREA. The only word that can be created using these ten letters is the answer to the puzzle, ATMOSPHERE.

Tessel(ish)on

Well first it’s an actual tessellation: the pieces with letters all fit to make a rectangle.

E C O A H I S

T V

B S

H

E

R U U

A J E

G R E

L L T S

M T

P Y

E L

L N

H C T

I

B

G I A N L S

B L G D

S

I

L

A L

S

A U T O N S L U O

A D N E

A P O N O M F

I B

Y F L O N

E T B G

I O I F

E T T T S

I O

N

E C O A H I S B E T B G I O

T V H M T S G I A I O I F N

B S E P Y I N L S E T T T S

R U U E L L B I L G D B A D

A J E L N A L Y F L O N N E

G R E H C T S A P O N O M F L L T S I A U T O N S L U O

E C O A H I S B E T B G I O

T V H M T S G I A I O I F N

B S E P Y I N L S E T T T S

R U U E L L B I L G D B A D

A J E L N A L Y F L O N N E

G R E H C T S A P O N O M F

L L T S I A U T O N S L U O

Now it’s a tesselishon. The remaining pieces fit together (without rotation) to form a rectangle, but not quite. It leaves holes.

The rectangles are of the same dimension, so it makes sense to lay one on top of the other. This gives you the letters:

H S I F

E L B I B

R E T S N O M

HSIF ELBIB RETSNOM Or, reversing it, MONSTER BIBLE FISH. Which clues LEVIATHAN––but wait, it was backwards. So that’s NAHTAIVEL.

Mostly Accurate Images

The trick is to realize that each of the pictures describes a commonly-used phrase BUT it uses one word wrong (hinted by the title, where “cat” is the wrong word and “cap” should be substituted). By identifying each phrase and word that is wrong, then correcting it and indexing the correct word as hinted by numbers in brackets, we get the answer.

Here are the phrases in order:

1. In the picture: sneak peak Should be: sneak peek Indexing: e

2. In the picture: pour over Should be: pore over Indexing: p

3. In the picture: you’ve got another thing coming Should be: you’ve got another think coming Indexing: i

4. In the picture: mute point Should be: moot point Indexing: m

5. In the picture: piece of mind Should be: peace of mind Indexing: a

6. In the picture: one in the same Should be: one and the same Indexing: n

7. In the picture: wet your appetite Should be: whet your appetite Indexing: e

8. In the picture: slight of hand Should be: sleight of hand Indexing: s

Collecting all of the indexed letters, we get EPIMANES, which is the answer.

Your Highness

Phase One

Solved Puzzles

Phase Two: Titles

By now, the solver should have noticed small bumps on the edges of the notecard. There are 7 on the left side and 7 on the right side. Seeing this, they should write the names of the rulers on the left in order, and the titles on the right in order.

At this point, they should realize they have to draw a line between the ruler and their correct title, clued again by the flavortext “maybe rulers can help you solve it.”

The solver must look at the intersections they caused, understand that there are 26 spaces on the notecard, and from there spell MUGHAL.

This allows them to find the penultimate ruler of the Mughal Empire, who was AKBAR II

Final Answer AKBARII

Let's Care About Starving Artists

Reverse image search all of the artists to get their names:

Using the clue “hungry”, some of the artists have famous or distinct works that are about food. Even if you just search each artist’s name again on google images, these food-related artworks should come up fairly often.

Below are the examples of the food-related art by some of the artists:

Other artists, while they are absolutely amazing and have really cool artwork that you should definitely check out, do not have any artwork related to food.

On the off-chance you see food-related art by other artists, you should be able to cross them off by the second clue, “blind,” which hints that this puzzle uses Braille. The 6x6 grid yields 6 letters. Within each 2x3 matrix, the artists’ art are about the same kind of food. After matching the picture patterns with Braille alphabet, you get:

Coca-cola: R Candy: E Spaghetti: V Sugar: E Hamburger (or other food): A Ice Cream: L

The answer is REVEAL.

Meta Two: Tipacal! Absolutely tipacal!

We notice that the answers are of lengths 6, 7, 8, 9, and 10. Naturally, we slot them into the bottom rows. But what now? How do we finish the pyramid? Oh no! Well, you then notice the puzzle titles are all of different lengths. One is 1 word, one is 2 words, etc. So, you slot their initials into the top 5 rows. Which gives us:

T Y H M A I Y T Y C L C A S A R E V E A L A K B A R I I E P I M A N E S N A H T A I V E L A T M O S P H E R E

Well, that’s nice. Now what? Reading along the edges gives us:

T Y H M _ I Y _ _ C L _ _ _ A R _ _ _ _ L A _ _ _ _ _ I E ______S N ______L A ______E

A NEARLY MYTHICAL ISLE. But we’re not done. What island is “nearly mythical”? I mean, after all, we are dealing with myths here, right? If this is an actual designation, surely it’s an impossibly broad category? So maybe it’s wordplay. And what island is nearly “mythical”? ITHACA. So, we next sail to Ithaca and into the world of Greek mythology.

Final Answer: ITHACA

ABC Water Fiesta

The word Congo could refer to the Democratic Republic of Congo, the Republic of the Congo, the river, a ton of movies, films, people or other things. However, the word “deep” before Congo and the word “water” in the title suggest that we are talking about the Congo River, which is the deepest river in the world (In fact, Googling “deep Congo” results in a Wikipedia article about the Congo river). But there is also the word rock succeeding Congo. Googling “deep river rock” or “deepest river rock” results in a Wikipedia article about Deep River Rock, which is the brand name given to water produced by Coca-Cola sold in Ireland! Deep River Rock is what the Irish call it; Americans call it Dasani.

Noticing the italics around the phrase “we nixed that,” we google “dasani we nixed that” to get an article (https://www.gq.com/story/awkwafina-kimmel-water-bottle- names) describing American rapper and actress Awkwafina’s interview with Jimmy Kimmel, the host of Jimmy Kimmel Live!, a late-night talk show that premiered on ABC (notice the The ABC in the title). In this interview, Awkwafina reveals that she also considered naming herself Dassani with two s’s, but she had “nixed that.” Awkwafina is famously, and obviously, named after AQUAFINA, which is the answer to the puzzle.

Depth Sensors

This puzzle gives the top, bottom, and left and right-side views of seven different objects. Players must figure out that they are observing the six letters: B, E, F, O, R, and E. The last object is a butterfly, leading them to the final answer of CATERPILLAR.

An uncensored chart

Final Answer: CATERPILLAR

Playlist Puzzle

Phase One

Solvers need to listen to the five provided songs. Musically-inclined solvers should be able to recognize that each song contains a distinct and bizarre sound that is rarely heard in popular music.

Solvers will need to identify the instrument that makes those sounds and write it in the corresponding blank spaces below.

“‘91 Maxima” by Cory Wong (JAW HARP) “Been There Done That” by Dr. Dre (FLEXATONE) “Get Up” by Vernon Burch (SLIDE WHISTLE) “My Thang” by James Brown (VIBRASLAP) “Incense” by Erykah Badu (THEREMIN)

J A W H A R P F L E X A T O N E S L I D E W H I S T L E V I B R A S L A P T H E R E M I N

After finding all instruments successfully, solvers will be able to read highlighted letters in order to obtain the words “FIRST” “STEVIE” and “WONDER”

To decode the below puzzle, you’ll need to listen to the intro of the second track on the FIRST STEVIE WONDER album of 1972.

This leads them to the track “Superwoman” off of Stevie Wonder’s first 1972 Album, Music of My Mind.

Phase Two

The intro to this song is easily identifiable as the first 15 seconds. Within that time, there are 13 low and short synthesizer notes.

From the above puzzle, solvers should see that they need to find a vertical and horizontal direction for each of 12 puzzles to obtain a character. For example, up and right in the first puzzle would get you a 4.

If solvers track the vertical changes between each note (do they get higher or lower?) and the horizontal changes (do they pan to the left or right?), then they will get the phrase “1868HOTSAUCE” which should hopefully lead them to the final answer, TABASCO.

Final Answer: TABASCO

Magic Squares Phase One

Following instructions in the introduction text, teams should listen to the passage read aloud:

Teams that want a chance at solving this are strongly urged to read out loud. Being loud is one’s vital duty, because printed words can lie. Concentrate, and groups will find that there are other sounds at work. Why, if others try to listen, the group will hear a secret clue for a change. The part after this script is difficult. But without getting the code, one’s work will double. You now know that when one hears letters, one should accumulate. With this, one can spell success. Study this script, and don’t advance until the team has heard all special sounds. After, fill the boxes.

This text (“accumulate the letters”), along with weird phrases like “why,” and “double. You,” should clue solvers to listen for the sounds of letters. If they do this, they get the following:

Teams that want a chance at solving this are strongly urged to read out loud. Being loud is one’s vital duty, because printed words can lie. Concentrate, and groups will find that there are other sounds at work. Why, if others try to listen, the group will hear a secret clue for a change. The part after this script is difficult. But without getting the code, one’s work will double. You now know that if anyone hears letters, one should accumulate. With this, one can spell success. Study this script, and don’t advance until the team has heard all special sounds. After, fill the boxes.

T / H / R / E / E / B / I / T / B / I / N / A / R / Y / I / N / E / A / C / H / R / O / W / O / N / E / E / Q / U / A / L / S / D / O / T

THREE BIT BINARY IN EACH ROW ONE EQUALS DOT.

Phase Two

With this information, teams should convert the numbers in each row to 3 bit binaries, and use those to fill the boxes. Also, as per the instructions, ones should be converted to dots.

Completing the first two boxes should reveal that they are dice, which allows solvers to fill in the rest:

Finally, solvers can add dice to the weird boxes to get the final

answer:

Final Answer: DYSON

Daedalus’ Labyrinth

Phase One • Print and cut out each tile o The small scissors in the bottom right corner should be a pretty obvious indicator that this should be done. • Solving the mazes o The solver will realize each tile has exactly two symbols and exactly two numbers. Hopefully, they will also realize that each symbol connects to a specific number on each tile. By solving the mazes, they’ll be able to assign each number to a symbol.

Example of a solved maze Phase Two • Decoding the Symbols o The solvers next must figure out what these symbols mean. There are only four symbols. There are also four provided meta answers (zippo, caterpillar, aquafina, dyson). Either by looking up the symbols for ancient greek elements (clued by the answers), or by looking up a description of the symbols, solvers should discover the symbols represent earth, wind, fire, and water. From there they are able to make the connection between these four elements and the four meta answers. o Once they have matched symbols to meta answers, they can index using the provided numbers with the meta answers.

Example of an indexed tile (TABASCO and DYSON)

Phase Three • Rearranging the tiles o Once each tile contains two letters, the obvious next step is to arrange the tiles so that they spell something. Once the anagram is solved, solvers will see the following: o The tiles read: “COLOR LATERAL ROUTES”

• Coloring o The final step is to follow instructions and color in all lateral passages in the labyrinth, now in order. Solvers should eventually be able to read the final answer “EAST PYNE” spelled with horizontal lines against a vertical background. Answer: EAST PYNE