puzzles

the challenge of a good puzzle is not in its inherent complexity, but in the simplicity of convincing others to solve it when they would rather watch Minecraft speedrun videos.

quite adept, to a confused and frightened child at a lemonade stand, July 1, 2022

About

Who doesn't love a good puzzle? The following puzzles are all original creations by quite adept. Hints and answers are not and will not ever be provided. Some people are unable to resist looking up the answers when they get stuck on a challenging puzzle, so by not providing answers at all, perseverance is encouraged. Good luck!

The Mystery of the Puzzle's Riddle

"It's just an album. Or is it an animation? No? It's a puzzle? I don't get it." you tell yourself. And you would be right. The Mystery of the Puzzle's Riddle is an original album of spooky haunted mansion music accompanied by a looping pixel art video animation. But throughout the video are several clues, a few codes, and possibly a cypher that will lead you to a solution, but only if you're up to the challenge. There will be no hints.

Be the first to solve this puzzle and win some money. How much money? Well, the quite adept YouTube channel had 25 subscribers at the time of the original video upload, so $25 was chosen as the initial prize. However, the prize pool will double for every multiple of 10 subscribers the channel gains from that starting point: $50 at 250 subscribers, $100 at 2500 subscribers, $200 at 25,000 subscribers and so on. The prize money will be awarded to the first person to type the puzzle's answer as a comment on the video. You may work together, but only one may win. Good luck!

^{published 2022/07/01}

An Upside-Down Puzzle

There exists a five-letter word that when written in all-capital letters, can be read the same upright and upside-down. If this word is played in Scrabble on the first turn, centered on the board, the number of points it yields also follows this upside-down rule, but only under a certain condition. Under that condition, this number is also used to refer to a certain type of person. This type of person can also be represented by a symbol. If you turn that symbol upside down, it can have a few different meanings, but one of them in particular was used in Medieval European alchemy to refer to a certain element. This element on the modern periodic table has a two-letter symbol. If you displayed this symbol as best you could on a standard, 7-segment digital clock display and then flipped the clock upside-down, it would then display the shortened nickname of a video game character. This video game character's English voice actor was born in a state whose two-letter postal abbreviation can be written upside-down on a standard, 7-segment digital clock display to make a number. Finally, what is that number?

^{added 2023/07/07}

Message Hidden In Address Book

An agent has intercepted an address book from an enemy operative. After looking up the names and addresses, the agent discovers they are all fake and therefore believes the list to be some sort of coded message. Due to the rest of the address book being blank, the agent believes that the entire message is coded within the following list. Can you discover the hidden message in this list of names and addresses?

^{added 2023/07/22}

An Original Cypher

Spend 45 minutes sometime coming up with your own cypher and coded message. It's not that hard. Solving someone else's coded message can be difficult though.

See if you can decipher this message. If it is hard to read or your browser is not displaying it properly, try copying it into another program or something like charcounter. The commas and periods are just commas and periods. And no, it is not "Be sure to drink your Ovaltine" but you do get social credit for thinking of that right away.

◁⌽,   ∣◬   ✕·∵⋁೦⊏   ◫.

∣   ⬨·   ◻◁⊟   ∷◬∵⊏   ⬨⊡   ◁−⋁   ⊐◎⬨   ⊖✕∣.

◻◁⟠∷   ∣◬,   ⟠⊏   ⊕∴೦∴⊐⊕   ⊡   ∷−∵∵   ∣◬+   ∴⊡◁⊕   ⊐−⁜.

^{added 2023/09/19}

more soon...