Well I continue with my weekly 2016 puzzles, This one will finish on Thursday 17 March at 11pm GMT. I am also planning a fairly special puzzle sequence over Easter.

The prize this week is:
Yet Another Zombie Defense

The puzzle this week is called "Phoney Numbers" and it can be found here: http://www.itstoohard.com/puzzle/BZfbXgrv

8 years ago*

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Reserved for Hints and or Solution
For Mikalye's Second Tricksy Riddle - This is ten

8 years ago*
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This is my eleventh (or possibly twelfth) puzzle of 2016 after:
10th Mommy, Where do I come from (geography meets wordplay) (http://www.steamgifts.com/discussion/gtofM/mikalyes-10th-2016-puzzle-mommy-where-do-i-come-from-ends-12-march#4it1VhF)
9th Let me make myself perfectly clear (code hidden in trivia questions) (http://www.steamgifts.com/discussion/0Dla6/mikalyes-9th-2016-puzzle-let-me-make-myself-perfectly-clear)
8th Simple addition (not so hidden code) (http://www.steamgifts.com/discussion/ysWey/mikalyes-8th-2016-puzzle-simple-addition-ended-solution-posted)
7th A list of words (hidden code) (http://www.steamgifts.com/discussion/3SdHu/mikalyes-7th-2016-puzzle-a-list-of-words)
6th As Easy as ABC (logic) (http://www.steamgifts.com/discussion/NaTeF/mikalyes-6th-2016-puzzle-as-easy-as-abc-ends-17-feb)
5th Movie Stargazing (Movies and Topology) (http://www.steamgifts.com/discussion/bku0l/mikalyes-5th-2016-puzzle-movie-stargazing-ends-7-feb)
4th Queens Play (Mathematics) (http://www.steamgifts.com/discussion/tBtXy/mikalyes-4th-puzzle-anno-2070-full-pack-ga-queens-play-ends-1-feb)
3rd Keep Your Distance (logic) (http://www.steamgifts.com/discussion/V8Ggp/michaels-third-puzzle-of-2016-keep-your-distance-ended)
2nd Hunting Lie and Hoe (Wordplay) (http://www.steamgifts.com/discussion/Jo54c/mikalyes-second-giveaway-puzzle-of-2016-now-closed)
1st Mixed Bag - Not linked as I will alter one of these soon
0th History of Computer Role-Playing Games (http://www.steamgifts.com/discussion/8ayLm/my-first-puzzle-and-a-bit-of-history-at-the-same-time)

8 years ago*
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Trying to solve. This is REALLY too hard. BUMP :D

8 years ago
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bump for not even going to try - way too many questions. Thanks anyway. :)

8 years ago
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Word 1 on Q2 makes no sense to me...is there a mistake or is it a weird word I just don't know...
Hmm.

edit: Too much, gave up.

8 years ago*
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It is something that a Victorian ship captain or an astronomer might use.

8 years ago
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56684653 does not that word make :P

8 years ago
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I can't align Mikalye's clue to the answer . . . I'd suggest it's something a peeping tom might use ;)

8 years ago
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Silly me had that but made a type elsewhere, lol, duh.

8 years ago
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Oh, figured out Q3 :D

8 years ago
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Sorry, I misread you question and was talking about word 2. For word1, would it help to say that two of the 6's represent O and the other represents N

8 years ago
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I've been messaging you on Steam re some queries =o)

8 years ago
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Q3: Can't figure out a single word in this section.
Q5: Deciphered all words but answer not accepted.
Time for a break!

8 years ago
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The answers to Q3 are all proper names.
Q5 I've just checked and the answer seems to work and I have the spelling correct. Contact me on Steam, I am very curious as to where that problem may be going wrong. The answer syntax has them separated by commas and spaces, so ANS1, ANS2, ANS3, ANS4, ANS5

8 years ago
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Same issue with 5 here.

8 years ago
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I think something is definitely wrong with 5. Otherwise I've completed everything up to 14 and they all work. I'll leave the last three for tomorrow.

8 years ago
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Got everything but 5, fastest person to click 'check' after it is fixed wins :P

8 years ago
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Sorry, my typo. The third word, I had accidentally typed it in without the final S. I am so sorry. Fixed now.

8 years ago
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Are you sure? Tried it all before, and even now I can't get a correct.

8 years ago
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Yeah I definitely have tried a case without an 's'.

8 years ago
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Yeah, it's something else, he should probably delete the entire answer and retype it instead of fixing 1 thing.

8 years ago
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Deleted and retyped. CHecked that it works now. Sorry again.

8 years ago
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Thats okay, I'm known for my complaining :P
I'm very competitive for top10 usually, after that I dont care :P
Got it now, yay :)

8 years ago
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I believe there is an error on Q16. The actual word is not spelled like that.

8 years ago
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Yup, found that too, word 3 is wrong, found the correct typo so it is solved :P

8 years ago
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You are quite correct. Sorry to have gotten her wrong like that. The erroneous second character has now been corrected.
It should of course have been 55322 rather than 57322. I apologise for the error.

8 years ago
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Bump for solved, too bad sgtools seems to be down at the moment :P

8 years ago
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I got them all except Q16. I'm guessing it's proper names again?

8 years ago
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I just had a Eureka! moment and figured out the theme for Q16 - bump for solved!

8 years ago
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Congratulations. I love the Eureka Moment sensation. Though I thought that the theme for Q17 is trickier to get from the title.

8 years ago
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Bump for solved.

8 years ago
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I'm honored ^^

8 years ago
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Tee hee. After your recent 146 GA epic, which I still haven't finished, it truly was the least I could do.

8 years ago
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Hmmm,with all of the challenges that people seem to be having, clearly there are folks missing tools and toys. I am strongly tempted to write a puzzle guide.

8 years ago
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Okay, I have done that now. It is here: http://www.steamgifts.com/discussion/ZYBWU/mikalyes-magic-guide-to-solving-and-writing-puzzles

Using the tools referenced there, anyone should be able to blitz through these.

8 years ago
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I had no idea such tools existed. This is definitely very useful.

8 years ago
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Bump for solved and wondering where everyone is.

8 years ago
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Bump. This isn't even close to being hard once you read Mikalye's guide.

8 years ago
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Four hours to go

8 years ago
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Almost there... stuck in London XD
sigh

8 years ago
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Ok, got out ^^

8 years ago
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I somehow stuck in Q3 with no clue to the name.. -.-a
Looking forward for the answer since it's already over.. :P

8 years ago
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I'm surprised so few people solved this.

8 years ago
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It got dropped by all the jigsaw spam quite fast so wasn't as visible as it should have been.

I liked the idea and solved the first Q, but realized it'd take too long to solve every single one, and if I had made a mistake in any I had to read through several to find the error, instead of having it seperated into more question. So since I had no interest in the game and it was more a puzzle of a tedious nature of grinding through over time, I decided to spend that time on working on my own puzzles.

8 years ago
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Largely depends on the prize too.. 17 questions, of obscure nature. to spend a considerable amount of time on, you'd expect something satisfying at the end and no matter what people usually say, I'll be blunt and honest: They expect (most of the time) a worthy prize..
I solved all (expect 3) up to 13-17 -they seemed interesting at the time- and then decided I should be doing something more productive..

8 years ago
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Yes, of course. Tedious puzzles requires better rewards to get more solvers. This puzzle is great for a few words, and a really good idea, but when it's 5*17 times you have to do it you grow tired of it. It really didn't need to have several words per question to make it a fun experience. It lacks the "aha"-factor that Mikalye's talking about in his puzzle creating guide. :)

8 years ago*
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I will have to disagree with the puzzle being tedious. http://www.phonespell.org/ this is from Mikalye's guide. It took one hour of my time with this site, even though I made a severe mistake with one of the questions. "Aha" factor was slightly in, at least for me, when I discovered the theme behind Q3, 4, 7 and especially 16.

8 years ago
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But that's what I mean, it's more about doing a chore than actually figuring something out. Just tedious in the sense that it's the same repetetive task 85 times over. And I'm not trying to bash on Mikalye here, I like the idea, it's just that I didn't find the task interesting enough when I had already done it for the first set. As you say, even with an "automatic solver", it took a full hour to go through them all. I think this could have been better by making it part of a bigger challenge, like one step of the way, but only having to solve a smaller amount of words, such as a few sentences.

8 years ago
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I agree that actually solving the numbers is tedious, but Mikalye has added his guide as a hint.
Using the tool mentioned in the guide, the decrypting process could be trivialized.
(Not sure if this applies to all questions though; I haven't tried it yet).
What made this puzzle great, like mrt39 said, were the hints.
Being able to relate them to the topic of a word group is "aha" enough for me.

8 years ago
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