How about a nice little group puzzle?!
One should mean that I have found one of the pictures by coincidence now. Well, just speaking out what I (and others probably too) assume at the moment:
- the pictures are enlarged parts of some album covers
- maybe belonging to classic rock like the anagrams
- they seem to be neither iconic nor controversial nor banned or even well known
- the third picture seems to be showing the shoulder of a man who is wearing a white hat
Any more ideas?
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I've checked over 50 sites of cover art now and I can't find anything. So either she just picked something totally unknown or it is no cover art. I was thinking if the picture describes a song title but there is just not enough information present to justify that idea.
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And they look more like paintings than album art (that's not to say album art can't look like paintings though). The last one, there's just no information to search for it on google either. But perhaps if we can figure out the other ones they all come together.
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Figuring out just one would probably help immensly. Hm. Does the description contain additional infos? The puzzle title tells us that the description is an anagram as well. I'll check if it produces anything worthwhile.
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the desc contains all the letters for "reassemble that songname "
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I'm tempting more to "Solve the anagram(s)". We have only one g in the desription
Maybe something like: "Solve the anagrams and name these Albums." That would fit I think.
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Are the anagrams song titles or album titles? Not my music so I don't know.
EDIT: Checked myself. Song titles from all over the place in time. 1960s up to 2005. Or even more. Didn't check the rest.
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I've got 8 letters, then got another 8 letters. What's next?)
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Interesting though no idea where to begin. :O Those initial clues, get me nowhere as it seems so I'm probably missing something too obvious here..
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Missing a, d and g~ one of the links I'm seeing aren't leading to a puzzle. >.<
Bump~ <3
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Thank you for this nice puzzle.
Bump for arived at ITH o/
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´http://www.itstoohard.com/puzzle/12345678´
12345678 for the 8 letters/numbers
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The letters(and number) lead to ITH. Order is ABCDEFGH
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Have a bump for now, nelly.
Gonna bookmark hoping i don't forget to try and take a stab at this another day. ^.^
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waa reached stage1 feel so smrt (＾▽＾)
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Some info from Nelly:
Nordh: With the information available, disregarding your own knowledge of the actual answer, are you able to find the answer yourself for the images? Or is it one of those questions that if you know, you know, but if you don't, you can't figure out?
nellyneko: I was hoping more people would get to that stage - you'd have to know the albums (own them?). In my last group puzzle I used covers from artists at a similar level of fame (around the same number of listeners on last.fm), and those were the first questions that got solved, so I didn't expect them to stay unsolved for so long, sorry ^^
nellyneko: the images the parts are from are online, just not easy to find I guess
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Thanks for sharing. So at least we have confirmation that the pictures are from album covers. Unfortunately none are familiar to me.
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un?helpful hint is up (third reply to first reply)
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well, "like" is a bit strong for probably a pretty large part of that ... I've been using the site for over 10 years, that's a lot of time to check out different artists, whether you end up liking them or not
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Confirms what we thought. Maybe we will have a better chance with the new hint.
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yeah, your unscramble of the description was spot-on! :D
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At least something although it didn't win us a cookie. Okay, someone solved Q12 is solved but even with knowing the solution I can't see it. O.o
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And MackoZbooj found Fight With Tools which is by flobots which have not even been scrobbled by nelly yet... and I would never have recognized that part...
curious to see if this will be done when I get up tomorrow morning yawn
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google knows too much, I had to go deeper :P (not a hint)
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Yea, we should all applaud those who can finally solve this stage O.o I checked the albums twice and couldn't find a matching image. Actually I couldn't even find the names of the solved ones...... This is definetely not my category.
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Nelly uploaded the screenshots more than a month ago.
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I didn't pay attention to this, but the list I linked shows tracks she's scrobbled. The picture shown for each track is the album art and is the same for all tracks from the album, so it's enough if she played any track from a given album.
Edit: In case someone didn't realize this yet, the answers for the image question are the album names, not the song names like the other questions.
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:D
I'm thinking about helping you guys some more with the last one, because it's pretty tricky if you don't own it (similar thing as with Sainthood, it's the general cover art, but not the front)
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BUMP for we need someone that recognizes that missing picture :D
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Yeah, was hoping someone would have found it over night so I could continue the adventure. ^^
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Well it's solved now (I don't feel like taking credit for that) ... but the solution is about as helpful as I had feared it would be :/
I have some ideas and observations to test, but they are probably a little too weird ... will share later, it's too early to confuse everyone :)
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as helpful as I had
fearedhoped
there, fixed it for you :P
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Agreed... It went from one thing confusing me to another ;)
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Even WITH the answer it was hard to find this one. ^^
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Evil is stirring in UOLOR. The Giveaway has awoken. It's heard its Master's call.
I'm sorry I couldn't help it T_T
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So, what does Message in a bottle mean? I'd say we're looking for an encrypted message in the answers. One notable cipher contained in a bottle was the vigenere cipher. It's similar to the Ceasar cipher, but more advanced, and needs a keyword.
The question "Separating gas ads" was previously "Separating stage ads" before it got fixed. That tells me that the first letter of each word in the questions are at least not important. Perhaps the first letter of the sentence, but not each word. The images could be separators, or proof that questions aren't the relevant thing to look at.
Using the first letter in each answer have come up empty so far with ciphers (including anagram search). I will research more with variants such as using last letter and a letter from each word.
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Here's a list of the artists performing each album, in order, in case that has some meaning:
Kansas
The Beatles
Emilíana Torrini
Maroon 5
Phil Collins
Michael Jackson
The Fray
Flobots
Metallica
Spice Girls
Billie Holiday
Tegan and Sara
The clash
Corey Hart
Bruce Springsteen
Coolio
Snow patrol
Portishead
Screamin' Jay Hawkins
R.E.M.
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The first few albums the songs are on:
Leftoverture
Abbey Road
(Fisherman's Woman)
Songs About Jane
Face Value
Bad
How To Save A Life
(Fight With Tools)
... I stopped there because it didn't seem to lead anywhere.
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A cipher and searching for the artists seems too complicated for me. So far every step has been quite easy (although not obvious). We can now decide if we expect this to stay the same or the difficulty to ramp up in the game. I thought about the picture's as stopper. That would give us a sequence of
2 --
4 ----
3 ---
4 ----
3 ---
Does that look like a bottle? Would be quite an ugly one. And which words could fill with this amount of letters? Or do we need to integrate the picture answers as well? Primary question is: What are we searching this time? A giveaway code or an ITH code? That would be already helpful. A giveaway code I say is unlikely since we would need information about capitalization which is not present in the normal ITH (since it is case insensitive).
EDIT: Okay, we can ignore Anagrams from the starting letters. Way too few vowels. Maybe Morse Code?
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"Picture as a stopper" was one thought I had too. Having 5 "sections" made me suspect that each of the sections encoded one letter of a GA code.
Oh and I wouldn't completely discard GA code as a possibility -- nelly has used an ITH to hide binary digits before; something like that can be used to preserve case.
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Since you did a Nelly puzzle before. What is the likehood of her hiding something in an old giveaway? Also could the song title than be just another anagram describing the searched giveaway? So far I have not been sucessful with a rearrangement of the letters. Probably not the right direction.
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Hmmm ... I don't think she hid anything in an old giveaway ... the ITH is probably all we need.
About the song titles being anagrams ... I suppose you mean only initial letters from the titles or sth like that? Because the complete titles obviously are anagrams of the question phrases ... I think if there was a third meaningful anagram someone would have stumbled upon that already :) ... anyway, for my, erm, "assessment of initial letter significance" see the other answer
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No, I meant that the solution song is just another anagram. But that would be too much of a coincidence so I think that is the wrong direction.
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Ah! That's a nice idea ... but yeah, that would be a pretty big coincidence
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Huh. At first Morse didn't strike me as particularly probable, but then ... it's "sending out an SOS" after all ...
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Yea, was also the part that gave me the idea. But so far I had no luck with arranging dots and lines. And before anyone tries: The images are not disguised .rar or .zip files.
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Well, I thought about binary and Morse too and the only thing I can vaguely come up with now is that if we assume we're looking for a GA code, there are 20 questions, so there should be 4 points of data per question for this to make sense. And the only way that would be possible is, if the word count of each answer plays a role. I tried (very briefly) converting this idea to Morse by using 2 or 3-letter words as dots and longer ones as dashes and while this does give some letters, they were pretty random. But this doesn't use the picture questions fully, because they clearly should play some additional role?
Just throwing this out there hoping to give someone an idea.
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I tried this (briefly too) and questions as dots and pictures as dashes.
Cause the alternative cover of message in a bottle seems to have morse code on it.
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I tried reverse with questions as dashes and images as dots before. But so far it didn't yield a result.
EDIT: Apparently the chorus describes the Morse Code for SOS (although I can't find a reliable source for that). Maybe we should try looking deeper into the Morse Code.
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I played around a bit with Morse too, but my tries had one "weakness" (and I see the same in your tries, too): It seems to me that the initial letters are somehow important. Either that or nelly placed some real good red herring by chosing "Viva Forever" and "Gansta's Paradise" -- those songs look absurdly out of place in that list. My best explanation for why they were chosen would be that "VF" and "GP" (or maybe just "something with lots of Vs"?) was "needed".
That is not to say that I don't think that Morse in itself is completely off track. I just have the feeling that the first letters have to play some role.
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My music knowledge is not broad enough for this. Why are those two songs out of place?
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Hmm ... it's more a feeling than music knowledge really. And it's not exactly those two songs either, that were just the ones that felt "most wrong" ... they just don't feel like nelly's taste at all -- I think if only word count would be important and not the exact letters, she would have chosen songs she loves or songs that share some (obvious) theme (see Nordh's comment too)
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Taste is ignorable. We wouldn't even know here taste if she hadn't linked her profile out of pity. I think word count and letters are too complicated. The solution is probably something easier like for the rest of the puzzles so far.
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Oh I would have known her taste :) Anyway, I'm not sure about this or anything, I just got the strong impression that the titles were carefully chosen for individual letters.
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To be fair, she has Weird Al on her list as well. ;)
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I do? I don't even remember that, don't have anything by him in my library (maybe it came up on a radio station on last.fm?)
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You had both Poodle Hat and another album scrobbled by him. :) What does Scrobbled even mean?
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Played and registered as played on the website, I guess. It used to be called Audioscrobbler, and/or the program/plugin/whatever you installed for your music player "scrobbled" your plays (= sent them to the website as soon as you played half the song, doesn't count before that)
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But Weird Al is in another league. Hearing that she looooves Weird Al would be, well, disturbing, but it wouldn't shatter my picture of her as much as hearing the same about the Spice Girls or Coolio. :)
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I may, or may not have, all his cds and live-dvds released. And UHF on both DVD and VHS... and the soundtrack on vinyl. :)
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... after mentioning Weird Al and Coolio in one sentence I now have Amish Paradise in my head for the rest of ... well, my life probably. Yeah, disturbing. :)
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Only thing you can do then is party like it's 1699.
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I´ve tried a bit more, but I think we´re looking for a ITH code cause there are no lower case letters in morse code.
I think there are too many possible solutions without spaces between the letters. ;-(
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Some more far-fetched observations I made about the "5 sections" (see above):
- last words in section 1 are homophones -- any significance?
- reading across section 2 gives "breathe air, feel alive" -- which does sound like another song title, but is probably just a total coincidence
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When I was solving it, Nelly talked a bit with me because she had to correct 4 or so anagrams. One thing she slipped was that originally she thought about making a "night"-theme to the album titles. Not sure how that could be relevant, and don't remember exactly what she said about it. If I had known there'd be more to it than just anagrams, I'd have memorized it better or fished for clues. ;)
Second point you had, it's "a life" not "alive", so I think you're looking into it too much.
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Yeah, the "homophones" thought stuck with me for a bit, that's how I got "alive" from "a life". But the whole "section 2" did seem to me like it shared a theme before ("living" or sth like that), so maybe there is something to that ... couldn't make anything out for the other sections though, so I discarded that thought.
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I tried the chord progression of this song, which is C#minor , A major, B7, F#minor, but I´m not 100% sure about that .
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Wild idea about songs.
Tried to convert the year of song release into ascii code, e.g. 1976=76, 2005=105. But so far nothing here.
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Hmmm ... yeah I briefly thought about using release dates, too, although my idea was just ordering the songs by that date. But it seemed unlikely and too much work to look all that up ... and then we'd have to decide between Screamin' Jay Hawkins and Annie Lennox :)
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By the way anyone was able to unscramble 'Manhattan Ave. lemongrass bushes lead me.'?
I have two variants but still some letters left.
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I think there was a confirmed solution somewhere and it was a hint for the previous step. So maybe not relevant anymore.
Edit: ha, ninja'd.
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Time is running up. Is this the moment we have to accept that Nelly just overestimated our combined deduction skills?
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Naaah ... I'm not ready to give up now! Plenty of time left! ... :) Yeah not really. But I won't accept defeat so easily.
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We still have a few days, right? Not that I have any good ideas, except the gut feeling that something morse-y seems nice...
But I had some weird ideas... I wonder how hard it it to find words/phrases where consonant/vowel can be translated to dash/dot... Not that it seems sensible here cause there are much to long words...
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I would say morse is the way to go as well. But from the five or six different giveaway codes I could create none brought me anywhere. And trying to use morse code on the answers does not make much sense since there are some six words answers. And morse code has no six signs letters.
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Not time to accept defeat ever! But would be super helpful if we knew what we were trying to get. Such as an 8 symbol code, 5 symbols, etc.
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Yea, it is really hard to say. "Segments" would imply giveaway code. But I haven't found capitalization information so far. Could be bruteforcing. An ITH would be case insensitive which would be a plus. But there is hardly anything to determine the eight different characters.
The only thing you could consider as a possibility is that all answers together have a word count of 62. Or if you want to count "'s" as extra word then it is a word count of 64 (if I didn't count wrong). In this case it would also be important what the starting letters of the words are. But it would be one hell of planning mastery from Nelly.
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Or something like odd amount of letters in a word = 1, even=0. Binary for 8 chars is 64 after all.
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I would be very surprised if any bruteforcing was needed. So if caps info is needed, I'm sure it will be there.
And ... just for perspective ... you not only haven't found caps info so far, but you haven't found anything at all so far -- or are you holding out on us? ;) Sorry, this is not meant to sound condescending or anything ... I really just want to note that while we tossed lots of ideas, if I try to be objective, none of them felt any more "right" or "on track" than the others. Until now there's just lots of gut feelings :/
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Nope, not holding out anything. But sometimes for puzzles the characters and caps info are seperated. If we would find something like this we could probably safely assume that we are not searching for an ITH. And yea, we haven't found anything so far T_T
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Just a passing thought: It does say message in a bottle, so it's still possible the solution is some words or even a complete sentence. In nelly's last group puzzle she hid hints (first/last letters of the answers iirc?) ... wouldn't have been surprised to find something like that here but didn't. (Well, and once more that makes me think that the exact letters are important -- if she had had the "freedom" to hide a hint there, I think she would have ... but ... yeah I know, I try to let go of that feeling about the individual letters, but it keeps coming back ;)
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It clearly states about "a bottle".
I wonder if it's the bottom of a bottle.
Guess we need to drink more to find this out :).
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So ... if I ever get stranded on an island, I will
- make sure not to waste bottles on unintellegible messages that no one will get
- need to find a volleyball to name Wilson
- make up weak excuses to bump threads
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carry on wayward SOn
HERE comes the sun
fisherman'S woman
harder to breaTHE
In the air tonight
The way you make me feel
How to save a life
fight WITH tools
NOTHING else matters
viva FORever
strange fruIT
saINthood
rock THE casbah
sunglASSES at night
THE promise
gangsta's paRADise
eyes oPEN
glory bOX
i PUT a spell on you
losing MY religion
MESSage in a bottle
... yep I'm sure that's about right. I think nelly just lost it and we are chasing ghosts here.
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Only You
Mad World
Grenade
Help!
HOW to Save a Life
Oops, I DID it Again
Are YOU Gonna Be My Girl
FIGURE 8
It's like THAT
OUT of the Dark
Why Can't I Be You?
AMerican Pie
Let the SunshIne in
SOmebody That I Used to Know
MOvin' Out
TRANSmission
Big in JaPAn
Life for RENT
Remember Me?
Hey, Man!
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carry oN wayward sOn
here comes the sun
fisherman's Woman*
harder to breaTHe
In the air tonight
the way you nake ne feel
how to Save a lIfe
fight with toolS
nothing else mAtters
viva forever
STrange fruit
sainthoOd
Rock the casbah
sunglasses at night
the promise
gangsta's paradise
eYes open
glory box
i put A speLL on you
losing my religion
Damn... couldn't tell you about how my life got flipped-turned upside down
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The rad penox? Is that a euphemism? :P
PS. I think it ends with:
eyeS open
gLOry box
i Put a sPell on you
losing mY religion
MESSage in a bottle
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Well my alternative was
So here's the ton you save with nothing ever -- range ain't rock at prom. Yes. Or you sing, sage!
... but the other one at least made a little sense in the first half ;)
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Bump. It looks too hard, so I'll pass. Will come back later to see how it ended :)
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The beans (don't look if you want to solve it yourself):
5
morse
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Sadly me too.
But GA ends in 36 hours so everything can happen ;)
Anyways thanks for great puzzle.
At least I help you with one easy question :)
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Me too. Sum of letters all Police members give me 20 and we have 20 questions at ITH. That's all i got)
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Yea, it's not like we didn't assume Morse Code before. And the five is not really much of a hint T_T. Welp. still some hours left. Maybe I'll get the reference.
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Hm, I thought I got what the hint is telling me, but applying my idea generates some nonsense morse code...
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Hm, yeah, that's what i got from the hint as well... either I got the wrong idea about the difference between sting and the police or how split it to the 5 parts but I only had a quick try at it before leaving for a wedding. Now I'm back but it's the middle of the night so I need sleep first :P
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I had a wrong idea too, but you might want to check what Adelion posted on the next page. :)
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First hints here.
Moar hints:
covers=separators
a very helpful thingie + latest nellyneko's hint
all uppercase
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Phew, and another bump for solved. Good thing Nelly threw the "No hint"-policy over board. Otherwise I would sitting at home, crying lonely in a corner.
EDIT: And we finally reached page 3 ^^
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I've been "working" on this for a while now, mostly thinking about stuff and collecting games to give away. After some recent lucky wins and at the rate games are getting bundled these days, I decided to just post what I have and simply leave out any hints I might've added, let you guys figure it out on your own ;)
Rules
Prizes
GAs end on Sunday, May 22nd, at 10pm CEST (may be extended if you don't make it till then, but that's unlikely)
Good luck everyone, and have fun! :D
Thanks everyone for participating! :D
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