Mikalye's 15th 2016 Puzzle - Just Follow Directions - Ended - Prizes include Witcher III

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In my Guide to puzzle writing and solving I draw a strong distinction between a puzzle and a quiz. But in that document, I also note that certain tasks, while not inherently puzzles, can often take the form of puzzles. Having raised that as a theoretical concept in enimatology (the study of puzzles), I felt that I should try to make that work. This is my attempt to play with that concept.

The Prizes this week are:
Tropico 5 (http://store.steampowered.com/app/245620/)
Sir You are Being Hunted (http://store.steampowered.com/app/242880/)
Mirror's Edge (http://store.steampowered.com/app/17410/)
Hoard (Complete Pack) (http://store.steampowered.com/sub/11652/)
The Witcher III: Wild Hunt (http://store.steampowered.com/app/292030/)

One old puzzly trope, that is not actually a puzzle is the Following directions puzzle. You have probably seen floating around the web examples like this one:

Follow the Directions:

Please read all of the instructions before doing anything, you are allowed 10 minutes to complete this task.

Find a pen and paper.
Write your name at the top of the paper.
Write the numbers 1 to 5, one per line.
Draw five small circles beside #1.
Put an "X" in the second and fourth circles next to #1.
Write the word 'encyclopedia' beside #3.
On the back of the paper multiply 7 x 9.
Put an X in the lower right-hand corner of the paper.
Draw a circle around the X you just made.
Underline your name.
Say your name out loud.
Draw a circle around #4.
Count the number of words in this sentence and write the answer beside #2 on your paper.
Put a square around #1 and #5.
Punch 3 small holes anywhere in the paper.
Write your first name beside #4.
Write today's date beside #5 on your paper.
Circle every letter 'E' you have written.
Stand up and say 'I HAVE FINISHED FIRST' if you were first, else say 'I HAVE FINISHED' out loud, then sit down.
Now that you read all of the instructions, skip all of them except the first two! If you have followed the instructions correctly, you should only have your name on the paper!

The joke of course is that the instructions did say to read everything first, so you should know that instruction 20 tells you to skip everything after instruction 2. Very funny.

Other follow direction puzzles try to introduce a quiz element.
For example:

Start with the word "CAT" (You write CAT)
If the earth rotates around the sun, then replace the first character with one one letter forward in the alphabet, whereas if the sun rotates around the earth then replace the first character with one one letter backward in the alphabet (You write DAT)

and so on.

So that is all you have to do this week. Just follow the directions. Do exactly as you are instructed, and it should all work out fine. There will be some puzzly AHA's, particularly in the Duck kerfluffle, and I hope you enjoy this ride.

The Geometric One
The Straightforward One
The Antonyms One
The Duck Puzzle
The Finale

For Mikalye's Second Tricksy Riddle - This is four

8 years ago*

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161 Comments

Mikalye

Corrections/Errata

scuzamooz has found an error in the Antonyms puzzle. I have corrected it with a new step 12a. I apologise for any inconvenience caused.
dingbat has found an error in the Straightforward puzzle step 19. This has been corrected, though many people were able to solve even with the error (as it was a fairly obvious one), but it has also been corrected.
hazelmeade spotted an error in the antonyms. In Step 17, I referred to characters 10-15. It is of course only 10-14. Quite a few people were still able to solve despite this error, so I am glad it wasn't a showstopper while I was away at work, but I have corrected it now.
I have clarified the duck puzzle rule 3 to confirm that ducks love steamgifts. This is cosmetic only and has no real impact on the outcome of the puzzle.
I have adjusted the duck puzzle rule 37 to include another cosmetic reference to steamgifts. I have done the same with rule 20.
I have adjusted rules 9 and 11 to make them clearer following some confusion.
hazelmeade spotted an error in the duck puzzle (despite 5 solves with the error (including testsolves). I have edited rule 36 to fix the error.
Blead has found some minor typos on the duck puzzle (for example instructions 28 and 30 have no periods after instruction numbers). Also the word red is unintentionally capitalised on step 19). I have fixed the typos.

Statistics

Puzzle	Players	Solvers
Geometric	77	21
Straightforward	38	36
Antonyms	38	27
Duck	25	4
Finale	4	1

As of 22:30 GMT on 20/4

Clarifications:

Geometric:

an endpoint is defined as anywhere a line segment ends, either intersecting at another segment, or terminating in space. If I was to label the endpoints of a capital letter H on its own (not that a capital H necessarily appears in the puzzle, but it demonstrates endpoint labelling), then points A and B would be the tops of the two vertical lines, points C and D would be the ends of the horizontal crossbar, and points E and F are the bottoms of the vertical lines. If I were to label the endpoints of a capital letter L on its own (same caveat) then point A would be the top of the vertical line, point B would be the bottom of the vertical line which is also simultaneously the left endpoint of the horizontal line, and point C would be the rightmost endpoint of the horizontal line.
Duck
The equipment is exactly as it is described in the introduction and in rule 1. We have an eight sided table, we have six players who have chairs. We have a pile of money, we have a differently coloured 6-sided die for each player (with no green dice), we have a live duck. Therefore at the beginning of the game there are six sides of the table which have chairs in front of them, and there are two sides of the table that do not have chairs. See rule 2 for confirmation of how the numbering works.
A player who is not at the table is not a player. Therefore, if a player wanders off to the kitchen, bathroom, or moon rocket, then there are 5 players. If more two players wander off, then there are four players. Just because I wander off though, does not mean I stop dripping paint, chanting, or doing anything else defined in the rules. However, if a player wanders off to (for example) wash off paint, then when that player returns they will no longer be dripping paint.

Hints

Geometric

The three letters indicated "by omission" are letters that were left out in the instructions, yielding typos.

Duck

Hint:
You will need some way of tracking all of the bits. I actually find that physical counters, say a coin for the duck, a cut out table etc works well.
But here is what it looks like written down:
The setup looks like this after rules 1-3:

Table    1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Chairs   1 2 3   4 5 6   
PERSON   A B C   D E F    
Duck             D

Then for step 4 we get:

Table    1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 
Chairs   1 2 3   4 5 6  
PERSON   A B C   D E F  
Duck       D

Hint on step 11: Remember that player numbers do not reset until the start of each rule (as defined in Rule 2) As a result.in step 11, since player 2 wanders off, the chanting player is chanting S, not U by the end of this step.
Hint on step 22: The duck will proceed left as many Seats/Chairs as they are players. That is to say if there are six players seated at the table, then the duck will proceed six chairs to the left and end up where it started. If there are fewer players, it may not end up all the way around.
Hint on step 26: Remember rule 2, number changes only become effective at the beginning of each step, so for this entire step, the player numbers are what they were at the beginning of the step.
Hint on step 27: Did you notice that there were two step 27s. They both count.
Hint on step 36: The duck only has one name. Therefore, you cannot end up with a situation where the duck has two names. What kind of a schizophrenic duck do you think we are playing with here?

Solutions

The solutions are here

8 years ago*