I like to think that my puzzles aren't illogical for the most part, but I based couple of them specifically on actual established logic puzzles (namely slitherlink or nonogram).

Turns out though, that some people after reading "actual logic puzzle" think of a type of logic puzzles that have a set of verbal clues, for which you usually create something that is called "logic grid" to aid you in your deduction.

So I thought, why not. Behold: I present you with a verbal clues logic puzzle that you should most likely build a logic grid to aid you. If you are not familiar with this type of puzzles, here's a site that promotes them: Logic-Puzzles.org. Beats me how they are usually called in English? Derivative of Zebra Puzzle, anyway.

The puzzle was tested and it works (after some slight fix ^.^") - thank you for testing, you know who you are :D So dear prospective solver: if you can't get something right it means it is you who got it wrong, not me.

The timer (ends 2012 NOV 10, 2200 ZULU)

OK, let's carry on then.

Basically, there are 5 people, let's just call them A, B, C, D, E instead of using their nicknames, as they are pretty lengthy, each consisting of 29 characters:

The nickname of person A is: 123xyzLUVmePl0x_veryMuchY089q
The nickname of person B is: QUiCKDawgJust_Bar3lYVisu4L391
The nickname of person C is: qpoi13uyYPO51IQPEYLJB9173yVPN
The nickname of person D is: 987DOxyzutABCvQT7d86Z1aaXXbnm
The nickname of person E is: L4zyBr0wnyqFoXIejumpinQUiCKly

Each person likes a different color and a different number. The numbers are integers from the range 3 to 12, inclusive.

Your task is to follow the clues, to figure out who likes what number and what color, and to order the nicknames from 1st to 5th. The order follows the left-to-right order of 5-character giveaway code.

You will then take a single character from each nickname and build the giveaway code out of them (nickname of the first person has the first character and so forth): www.steamgifts.com/giveaway/12345

But which character to take from each nickname, you ask? After the main clues there is second set of clues, one for each ordered nickname. Each of these clues ask you to compute an index telling you which character you'll need from the given nickname. To compute the indices, you will be using numbers liked by our imaginary people, which naturally come from the puzzle solution.

Main clues:

1. The person who likes the number 4 is person B.
2. The person who likes the number 12 is placed before the person who likes violet.
3. The person who likes the number 12 is placed after the person who likes the number 7.
4. The 5 people are: the person who likes the number 12, the person in second place, person E, the person who likes violet, and the person who likes the number 5.
5. The person who likes yellow is not person E.
6. The person who likes red is not person A.
7. The person who likes violet is person C.
8. The person who likes yellow is placed after the person who likes blue.
9. The person who likes the number 5 likes red.
10. The person in fourth place is not person A.
11. The person who likes the number 7 doesn't like green.
12. The person who likes green is not person B.
13. The person in fifth place is person C.
14. The number you are missing is lower than the number liked by person who likes yellow.

Now compute the following indices:

1st: add the number liked by the person who likes yellow to the number liked by the third person.
2nd: just take the number liked by the person who likes violet.
3rd: multiply the number liked by the fourth person by the number liked by person D.
4th: subtract the number liked by the person who likes blue from the number liked by whoever likes green, and add the number liked by person C.
5th: subtract the number liked by person D from the number liked by person B, and add the number liked by person A.

As a reminder, i-th index points to the i-th character of the giveaway code; it is the n-th character to take from the i-th nickname.

E.g. Suppose that person D came out as first and their nickname was ABCDEF, and whoever liked yellow also liked the number 2, and third person liked the number 1. In that scenario, the first character of the giveaway code would be C (2 + 1 = 3rd character from the first nickname, "C").

SOLUTION

Well I won't really be explaining how to solve this step by step, but here is the solution:

first person is E, likes blue and 7
second person is B, likes yellow and 4
third person is A, likes green and 12
fourth person is D, likes red and 5
fifth person is C, likes violet and 3

An example of filled out logic grid, curtesy of eagleclaw6: here - thank you!

Pretty standard logic puzzle, some main clues were actually reduntant, generally I don't think it was hard. Type of the puzzle was inspired by a comment on my previous puzzle concerning nonogram. I just had to figure out a way to include giveaway code as part of the solution and add some general Blue Award's touches.

Couldn't really go straight with giveaway code characters and just arranging them, 5! permutations way too easy to just bruteforce without actually solving, so instead I've hidden the characters in "nicknames" and used favorite numbers that are part of the solution to extract proper characters. That at least made it look scary to bruteforce without actually having solved the main puzzle.

I didn't give out actual value for number 3 directly, just said it's lower than number liked by whoever liked yellow, which was 4. Now there's infinite number of integers lower than 4, but ultimately some numbers wouldn't even make sense as the calculations would fall outside the range [1; 29]. Anyway, I figured out people would try 1, 2 or 3 if they missed the early clue. But yes, you had to be vigilant, there actually was a direct clue before the main clues - I clearly specified the numbers started from 3, so you could arrive at the answer without any bruteforcing. Starting from 3 and lower than 4, only one integer fits the bill.

Another touch was adding some slight confusion as fourth person and person D were the same, so you had to go 5 * 5 = 25 for the third clue. And the fifth clue if followed step by step gave you -1 at first (negative number), but why would there be anything wrong about it? So final answer for 5th index was 11 (4 - 5 + 12 = 11). I knew I wouldn't fool anybody, just bit of a wtf moment perhaps. First index was of course 4 + 12 = 16, second just 3, and fourth 12 - 7 + 3 = 8.

Some peeps confused O with 0 or even used Z instead of z, but what can I say. The puzzle was taxing your attention to detail, I guess :) I tend to use copypasta for that to make sure I'm getting things right.

Thanks for participation and congratulations to the winner!

Type of puzzle like this is relatively easy to prepare, but I don't like to repeat ideas. So I'm not sure if I'll create another puzzle like this (at least not for individual giveaway - but maybe for some bigger event), but generally the idea of using established logic puzzle types still has potential!